Dear Hiring Manager,

I’m a software developer and researcher with a deep academic and practical background in programming, mathematics, natural language processing, formal semantics, and logic. Whether building games, internal tools, or other software, I bring a unique blend of technical acumen and conceptual rigor—developed over years of interdisciplinary work spanning software engineering, formal ontology, language research, and mathematics.

I hold a PhD in Philosophy of Language, with a research focus on modeling natural language and human reasoning using formal systems. This includes classical frameworks like predicate logic and modal logic, as well as more nuanced systems such as fuzzy logic, indexical logic, and plural logic. I also worked as a research assistant under Barry Smith at the University at Buffalo, where I contributed to projects involving ontological engineering and semantic representation. I compiled and edited the index for Building Ontologies with Basic Formal Ontology, a core text in the field.

My background combines academic NLP research using Python and the Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK) with extensive hands-on experience prototyping, developing, and debugging software across diverse domains. I've worked in interdisciplinary teams as a Product Manager, Technical Designer, and Analyst, often taking on multiple responsibilities within a single project. My work includes medical games at Level Ex, multiplayer VR first-person shooters at Doge Labs, a multiplayer knockout party game and large-scale Live Ops systems at Mythical Games, spine surgery training software at Snke, and customer service and developer support platforms at Skillz.

I am actively seeking opportunities that bridge language, meaning, and computation—especially in NLP, semantic technologies, or AI tools that aim to better understand or generate natural language. I bring with me not only a passion for semantics and communication, but the technical fluency to help build systems that actually work.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I’d welcome the opportunity to talk more about how my background can support your team’s goals.

Sincerely,

Shane Sicienski