# Michael Weng

> Principal Software Engineer at Palo Alto Networks

Location: Santa Clara, California, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/michaelweng

Strategic Technical Leader | Architecting Massive-Scale AI & Data Ecosystems

I specialize in building the "nervous systems" of enterprise technology—the high-performance infrastructure that allows AI models to serve at scale and data to flow across global regions with 99.9%+ reliability.

With over 20 years of experience across Palo Alto Networks, eBay, Microsoft, and Motorola, I have navigated the evolution of software from core OS connectivity and cellular protocols to the current frontier of Generative AI. My approach combines deep-stack technical expertise (Java/Python/C++) with a relentless focus on engineering velocity.

Key Career Milestones:

AI Infrastructure at Scale: Architected an enterprise LLM serving platform from the ground up, leveraging vLLM and Triton to reduce model deployment times by 90%.

Massive Data Ingestion: Designed and managed distributed systems processing billions of daily events across 20+ global regions, ensuring strict data sovereignty and high availability.

Engineering Multiplier: Demonstrated a 5x productivity surge by establishing "Golden Paths" and GitOps-driven automation, transforming how tens of repositories are managed and deployed.

Full-Stack Foundations: From optimizing WiFi/Bluetooth stacks at Microsoft to engineering high-performance IPC at Motorola, I bring a "silicon-to-cloud" perspective to every architectural challenge.

I thrive at the intersection of complex distributed systems and organizational leadership. Whether I’m mentoring cross-functional teams, defining the next generation of AI security guardrails, or refactoring legacy monoliths into cloud-native microservices, my goal is to build systems that aren't just powerful, but sustainable and secure.

Core Expertise: AI/ML Infra (vLLM, Triton, Ray) | Distributed Systems (Java, Kafka, PubSub, Kinesis) | Cloud Native (K8s, GKE/EKS, ArgoCD) | Performance Engineering | Technical Strategy & Mentorship

## Work Experience
### Principal Software Engineer @ Palo Alto Networks
Jan 2022 – Present | Santa Clara, CA
As a Principal Engineer for AI & Data Platforms, I architect the foundational infrastructure powering next-generation security products. I lead the strategic evolution of our model serving and data ingestion ecosystems, bridging the gap between high-performance systems and rapid AI innovation.

Strategic AI Infrastructure

LLM Serving Platform: Spearheaded the end-to-end architecture of an enterprise Generative AI platform. Standardized internal workflows on vLLM and Triton Inference Server, achieving a 90% reduction in deployment lead time via GitOps-driven automation.

AI Security & Guardrails: Directed the design of a production Prompt Injection Detection System. Engineered real-time security guardrails and a ground-truth validation framework integrated with BigQuery to secure enterprise-scale AI interactions.

Data Platform & Global Scale

Strata Logging Service: Architected the cloud consumer layer to process billions of daily events across 20+ global regions. Maintained 99.9%+ uptime through custom Java/Netty ingestion pipelines and automated Regional Boundary (RBI) deployment strategies.

Security Frameworks: Authored a unified enterprise RBAC framework and optimized AWS Kinesis integrations using a custom AssumeRole strategy, resolving complex multi-tenant security bottlenecks.

Engineering Excellence & Leadership

Velocity Multiplier: Successfully demonstrated a 5x productivity surge in 2025, delivering foundational AI infrastructure (3,000+ commits) in under 9 months.

Modernization: Orchestrated the migration of 400+ Python modules and a full build-system transition to Maven, reducing CI/CD execution times by 60%.

Golden Paths: Established DevOps and GitOps "Golden Paths," reducing new service onboarding from weeks to hours through reusable Helm templates and automated validation.

### ETL Infrastructure Architect (MTS 2) @ eBay Inc
Jan 2015 – Jan 2024 | Greater Seattle Area
I served as a lead architect for eBay’s global data ecosystem, focusing on transitioning legacy big-data workloads into modern, cloud-native environments.

Key Achievements:

Cloud Transformation: Led the re-platforming of our massive ETL stack onto Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), which improved service recovery times from 30 minutes down to just 2 seconds.

Strategic Migration: Engineered "Dual-Run" frameworks that allowed us to migrate mission-critical production data from Teradata to Spark/Hadoop with zero downtime and 100% data integrity.

Platform Democratization: Architected a generic ETL methodology that empowered thousands of internal power users to run 100K+ daily production jobs across diverse data environments (Oracle, Teradata, HDFS).

### Member of Technical Staff 2 @ eBay Inc
Jan 2011 – Jan 2015 | Greater Seattle Area
Managed one of the industry's largest Hadoop clusters (2,000+ nodes, 10PB+). My role involved deep-core performance tuning of HDFS, MapReduce, Yarn, and HBase to support high-intensity data science and analytics workloads for over 2,000 active users.

### Software Development Engineer II @ Microsoft
Jan 2008 – Jan 2011 | Greater Seattle Area
At Microsoft, I worked within the Windows Phone division, focusing on the intersection of UI performance and core OS connectivity. I engineered system-level features for WiFi and Bluetooth stacks, ensuring seamless hardware-to-software integration and high-performance IPC.

### Senior Software Developer @ Motorola
Jan 1999 – Jan 2008
Developed high-performance cellular infrastructure and network management protocols. This role provided my foundation in high-concurrency C++ development, low-level IPC mechanisms, and building resilient systems for global telecommunications networks.


## Education
### MS in Computer Science
University of North Texas

### BS in Environmental Engineering
Tsinghua University


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/michael-weng-38b2522a

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Source: https://flows.cv/michaelweng
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/michaelweng/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-04-12