About
Hello! I'm Julian Reder, a Computer Engineering and Statistics student at North Carolina State University. I develop research software for AERPAW, NC State's aerial wireless testbed (aircraft tracking, drone camera systems, and flight-control libraries), and recently finished a technical internship with the Bell, Bell & Cronlund Group at Merrill Lynch, working on an internal calculations platform that supports $500M+ in assets under management.
I like making hardware, radio, and backend services agree with each other. If you want to talk internships, research, or any of the projects below, my contact form is at the bottom.
Experience
Technical Intern, Bell, Bell & Cronlund Group @ Merrill Lynch Wealth Management
- Created ML-Ticker, a Python CLI for querying FactSet FQL snapshot and historical data
- Added a sandboxed formula engine with DAG-based dependency checks and Pydantic config validation
- Exported results as colorized terminal tables and styled Excel workbooks
B.S. Computer Engineering and Statistics, North Carolina State University
Developer @ AERPAW
- Built PyAerial, an ADS-B/Mode-S aircraft tracker with geofenced alerting over Kafka
- Built DroneTracker, which aims AXIS PTZ cameras at live drone GPS telemetry
- Migrated aerpawlib from unmaintained DroneKit/pymavlink onto MAVSDK so experiments can use current MAVLink features
A.S., Wake Technical Community College
Projects
PyAerial
ADS-B and Mode-S aircraft tracking for AERPAW: live positions, geofenced alerts, and Kafka/MongoDB backends.
DroneTracker
Keeps AXIS PTZ cameras locked on AERPAW drones using live GPS telemetry over Kafka.
aerpawlib
A Python API over MAVLink/MAVSDK so researchers can script multi-vehicle drone experiments on AERPAW.
ML-Ticker
A FactSet-backed financial query CLI with a sandboxed formula engine, built for Merrill Lynch.
Strife
A thread-based Discord gaming platform with lobbies, match history, and a PostgreSQL backend.
discord.py-template
A starter template for modern discord.py bots: hot-reload cogs, YAML config, and structured logging.
Chess-Challenge
A compact C# chess bot for Sebastian Lague's tiny chess bot competition, written under a 1024-token budget.
Triggered
An IFTTT-style automation bot for Discord: custom triggers, actions, and a MySQL backend.
finiteCraft
A collaborative recipe crawler and pathfinder for Neal Agarwal's Infinite Craft.
Portfolio Website (v3)
This site: a TOML-driven static generator with Tailwind, project filters, and light/dark mode.
Statify
A SpigotMC plugin for aggregating Minecraft player stats and database-backed leaderboards.
Piranha
A Discord chess bot that talks to Stockfish so people can play in chat against AI or each other.
Molotov
A screen-capture word bot for Bomb Party on jklm.fun: pixel sampling, dictionary lookup, and timed typing.
Skills
Languages
Since starting to program seriously, Python has been my primary language. I have used it for APIs, automation, hardware control, and data processing in almost every major project I have worked on.
I use C and C++ for systems programming and cases where I need high execution speed or direct hardware control. I have experience with Arduino and other microcontrollers, as well as writing JIT compilation extensions for Python.
I have used JavaScript mainly for client-side web development. On this site it handles project filtering and overlays, and I also used it for DOM scraping in finiteCraft.
I have not used Java much outside of class. My main project with it is Statify, a SpigotMC plugin that exposes Minecraft statistics to the server and players.
I have used C# for a few performance-critical projects. The main example is a chess bot I wrote for Sebastian Lague's tiny chess bot competition.
I use Bash for automation and developer setup. Most of my scripts bootstrap local environments, manage Docker deployments, or wait for databases to start before other services run.
Technologies
Linux has been my main operating system for development and hosting since I started programming seriously. I have experience managing VPS servers, systemd services, file permissions, environment variables, and debugging network issues with tools like netstat and tcpdump.
I use Docker to run multi-service applications in development and production. I have experience writing Compose files, multi-stage builds, and network isolation for projects such as PyAerial, Strife, and discord.py-template.
Since starting to program seriously, Git has been my version control software of choice. I have significant experience using a good majority of the features it provides.
I have used Selenium and Playwright to automate browsers and scrape websites. In finiteCraft I ran headless Chromium workers to discover Infinite Craft recipes and used rotating proxies to stay under rate limits.
MongoDB was the first database I learned. I used it in PyAerial to store high-frequency aircraft coordinates, and in finiteCraft to store crafting recipes.
I have used Kafka to stream telemetry data for AERPAW projects. PyAerial uses it for collision warnings and alerts, and DroneTracker uses it to send GPS telemetry to the AXIS camera.
I have used discord.py to write several Discord bots and a reusable bot template. I have significant experience with cogs, interaction routing, and building larger bot architectures.
I have used ADS-B and Mode-S to parse aircraft radio signals and track flight coordinates. At AERPAW I worked with this protocol at the hardware level, using RTL-SDR receivers to capture 1090 MHz transponder packets for PyAerial.
Contact
I'm looking for internships and research roles in embedded systems, backend infrastructure, and anything where messy data has to become a functional system. Use the form below, or reach me on GitHub, LinkedIn, or Discord.