Ken Zheng Software Engineer

Hey, I'm Ken!

I'm a second-year master's student studying machine learning for language technologies at Carnegie Mellon University. I'm passionate about applying ML in a variety of domains, and have worked on projects involving speech, NLP, vision, and more. I also have experience in software and web development through many industry internships - most recently, I worked at SoundHound and helped develop their voice AI system for restaurant ordering.

This website is a work in progress, so please excuse the simple layout as I build it from scratch!

Where I've Worked

  • Software Engineering Intern, Voice AI @ SoundHound

    May 2022 - Aug 2022 | Santa Clara, CA
    C++ Backend Natural Language Understanding

    • Developed features for the natural language understanding module of a voice-based restaurant ordering system
    • Lead effort to support multi-location item availability, providing value for future clients such as chain restaurants
    • Improved system’s understanding of user phrasings, processing of intents, and naturalness of generated responses

  • Software Engineering Intern @ Hex Trust

    Jun 2020 - Aug 2020 | Hong Kong
    React Frontend TypeScript Webpack HTML CSS

    • Developed features and bug fixes for HexSafe, an enterprise crypto custody platform currently in production
    • Devised custom workflow to migrate dozens of deprecated JQuery components to React, improving performance and reliability of the user interface
    • Designed and implemented new UI workflows, reducing number of clicks needed to perform common tasks such as deposits/withdrawals

  • Software Engineering Intern @ GrubMarket

    Jun 2019 - Aug 2019 | San Francisco, CA
    AngularJS Frontend TypeScript HTML CSS

    • Implemented front-end features (Stripe integration, geofencing, shopping cart, etc), UI updates, and bug fixes for a grocery e-commerce app operating in 15 states with ≥10,000 active users
    • Updated Java backend API to ensure compatibility with new front-end functionality

  • Front-end Engineering Intern @ Denizen Financial

    Jun 2018 - Aug 2018 | San Francisco, CA
    Ionic Cordova Angular Frontend Mobile

    • Contributed to active development of a hybrid mobile app built using the Angular-based Ionic framework for a fintech startup.

Featured Projects

Here are some notable projects and publications I've worked on during my time at CMU.

  • MIIS Capstone Project - ESPnet ONNX

    Optimizing the ESPnet speech toolkit for production applications
    CMU | 2022
    Speech Recognition Inference Optimization PyTorch ONNX ESPnet
    w/ Karthik Ganesan, Samarth Navali, Masao Someki, Prof. Shinji Watanabe

    In this project, we optimized the open-source ESPnet speech toolkit to support ONNX exporting via the PyTorch ONNX API.

  • NeuroMV

    A Neural Music Visualizer
    CMU | 2022
    Image Generation Music Neural Network Design PyTorch
    w/ Kayo Yin, Maya Shen, Kevin Chen

    In this project, we visualize songs using images that pulsate and move along with music using a type of neural network called a Compositional Pattern Producing Network (CPPN).

  • Pipeline models for VQA on VizWiz

    Tackling challenges in visual question answering for the blind community
    CMU | 2022
    Visual Question Answering Multimodal PyTorch
    w/ I-Tsun Cheng, Qi Jiang, Lyuyang Hu, Yuanyuan Wang

  • Fig-QA - (Published @NAACL 2022)

    Testing the ability of language models to interpret figurative language
    CMU | 2021
    Natural Language Processing Dataset Creation Language Modeling Explainability
    w/ Emmy Liu, Chen Cui, Prof. Graham Neubig

    In this project, we designed and crowdsourced a novel benchmark dataset containing pairs of similes/metaphors along with their literal interpretations. We then analyzed the performance of modern language models to understand their strengths and limitations for this task. Published at NAACL 2022.

For a full list of all my projects, check out the archive.

Creative Portfolio

Aside from AI/ML and software projects, I've also worked on a lot of hobby projects in game development, music production, photography, 3D modeling, and more! I've showcased a few below, check out the rest in the archive.

  • Farm of the People

    A 2D farming game with a dark humor twist - made for Global Game Jam 2023
    CMU | 2023
    Unity C# Game Programming Game Jam
    w/ Brandan, Josh, Chelsea, Shelly

    This was my first in-person game jam, I had a lot of fun working with a group from my game development class on this project! I took the lead on programming, developing most of the core game mechanics and integrating everyone’s work into the Unity project. Check it out on itch.io!

  • Song of the Elements

    A 3D VR spellcasting game - made for Global Game Jam 2022
    Personal | 2022
    Unity Blender Music Production

    This was my first experience at a game jam, with a team I found remotely through Discord. For this game, I was primarily responsible for 3D environment art, level layout in Unity, and sound/music. Check it out here!

  • Planetary Defender

    A simple arcade-y space shooter game made with Unity
    Personal | 2022
    Unity C# Game Programming Blender
    w/ Dan, Esmolis, Jeremy, Rafael, Sanjit

    This was my first major project in Unity, made to learn the fundamentals of the game engine. All of the programming and art assets were made from scratch by me. Play it on itch.io!

  • Synthesia (EP)

    An EP of original music I produced
    Personal | 2017
    Music Production Logic Pro X

    Synthesia is a 5-track synthpop EP that I produced and released back in high school, but I’m still very proud of it! Take a listen below - my favorite tracks are Sensate and Right Side.

Contact Me

I'm currently looking for full-time opportunities after graduation, so please reach out at kenzheng99@gmail.com if you have any opportunities that might interest me!