Experience
Professional work history and career journey
Senior Staff AI/ML Engineer & Architect
Oct 2022 — Present
- Senior Staff AI/ML Engineer & ArchitectApr 2026 — Present
- Staff AI/ML Engineer | Technical LeadOct 2022 — Apr 2026
Leading agentic AI and ML architecture across enterprise defense programs — from multi-agent systems and MLOps frameworks to distributed data pipelines and GPU-optimized model training.
Achievements
- Serve on the leadership team of The Forge, guiding architecture across all of the team's projects (8 concurrent efforts) and shaping team growth through hiring, including 20+ technical interviews for new engineering hires
- Lead technical direction of the Engineering AI Enablement team at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control (MFC), defining agentic AI and ML tooling strategy and enablement patterns reaching 100+ engineers
- Architected an MLOps framework spanning the full ML lifecycle — training, deployment, reproducibility, and data lineage — cutting production deployment time by roughly 85% (from ~2 weeks to under 2 days) and standardizing releases across 10+ models and pipelines
- Designed and built custom multi-step AI agents using Pydantic AI and LangChain/LangGraph; engineered bespoke Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers for real-time data integration with databases and object stores, delivering 6+ production agents and MCP services
- Championed team-wide adoption of agentic AI, mentoring 10+ engineers on agent architecture and tool-augmented reasoning and cutting agent integration time by ~50% across 4 project teams
- Diagnosed and eliminated training bottlenecks in PyTorch deep learning anomaly-detection models using Torch Profiler and NVIDIA Nsight; refactored the data loader and rearchitected key layers to cut training time by over 94% (from ~24 hours to under 90 minutes)
- Built distributed, functional-programming-based data pipelines with Apache Airflow and Dask, processing tens of terabytes across 15+ data sources and roughly tripling throughput for ML and analytics workflows
- Spearheaded architecture of an Apache Arrow-native data lakehouse on Amazon S3 and PostgreSQL, managing 50+ TB of time-series data, metadata, and an ML feature store serving 10+ production models with sub-second analytical queries
- Refactored and re-normalized a core PostgreSQL database, cutting query response times by over 95% (from ~10 seconds to under 500 ms) and enabling efficient scaling to ~3x higher workloads
- Deployed and operate a secure Kubernetes cluster on AWS GovCloud supporting 10+ ML and data-visualization workloads, sustaining 99.9% availability with automated scaling in a compliance-controlled environment
ML Engineer | Software Engineer | Data Engineer | Owner
Feb 2016 — Oct 2022
Owner-operated ML R&D practice (sister brand of Zia Technology Group) focused on ML-based algorithmic trading research and development, with selective external ML consulting.
Achievements
- Founded and directed an independent ML R&D practice, defining the end-to-end technology strategy, roadmap, and agile delivery process across data, modeling, and algorithmic trading systems
- Engineered three open-source Python frameworks — Photon (deep learning lifecycle), Maxwell (market-data preprocessing and ML pipelines), and Dyson (financial modeling and algorithms) — spanning data preparation through training, evaluation, and serving
- Designed deep learning and probabilistic models (CNNs, RNNs, Transformers, Bayesian neural networks, deep ensembles) powering algorithmic trading systems across equities, options, futures, and crypto markets
- Built GPU-accelerated (CUDA) data pipelines ingesting 20+ years of trade and order-book market data at multiple time resolutions, processing hundreds of millions of data points with Dask, RAPIDS, and Apache Arrow/Parquet
- Standardized research and production codebases on TensorFlow, Keras, NumPy, and Pandas, eliminating duplicated implementations and streamlining the path from experimentation to live trading
- Delivered external ML consulting, including a transformer- and autoencoder-based prediction system that improved a sports-analytics client's predictive accuracy by more than 65%
Data Engineer | Software Engineer | IT Consultant | Owner
Mar 2010 — Aug 2020
External data and software consulting brand of the same owner-operator practice as Applied Theta, serving business clients across industries.
Achievements
- Architected data integrations and ETL pipelines connecting 25+ business applications and data sources — including MS SQL Server, Salesforce API, and QuickBooks Enterprise — automating reporting workflows and eliminating hundreds of hours of manual data handling annually
- Deployed and administered 40+ SQL/NoSQL databases with custom schema designs supporting client applications, data warehouses, and reporting systems
- Delivered full-stack web applications and reporting systems — including a client web portal unifying four backend systems in real time via Node.js and WebSockets — serving hundreds of business users
- Designed and implemented highly available cloud and hybrid co-lo/cloud virtual infrastructures for client environments, sustaining 99.9% uptime
Software Developer | DBA | IT Consultant | Owner
Jan 2007 — Mar 2010
Owner-operated consulting practice delivering database administration, data integrations, and web development for business clients.
Achievements
- Administered 30+ MS SQL Server instances and databases powering custom and third-party business applications across client environments
- Developed web-based interfaces providing business users self-service access to back-end data sources, reducing manual data requests
- Led a team of 4 network engineers and developers delivering client infrastructure and software projects
Network Engineer | Software Developer | DBA | Owner
Dec 2001 — Jan 2007
Full-stack IT consulting practice supporting small and mid-sized business networks, servers, and applications.
Achievements
- Led a team of 15 technicians and network engineers supporting 200+ client networks and applications, improving on-time delivery and service reliability across engagements
- Deployed and supported hundreds of client networks, servers, and MS SQL Server database environments for custom and third-party applications
- Built dynamic, database-driven websites and web applications for small-business clients