Hey, I'm Howard.

Software Engineer

10+ years scaling distributed systems and AI/ML infrastructure

I've worked on all sorts of topics including web development, optical character recognition (OCR), graphics, ray tracing, feature streaming, real-time inference, and serving GenAI/LLM models- for both startups and large companies.

Outside of this nerdy stuff, I enjoy traveling, boxing, basketball, and dog walking- though I have a cat :)

Feel free to reach out- maybe we can build something together!

Career

2021 - Present
Senior Software Engineer, AI/ML Serving

Architected the company's paved path for ML inference and GenAI on Kubernetes. Pioneered a CRD with automated CICD, topology-based deployment, and distributed GPU model partitioning - enabling the launch of the largest model in Pinterest history.

2018 - 2021
Senior Software Engineer, ML Platform

Scaled real-time feature framework and model serving at Instagram ML Platform. Built cost attribution via distributed tracing and data lineage mapping.

2017 - 2018
Lead Back-end Engineer

Architected and scaled a custom 3D render pipeline (3X throughput). Built an order management system with automated refunding, saving customer success 20 hours/week.

2015 - 2017
Full Stack Engineer

Built the core job processing pipeline serving Amazon HITs. Optimized prioritization based on SLA, effort, and pricing. Created a regex-like model for processing documents with optional, repeating, and missing pages.

2011 - 2015
B.S. Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

Algorithms, Graphics, Databases, Computational Photography, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning.

Summer 2014
Software Intern

Implemented cohort analysis by chaining Hadoop MapReduce jobs. Built a JSON precompiler for auto-generating configuration components for custom MR jobs.

Summer 2013
Software & Hardware Intern

Designed and tested an Arduino-based prototype for remotely monitoring water usage in Third World countries.