Waley Zhang
About Waley Zhang
Waley Zhang is a Machine Learning Engineer specializing in Natural Language Processing (NLP) at Two Sigma, where he has worked since 2022. He previously held leadership and technical roles at various organizations, including founding the Canadian Secondary School Mathematics Association and serving as Executive Technical Lead at Luminerva.
Work at Two Sigma
Waley Zhang has been employed at Two Sigma as a Machine Learning Engineer specializing in Natural Language Processing (NLP) since 2022. In this role, he has contributed to improving the reliability and throughput of a distributed, petabyte-sized data cluster for research data storage. He developed a multilingual financial sentiment model that has been integrated into various actively-trading strategies. Additionally, he implemented advanced techniques such as quantization, pruning, ONNX, KenLM, and batching to enhance the speed of in-house model inference. Zhang also created new production-grade pipelines for executing NLP inference at scale, facilitating the onboarding of large datasets from multiple vendors.
Previous Experience
Prior to joining Two Sigma, Waley Zhang held several positions in the technology and education sectors. He served as the Founder and CEO of the Canadian Secondary School Mathematics Association from 2014 to 2019. He worked as an Executive Technical Lead at Luminerva from 2017 to 2019 and was part of The Daily Pennsylvanian as Editorial Analytics & Social Media Staff from 2016 to 2017. Zhang also gained experience as a Quantitative Developer Intern at Citadel in 2020 and as a Software Engineer at Microsoft from 2020 to 2021, following a Software Engineering Internship at Microsoft in 2019.
Education and Expertise
Waley Zhang studied at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned both a Master of Science in Engineering (M.S.E.) and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (B.S.E.) in Computer and Information Sciences from 2016 to 2020. His academic background includes significant research and teaching experience, having worked as a Teaching Assistant and Research Assistant at the university from 2017 to 2020. Zhang's educational foundation supports his expertise in machine learning and natural language processing.
Background
Waley Zhang completed his secondary education at New Westminster Secondary from 2012 to 2016. His early academic achievements laid the groundwork for his subsequent studies in computer science and engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Zhang's diverse experiences in both educational and professional settings have contributed to his development as a machine learning engineer.