43.4516° N, 80.4925° W · Waterloo, Ontario
Robert
Ilyes
Geospatial Developer & Solutions Engineer
I build tools that turn complex spatial datasets into decisions that matter — from satellite imagery pipelines to catastrophe risk models.
// about
I'm a geospatial data scientist with a background in remote sensing, catastrophe risk modeling, and spatial data pipelines. My work sits at the intersection of technical depth and real-world impact — I care about what the output actually changes, not just whether the model converges.
At Co-operators, I build geospatial risk models that inform insurance portfolio decisions at a national scale. Previously at SkyWatch, I worked directly with satellite imagery APIs and supported customers integrating remote sensing data into their workflows — the closest thing to solutions engineering I've done so far, and exactly the kind of work I want to do more of.
I hold an Honours degree in Geomatics with a Computing minor from the University of Waterloo (GPA 92, Presidential Scholarship) and I'm currently pursuing the Certified Specialist in Catastrophe Risk (iCAS/ISCM) designation.
Education
University of Waterloo
Honours Geomatics · Computing Minor
Diploma of Excellence in GIS
GPA: 92 · Grad 2025
iCAS / ISCM
Certified Specialist in Catastrophe Risk
In Progress · 2025–
// projects
Selected Work
LearnSpatialSQL
LeetCode for Geospatial SQL
A browser-based platform for practicing spatial SQL queries against real geospatial datasets. Runs entirely client-side via DuckDB-WASM — no backend, no server costs. 20 progressively harder problems covering spatial joins, buffer analysis, and PostGIS-style operations.
UrbanTreeCarbon
Urban Carbon Quantification via LiDAR
Honours thesis project quantifying urban tree carbon storage in Kitchener, ON. Built a parallelized R pipeline to process large LiDAR point clouds, automatically filtering non-vegetation returns (powerlines, structures), and modeled relationships between site conditions and tree biomass.
GeoVect
Serverless Geospatial Vector API
A cloud-native REST API for storing, retrieving, and analyzing geospatial vector data. Built on AWS Lambda and API Gateway with endpoints for polygon storage, bounding box computation, and geometry retrieval — an exploration of serverless geospatial infrastructure.
// experience
Work History
Geospatial Actuarial Intern → Associate Research Scientist
- ·Developed a geospatial earthquake exposure model incorporating building footprint shape characteristics, reducing modeled losses by ~$16M and improving portfolio uncertainty estimates by ~5%.
- ·Built an industry-wide geospatial exposure dataset from public and proprietary sources, enabling portfolio stress testing, market benchmarking, and catastrophe risk analysis.
- ·Performed large-scale spatial analysis on millions of Canadian building footprints using R and QGIS.
- ·Developed postal-code-level market share and exposure datasets to support accumulation management and risk concentration analysis.
- ·Analyzed demographic data, customer behavior, competitive landscapes, and wildfire risk using ArcGIS to support branch location planning.
- ·Designed and implemented ETL pipelines using Alteryx and Python to automate data integration and processing tasks.
- ·Supported customers with satellite imagery and geospatial remote sensing data, validating imagery quality for downstream ML workflows.
- ·Built Python-based automation tools and API integrations to streamline manual geospatial workflows.
- ·Developed and optimized Spark-based data pipelines within a Databricks environment, supporting scientific data processing initiatives.
// skills
Technical Skills
Data Science
Geospatial
Cloud & Infra
Domain
// contact
Get In Touch
Open to solutions engineering and geospatial developer roles. If you're working on satellite imagery, climate risk, or spatial data products — let's talk.