AI & ML Engineering

With over 30 years of experience in the data industry—13 of those focused on data science—I’ve had an incredible journey through roles like Data Scientist, Senior Data Scientist, Head of Data Science, and now Chief AI and Data Officer. Along the way, I’ve overseen major data initiatives, built high-performing teams, and developed a deep understanding of what it takes to succeed in this field. For the past 15 years, I’ve been passionate about coaching in data science and artificial intelligence. I’ve helped professionals land their first internships, secure their dream jobs, and grow into leadership roles. I’ve reviewed thousands of resumes, interviewed hundreds of candidates, and learned exactly what stands out in a competitive market. What I truly enjoy is helping data scientists and managers take that next big step in their careers. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to climb higher, I’m here to guide you, share practical advice, and help you unlock your potential in the ever-evolving world of data science. Let's connect and see how I can help you!

I bring hands-on experience in AI, machine learning, data science, and production-grade GenAI engineering, with a focus on building practical solutions that solve real business problems. My experience includes designing and implementing AI-powered applications, RAG systems, LLM-based analytics tools, and agentic solutions that help teams automate workflows, retrieve knowledge, and generate insights from enterprise data. I have built agentic AI solutions using different frameworks and implemented them in production environments. I have worked across the full lifecycle, from problem definition and prototype development to model integration, evaluation, deployment, and scaling. My experience also includes implementing key production components such as memory, observability, traceability, human-in-the-loop workflows, evaluation, and guardrails. I can help customers understand not only the concepts behind AI and ML engineering, but also the practical architecture and implementation steps needed to move from prototype to reliable production-ready AI systems.

I work with B2B software and AI founders from pre-seed through Series A on product and customer decisions. If you've built a promising demo but aren't sure who will pay for it, or every pilot is turning into a custom project, bring the situation and we'll work through it together. We'll look at the customer problem, the scope of the first product, and what to test next. I led product for an AI/ML platform at Elevance Health and earlier worked on SAP's natural language processing products. My advice draws on that product leadership experience and years of working with founders. Sessions focus on product direction and commercial judgment. For coding lessons, model training, or engineering interview preparation, a specialist engineering coach would be a better fit.

I have worked with large enterprise customers such as KPMG and CIBC, as well as small to mid-sized startups, on developing and governing AI agents. I work with several of the Anthropic and OpenAI tools.

Co-founder & CTO of Silicon Valley Commerce (2016-2025), where I led a 25-person engineering and data org and built ML pricing and demand-forecasting systems behind $300M+ in sales. Earlier co-founded Push Computing (acquired by MobileIron). Now founder of WuLabs, building LLM agents and AI automations. As CTO I hired, mentored and managed engineers and ran technical interviews. Stanford MS CS, CMU BS CS.

I'm a researcher at the University of Cambridge working on AI for neuroimaging. I have a PhD in Computational Neuroscience and nearly 10 years of experience building ML models across healthcare, energy, and tech. I've worked with everything from deep learning and computer vision to time-series forecasting and fraud detection. I can help you understand AI concepts, build models, or solve data science problems in a practical way.

Welcome to my profile! With a Doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania and over two decades of experience in AI and machine learning, I bring a wealth of knowledge to help you excel in your AI/ML engineering career. As a Lead AI Engineer at a Stealth Startup, I architect cutting-edge cognitive architectures and design scalable ML pipelines. My previous roles at Western Asset Management and Microsoft involved deploying high-accuracy predictive models and developing end-to-end big data solutions. I have coached numerous individuals, guiding them through complex AI strategies and infrastructure modernization. Whether you're looking to refine your skills or break into the industry, I'm here to help you achieve your goals. Let's connect and create a tailored plan for your success!

I created Pony Diffusion, one of the most popular open-weight image model families, used to generate 3B+ images. I'm now co-founder and CTO of Fictional.ai, backed by a16z Speedrun, where I built the technology from the first prototype and lead engineering, hiring and technical strategy. My work spans LLMs and agents, training data, model development, evaluation and deployment. Before that, I spent 12 years at YouTube/Google and Waymo. I led the complete rebuild of YouTube.com from a laptop demo to a global launch, and worked on AI research infrastructure, ML systems and simulation at Waymo. I've interviewed hundreds of engineers, mentor through MentorCruise and Prepfully, and teach AI-driven product development with ByteByteGo. I can help you build and ship an AI product, make sound architecture and model decisions, or prepare for a senior engineering role. We work on your actual project or career challenge, with direct feedback and concrete next steps. One engineer I mentored landed a Staff role at Google after we sharpened how they presented the experience they already had.

Official Mastra AI Agents Ambassador, building production RAG pipelines, MCP server connectivity, and multi-agent orchestration systems for enterprise clients. Udacity Machine Learning Engineer nanodegree. Sixteen years of cloud architecture across GCP, AWS, and Azure. Production AI systems delivered for Accenture and Capco clients in highly regulated industries where failure has real consequences. The sessions teach the engineering decisions that keep AI systems running past month one. Ideal for : Software engineers, ML practitioners, and technical leads building AI systems that need to survive contact with real data

I lead AI/ML engineering at fortune 500 companies building teams ships production ML and AI systems at 100M+ users scale. I've hired, managed, and promoted dozens of ML engineers across the US, Latin America, and India. I hold a US AI/ML patent and sit on various AI councils and Technology boards If you're trying to break into AI/ML engineering, move from IC to lead, or figure out what companies actually look for in engineers, I've been on the hiring side of that conversation countless times. I know what gets you in the door and what gets you promoted. Practical, current, and based on what I see every day, not what I read in a blog post.