More than a generalist
In my engineering jobs, extracurriculars at Northeastern, and personal projects, I have collected experience in every stage of software engineering, from designing systems and architecture, to writing and testing code, to deploying and monitoring system health.
Moreover, I have been rounding out my full product lifecycle background with UX/UI design, product management, and project management. From user research, requirements gathering with cross-organizational stakeholders, interviewing and hiring, product roadmapping, project scoping, wireframing and prototyping, leading Agile sprint meetings, all the way through to demos and delivery, I have hands-on experience and a desire to wear those hats again and again.
One of my two capstone courses in university (pre-AI-boom) may indeed have been AI, and I may rather enjoy using Google's internal version of Gemini for my job, but I generally approach LLMs and their output with a healthy skepticism, never blindly trusting outputs, and preferring more energy-efficient and human alternatives to solve my problems and enrich my personal life.
Outside of my technical roles and education, I like to spend my time creating and promoting art, and volunteering. I speak about 4 languages (2.5 fluently), and I occasionally partake in half marathons and other long races.
Skills
Languages: Java, SQL, HTML, CSS, JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, Dart, Racket, Bash, LaTeX
Tools & Frameworks: PostgreSQL, Angular, AngularDart, Spring Boot, React, React Native, Node.js, Git, GitHub, GitLab, AWS, Heroku, GCP (internal version), website builders (e.g. Squarespace)
Practices: system design, back-end architecture, data/database design, API design, various algorithms and object-oriented design patterns, prototyping, CI/CD, test-driven development, code review, pair programming, demos, writing technical specs, writing documentation for peers and users
Product Management: product roadmapping, project staffing and scoping, BRD/PRD creation, task prioritization and sorting into milestones, translating ambiguous asks into concrete stories
UX/UI Design: ethnographic research, defining personas and user flows, wireframing, prototyping, user research, design system, accessibility, gestalt & other visual design principles, Figma, Illustrator & other Adobe products
Project Management: Agile/Scrum, leading sprint planning and other meetings, tracking action items, scheduling, communicating team progress, Jira & other Atlassian products, Google Drive & similar tools
Other: interviewing and hiring, managing large & cross-functional teams, company culture, mentoring, adaptability, resourcefulness
Work Experience
DEPT (contracting for Google)
Remote
Senior Software Engineer
August 2025 - present
Software Engineer
August 2022 - August 2025
Contracting for Google's Marketing Technology department. Full-stack web app development on several internal projects. Leading UI and system design/architecture of new features: researching and weighing trade-offs, presenting recommendations to technical and non-technical team members, creating prototypes. Translating vague requests into actionable, sized and prioritized tasks. Writing, testing, and deploying code. Interfacing with clients as well as coworkers. Member of company culture and team building committee. Mentoring other employees.
Framework Homeownership
Boston, MA; Remote
Product Engineer
January - April 2022
Junior Product Engineer
January - December 2021
Junior Software Engineer
January - December 2020
Web Developer Co-op
June - December 2019
Full-stack development of web and mobile apps for homeownership education and support, specializing in back-end microservices with APIs. Wrote and sized user stories; designed UI and back-end architecture of features; developed, deployed, and tested code. Collaborated with business units across organization. Product management of user-facing email communications. Interviewed and hired for technology positions. Mentored and trained other employees. Led strategic direction of Engineering team towards company-wide yearly objectives. Secretary of anti-racism committee.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Ctr. for Sleep and Cognition
Boston, MA
Research Assistant, Stickgold Lab
August 2017 - June 2019
Planned and executed sleep studies with human participants. Scheduled and welcomed participants, explained studies to them, obtained informed consent. Handled finances. Conducted and analyzed EEG, EOG, and EMG recordings. Published in several papers on sleep-dependent memory consolidation (see Publications below.)
Boston Children's Hospital F.M. Kirby Center for Neurobiology
Boston, MA
Research Assistant, Do Lab
Summer 2014, July 2015 - February 2017
Dissected, prepared, and performed electrophysiological recordings on animal brains and retinas, as well as performing antibody staining and imaging, to study the non-image-forming visual system. Attended research presentations from other Harvard Medical School labs. Trained other interns on techniques.
Harvard SEAS Visual Computing Group
Cambridge, MA
Student Intern, Pfister Lab
Summer 2013
Trained brain mapping software for Connectome Project by correcting software-produced maps of brain sections. Wrote tutorial for future interns and PhD students using this software.
Volunteer Work
Red Poppy Art House
San Francisco, CA
Volunteer Coordinator
August 2025 - present
Performance Host, House Manager
May 2025 - present
Bartender, Usher
January 2025 - present
Working with a wide variety of artists (musicians, comedians, multimedia visual artists, and more) in intimate, donation-driven space for arts and community. Assigning volunteers to events and training them on how to help hosts manage the space. Fundraising and handling finances, stocking inventory. Finding creative solutions to artists' and audience members' needs from show to show.
San Francisco Public Library
San Francisco, CA
FOG Readers Tutor
October 2023 - present
Helping elementary school kids catch up to grade-level reading. Beyond the purview of my tutoring duties, I have also created over 40 pages of worksheets to fill in gaps in the official curriculum.
Glide Memorial Church Food Distribution Center
San Francisco, CA
Food Service
December 2024 - present
Providing free meals for folks in the Tenderloin District.
Publications
Denis D, Mylonas D, Poskanzer C, Bursal V, Payne JD, Stickgold R. 2021. Sleep spindles facilitate selective memory consolidation. J Neurosci 41. doi: 10.1523/jneurosci.0818-20.2021 https://www.jneurosci.org/content/41/18/4088
Denis D, Shapiro AC, Poskanzer C, Bursal V, Charon L, Morgan A, Stickgold R. 2020. The roles of item exposure and visualization success in the consolidation of memories across wake and sleep. Learn Mem 27. doi: 10.1101/lm.051383.120 http://m.learnmem.cshlp.org/content/27/11/451.full
Denis D, Bursal V, Poskanzer C, Charron L, Stickgold R. 2019. Predicting sleep-dependent memory consolidation from neural activity during initial encoding. Sleep 42. doi: 10.1093/sleep/zsz067.088
Bayda M, Chamberlain J, Poskanzer C, Bursal V, et al. 2019. The evolution of motor sequence memory over time and sleep. Sleep 42. doi: 10.1093/sleep/zsz067.089
Denis D, Bursal V, Oquin S, Morgan A, Stickgold R. 2018. The role of encoding strength in the prioritization of memories for consolidation during sleep. Sleep 41. doi: 10.1093/sleep/zsy061.105
Education
Northeastern University
Boston, MA
B.S. in Computer Science and Cognitive Psychology
September 2016 - December 2020
Member of Honors Program. Graduated cum laude. Capstone courses: Human Computer Interaction, Artificial Intelligence. Studied Behavioral Neuroscience for two years before switching to Comp Sci and Cog Psy. Dabbled in Linguistics.
Extracurricular Experience
Generate Northeastern University
Boston, MA
Software Project Lead
July - December 2020
Led team of 10 engineers and designers to plan, design, and create software for external client. Interviewed and selected team and client; scoped project; guided team to create functioning mobile app and back-end server for customer loyalty platform for small restaurants, replete with integrations with third-party APIs and email-sending service.
Bits&Bots Northeastern University
Boston, MA
Co-President
January - December 2020
Web Developer
January - December 2019
Taught Boston public elementary school kids STEM concepts through play. Developed open-source curriculum through research. Designed and developed website. Organized and led meetings and workshops, including ones with other Northeastern clubs focusing on diversity in technology.
CoSMO Northeastern University
Boston, MA
Peer Mentor
July - December 2020
Mentored incoming freshmen and transfer students in Khoury College. Continued mentoring in 2022, after having graduated.
Khoury College Northeastern University
Boston, MA
Course Assistant, Fundamentals of Computer Science II
February - May 2018
Provided peers with constructive feedback for how to improve their coding practices.
Fun Facts
Native speaker of Turkish and English, proficient in French, learning Japanese.
2025 Bay to Breakers, 2023 San Francisco Half Marathon, 2021 Columbia Gorge Half Marathon, 2020 Virtual Spartan, 2019 Boston Half Marathon.