Our team is our greatest asset,
driving innovation and excellence
in every project
Meet Our Team
Zachary Radtka
Founding partner of Big Wave Tech
As a founding member of Big Wave Tech, Zach brings over a decade of expertise in software engineering, system architecture, and solutions engineering. He has played a crucial role in shaping our company from the ground up. Specializing in Hadoop engineering, he has led numerous production and research projects. Zach’s previous work includes analyzing extensive vulnerability data from computer networks to identify trends and uncover new attack vectors. Currently, he focuses on developing advanced Big Data analytics and applications on large multi-node clusters, using technologies like Pig, Java MapReduce, Zookeeper, Accumulo, Mahout, and Greenplum. In his spare time, Zach teaches courses at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, sharing his knowledge with the next generation of engineers.
Bill Slacum
Founding partner of Big Wave Tech
Bill Slacum is a co-founder and executive at Big Wave. He has worked in open source, for start ups, defense contractors, and as a private consultant. Spread across sectors such as retail, cybersecurity, pharmaceutical, and naval defense, he has a focus on large scale problem solving using custom and off the shelf software. Outside of work, he focuses on causes near and dear to him. He supports his local animal shelters, BARCS and Defenders of Animal Rights. He also is a supporter of the Lauren R Spivey Cancer Awareness Foundation and Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Damian Knopp
Principal Software Engineer
Damian has over two decades of experience in building systems, focusing on IT modernization and technology contributions across cloud, backend, frontend, data pipeline, infrastructure, and big data for mission-critical distributed systems. Damian’s journey includes working on diverse systems, from greenfield projects to maintaining and enhancing existing ones at Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and startups.
Chaz Chikeka
System engineer
Chaz brings a diverse skill set in programming languages including Java, Scala, Python, Rust, and Golang. His expertise extends to containerization technologies, including Docker, as well as orchestrating containerized applications using Kubernetes. Chaz also specialize in building robust backend cloud and microservices, delivering scalable and efficient solutions to meet our clients’ needs. His passion for technology and problem-solving drives him to provide exceptional IT consulting services.
