Meet the Team: Elan Ashendorf, Senior Engineer
Hey! We are excited to bring you a new blog series titled “Meet the MadHive Team”, where we invade our co-worker’s space, ask them a bunch of questions, and report the results to you. Our team members will be answering some tough questions on their work here — as well as even tougher personal questions about life outside of MadHive HQ.
Our first victim is Elan Ashendorf, MadHive eating contest champion and Senior Engineer.
Elan received his Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering and his Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering, where his work was featured in SPIE! Check out what he has to say:
What is your hometown?
Staten Island, NY
Where did you study engineering? How long have you been a developer?
I went to Binghamton for my BS in Computer Engineering and MS in Electrical Engineering.
Favorite programming language and why?
I’ve been learning Go and so far I really enjoy it. More than any particular language, I enjoy working on devices where the code has a real-world effect such as driving a motor or a set of LEDs. It’s super satisfying to have code produce results beyond a screen.
Why’d you become a developer — what drew you to it?
When I was younger, two of my big hobbies were reading and playing with Lego. Once I was done building a Lego set, I could look at the final product and wouldn’t just see the final product, but rather the whole story that led to it. As I got older, I wanted to understand the technology around me in the same way, which guided me towards computer engineering.
How long have you been at MadHive and why did you decide to join?
I’ve been at MadHive for over a year now. I came from a massive corporation which did enterprise technology solutions and I needed a change of pace. The first thing that stood out to me about MadHive was their role in the blockchain space, which I wanted to be a part of. After joining MadHive and subsequently learning about the issues in the ad tech space I was drawn towards the solutions we’re working on to revolutionize the industry.
What drew you to ad tech & blockchain?
I was initially introduced to blockchain in college, but in my previous company, I worked with the blockchain team just as the technology was entering the public eye. The technology is still fairly new and I wanted to be a part of that space as it matures. I really didn’t know much about ad tech until I joined MadHive.
How do you think using blockchain & AI at MadHive may revolutionize advertising?
I think any industry which is around for a long enough time will eventually become convoluted to make up for some shortcomings in dealing with the changing world. As new tools are developed, it’s hard to move an entire industry to adapt, so instead, a whole new ecosystem can be proposed around modern tooling which can then disrupt any industry’s legacy environment. Hopefully, that’s what MadHive will do with ad tech.
What advice do you have for developers getting into ad tech or blockchain?
Blockchain is still new, so there’s a ton of opportunities to shape what it’s future will look like.
And now the fun stuff…
Favorite thing to do outside of work?
Swimming and Rock climbing!
Favorite music?
Do podcasts count? NPR produced podcasts.
Favorite food?
Whatever I’m about to eat next, as long as it’s not a shrimp-salad wrap, anything but that.
Favorite video game?
I’m not much of a video-gamer but I’m always down for a board game — Bananagrams being a top choice.
Proudest accomplishment?
I was lucky enough to get my master’s project, “Design of a Steganographic Operating System”, published in SPIE, where you could actually run the operating system from the paper itself.
