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AI Infrastructure & Inference
Sean Owen
Applied Researcher, Mosaic |Databricks
Apache Spark PMC member and long-time committer. Created ZXing barcode library (33.9k stars) and Oryx project. Co-author of Advanced Analytics with Spark (O'Reilly) and Mahout in Action. Former VP Apache Mahout, Director of Data Science at Cloudera, and senior engineer at Google.
Biography
Deep Research
Sean Owen is a veteran open-source engineer and applied researcher currently working in Mosaic Applied Research at Databricks. He is an Apache Spark PMC member and long-time committer with deep contributions to Spark's MLlib machine-learning library. Before Databricks he was Director of Data Science (EMEA) at Cloudera, where he arrived via the acqui-hire of his startup Myrrix Ltd, which commercialized real-time recommender systems on Hadoop. Earlier in his career he was a senior engineer at Google, where he helped build and launch Mobile Web search and created ZXing ('Zebra Crossing'), the ubiquitous open-source barcode scanning library for Java and Android (33.9k stars). Owen also served as VP and primary committer of Apache Mahout, authoring its Taste recommender framework. He co-authored two O'Reilly books -- 'Advanced Analytics with Spark' and 'Mahout in Action' -- and co-authored the MLlib paper in JMLR. He holds a BA in Computer Science from Harvard University and an MBA from London Business School, where he was selected as a Kauffman Fellow. He received the 2022 ACM SIGMOD Systems Award as part of the Apache Spark community.
Apache SparkMLlib / Distributed Machine LearningRecommender SystemsApache MahoutBarcode Recognition (ZXing)Lambda ArchitectureReal-Time Streaming AnalyticsAutoML on DatabricksBig Data EngineeringOpen-Source Software
Timeline
17 Research17 total
2025
2024
2022
2018
2015
2014
2013
2012
2009
2008
1996
Key Contributions
ZXing (Zebra Crossing)
Open-source multi-format 1D/2D barcode image processing library for Java and Android. Primary author. 33.9k GitHub stars.
Apache Spark MLlib
Long-time committer and PMC member of Apache Spark with deep contributions to MLlib, Spark's distributed machine learning library.
Apache Mahout -- Taste Recommender Framework
VP and primary committer of Apache Mahout. Authored the Taste collaborative-filtering recommender framework.
Oryx Project
Lambda architecture on Apache Spark and Apache Kafka for real-time large-scale machine learning. 1.8k stars (archived).
Advanced Analytics with Spark / PySpark (O'Reilly)
Co-authored the definitive O'Reilly book on practical large-scale analytics with Spark, covering classification, clustering, collaborative filtering, anomaly detection, genomics, and more.
Mahout in Action (Manning)
Co-authored with Robin Anil, Ted Dunning, and Ellen Friedman. Practical guide to Apache Mahout's machine learning algorithms.
MLlib: Machine Learning in Apache Spark (JMLR Paper)
Co-authored the foundational JMLR paper describing MLlib's design, algorithms, and distributed optimization foundations.
Myrrix Ltd
Founded startup commercializing real-time recommender systems on Hadoop. Acqui-hired by Cloudera in 2013 and evolved into the open-source Oryx project.
Notable Quotes
“
Big data was a name for this phenomenon. We suddenly went from a data scarce world to one where you could collect as much data as you cared to.
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Data is one of the remaining differentiators in this new era of big data and data analytics.
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Applied research @ Mosaic @ Databricks. Formerly Principal DS/ML Specialist @ Databricks. Apache Spark PMC / committer. Primary author, zxing and Oryx project.
16 sources(click to expand)
srowen (Sean Owen) -- GitHub ProfileSean Owen -- LinkedInSean Owen -- O'Reilly Author PageSean Owen -- Data Science Festival Speaker BioSean Owen -- QCon London 2014 Speaker PageZXing Barcode Scanning Library (33.9k stars)Oryx Project -- Lambda Architecture on Spark + KafkaMLlib: Machine Learning in Apache Spark (arXiv / JMLR)2022 SIGMOD Systems Award for Apache SparkCloudera Acqui-hires Myrrix (BigDataWire)Advanced Analytics with PySpark (O'Reilly)Mahout in Action (Manning / Amazon)GreyBeards Podcast #123 with Sean OwenAll Things Data Podcast -- Sean Owen of ClouderaKauffman Fellowship -- Owen and Carrillo (London Business School)Sean Owen -- Databricks Data + AI Summit 2024
Research generated March 19, 2026
AI Infrastructure & Inference/Sean Owen
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