About Me

Basic Information

  • Name: Xikai Zhao
  • Email: xikai.vt@gmail.com
  • Address: Austin, TX
  • Interests: Reading, Hiking, Couch Surfing, Travelling

Professional Profile

Hi, my name is Xikai. I am a life-long learner who is extremely data-driven and entrepreneurial

Download Resume

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ME

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My name is pronounced like “She-Kai”. I was born in China and came to the U.S for college. I identify myself as a global citizen, and I love to think on a global level.

I started my entrepreneurial career as a 11 year old, when I sold roses on Valentine’s Day. In 2014, my junior year of college, I co-founded a company called CampusZebra.com, a freelance website that is intended to connect Virginia Tech talents with the real-world needs throughout the local community. I was fully involved in market research, web development, capital raising, marketing, leadership and product development?. Starting this business is one the most challenging thing I have done and it truly makes me proud.

In 2015, at my first job after graduation, I discovered machine learning, and fell in love with it. It allowed me to see the world through different eyes. Since then, I have been learning and working on different data science projects including sentiment analysis on movie reviews and building a personal content recommendation engine. Particularly, I love natural language processing since I am eager to understand the world differently through numerous amounts of text data. Specifically, I desire to drive meaningful insights by analyzing social media data.

Outside of the professional life, I love camping and learning different cultures. I feel most comfortable in environments that are completely foreign to me, where I can be like a 3 year old again and be fascinated by the world surround me.

If you like my story, and want to say hi, please email me at xikai.vt@gmail.com

Experience

  • Senior Business Analyst

    RetailMeNot

    Aug, 2016 - Present

    RetailMeNot is the largest digital coupon site in the US

    • Develop an email recommendation pipeline using machine learning algorithms, Python, and Spark. This engine is projected to increase the personalized audience size by 400%, and engagement rate by 87%.

    • Process and analyze large scale data volumes (132 M records) daily, semi-structured and unstructured data

    • Work with engineers build data infrastructure and streamline ETL system

    • Utilize data mining, model building, and other mathematical and engineering techniques to develop predictive models and improve campaign targeting

  • Co-Founder/CEO

    CampusZebra.com

    Feb, 2013 - Present

    Campuszebra.com is intended to connect Virginia Tech talents with the real-world needs throughout the local community

    • Fully involved with market research, customer discovery, web development, user interface, branding, and product management

    • Managed a team of five.

    • Campuszebra reached to over 1k user within the 1st week of launch

  • Published Sentiment Analysis

    Published by RetailMeNot Engineering Blog

    Oct, 2017
  • Growth Data Analyst

    SeatSmart.com

    June, 2015 - Jan, 2016

    • Improved the success rate of the check-out page by 43%

    • Designed, set-up and ran A/B tests across all of the company’s engagement strategies

    • Worked closely with product team to assist in rolling out on-product Minimum Viable Tests.

    • Measured performance of all digital marketing campaigns, and assess against goals (ROI and CPAs)

    • Planned the big map for data infrastructure including combining transactional data and behavioral data.

    • Built a funnel analysis and analyzed behavior data in SQL database.

  • Design Engineer

    General Electric Appliance

    Jan,2013 – June,2013

    • Reduced product costs by $500,000 through the design optimization of dishwashers and the manufacturing process.

    • Worked on Six Sigma projects to improve lean process

  • Google Admob Student App Challenge

    issued by Google

    Jan, 2014

Education

  • Deep Learning Certification

    Coursera

    2017

    Taught by: Andrew Ng, Co-founder, Coursera; Adjunct Professor, Stanford University; formerly head of Baidu AI Group/Google Brain

  • Machine Learning

    Coursera

    2017

    Taught by: Andrew Ng, Co-founder, Coursera; Adjunct Professor, Stanford University; formerly head of Baidu AI Group/Google Brain

  • Mechanical Engineering

    Virginia Tech, GPA: 3.3

    2011 - 2015