# Rick J. > AI Engineer Location: Leesburg, Virginia, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/rickj About Me: I have a wide range of IT skills, and I am proficient in several programming languages including Java, C#, Scala, C++, Python and Fortran. I have extensive experience working with RDBMS and also NoSQL repositories like Cassandra with distributed data stored on Hadoop and utilizing Spark in-memory data analysis. I can also program using scientific tools like S-Plus and MatLab. I have been an IT consultant for over 15 years as a Sales Engineer, Application Developer, Technical Lead and Project Manager. I have a BS in Accounting, an MS in Computer Systems Management (thesis - Agile Methodology Software Development Issues and Solutions) and an MS in Computational Science and Informatics (concentration - Computational Intelligence and Knowledge Mining) from George Mason University. ## Work Experience ### Senior AI Engineer @ Market Minded Jan 2025 – Present • Architected end-to-end Python backends covering data ingestion, historical processing, chart generation, sentiment handling, local LLM integration, and REST APIs consumed by web and mobile dashboards. • Built Go microservices for low-latency data ingestion and background processing, including live data fetchers, caching layers for frequently accessed metrics, and background workers that keep technical indicators and analytics current in production. • Integrated a production-grade microservice layer using Scala into existing Python systems, computing technical indicators (RSI, MACD, moving averages, volatility, support/resistance, trend state) alongside alternative data aggregation from social, news, and NLP sentiments. • Designed strict JSON contracts between polyglot services and local LLMs, defining structured per-entity payloads and typed response schemas covering stance, confidence, risk factors, and narrative summaries. • Built Scala pipelines for prompt construction, LLM invocation, and response validation, exposing results via REST APIs and queues while enabling incremental migration from monolithic Python services to a microservice architecture. • Implemented parameter-efficient fine-tuning workflows for open-source LLMs using domain-specific datasets, improving structured inference quality and response consistency within production analytics pipelines. • Designed retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines integrating vector search, structured prompts, and local LLM inference to improve domain-specific reasoning and factual grounding in real-time analytics workflows. • Implemented vector embedding pipelines and semantic search services enabling low-latency retrieval of relevant signals from large structured and unstructured datasets for downstream LLM inference and automated decision-support systems. ### AI Engineer @ HP Jan 2025 – Jan 2025 • Accelerated AI adoption through end-to-end engineering projects showcasing data ingestion, embedding generation, fine-tuning, and deployment pipelines for generative AI models on HP AI Studio • Reduced inference latency by optimizing agentic RAG services with advanced retrieval strategies and intelligent batching techniques • Enabled customer success at scale through reproducible technical assets including coded demos, tutorials, architecture diagrams, and presentation materials delivered at conferences and recorded sessions • Demonstrated real-world AI value through live conference demonstrations and presentations highlighting practical implementations of agentic and generative AI workflows ### Senior Technical Product Marketing Manager @ Pinecone Jan 2024 – Jan 2024 • Develop and write technical assets such as code for POCs, white papers, and blogs for internal and external consumption • Develop technical sales and partner enablement materials targeting developers across various channels (sales, partners, events) • Assist in product launches, collaborating with cross-functional teams on messaging and goals • Work with engineering, design, and other teams to define and refine early-stage products and key functionality ### Senior Technical Marketing Manager @ Imply Jan 2023 – Jan 2024 To read some of my blogs about the Druid/Impy analytics database platform, please visit: https://imply.io/developer/authors/?value=rick-jacobs • Create in-depth technical assets (code, blogs etc.) to highlight specific functionality • Develop AI/ML projects on trending topics to showcase Apache Druid/Imply real-time analytical capabilities • Conduct detailed analysis to identify integrations and branding content that resonate with our customer base, enhancing user engagement • Determine key functionalities to highlight in projects, prioritizing features that align with business objectives and user needs • Gain in-depth knowledge of integration platforms to effectively utilize them in enhancing product capabilities • Data engineering including preparation, pre-processing and transformation using Scala code • Develop and implement code to achieve desired project outcomes, demonstrating proficiency in programming and technical problem-solving, and the ability to grasps unfamiliar technologies quickly. For example, I wrote the code and article for a blog entitled How to Build a Sentiment Analysis Application with ChatGPT and Druid which was garnered over 15,000 views. • Create and publish blogs to showcase our product capabilities, engaging the audience with insightful content on our technological advantages ### Technical Marketing Manager @ Couchbase Jan 2020 – Jan 2022 • To read some of my blogs about the Couchbase document database platform, please visit: https://www.couchbase.com/blog/author/rick/ • Showcasing company product capabilities to technical and non-technical audiences • Responsible for benchmarking comparisons of company products versus competitive products • Creating, presenting and recording competitive content and industry trends demonstrations • Design, develop/code and present partner collaboration demonstrations • Design, develop/code and present custom webinars • Data engineering including preparation, pre-processing and transformation using Scala code • Design, develop/code and present demonstrations to highlight specific functionality eg. NLP (Natural Language Processing) webservice utilizing commercial and custom algorithms Cloud-enabled, REST API based, microservices to perform various tasks such as augment static data with data received from Machine Learning services, emailing services, natural language services, etc. • Write and publish datasheets, blogs and partner collaboration summaries • Implement, config and execute internal YCSB benchmarks and present results • Generate visualizations using Tableau and PowerBI ### Technical Sales Engineer @ Cloudera Jan 2018 – Jan 2020 • Developed a NLP (Natural Language Processing) application to perform sentiment analysis on static data and streaming data like Twitter • Experience utilizing Tableau to generate data visualizations • Experience with various Spark ML and ML Lib Machine Learning algorithms using Python and Scala including a data - preprocessing, Regression, classification, clustering etc and model selection techniques. • Experience in manipulating/analyzing large datasets and pattern detection and insights within structured and unstructured data • Experience on Hadoop Cloudera distribution • Experience migrating the data using Sqoop from HDFS to Relational Database System and vice-versa. • Experience on importing and exporting data using stream processing platforms including Spark Streaming • Experienced using in various Amazon Web Services (AWS) and MS Azure services • Experience using build tools such as SBT, Maven • Experience customizing Docker on Kubernetes images ### Data Engineer @ IC-CAP, LLC Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 • Developed enterprise level applications using Apache Spark, utilizing Scala with data persisted in Hadoop (HDFS) and streamed from Kafka in a Linux environment • Data engineered complex geospatial algorithms to transform and encode geo data • Developed pipelines for data access using Apache Nifi for ETL from various disparate datasources into HDFS • Hands on experience with the tools in Hadoop Ecosystem • Strong Data Warehousing ETL experience including data normalization • Create and configure images using Docker • Strong development experience using Zeppelin Notebook to develop Python and Scala code • Hands on work experience in writing applications on NoSQL databases • Developed applications using Agile software development methodology • Extensive coding using Java to utilizing microservices to access and transform ESRI geospatial data ### Data Scientist @ Praescient Analytics Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 • Extensive SDK coding using Java and Scala to customize processes in IBM Analyst’s Notebook and Palantir • Data engineered applications utilizing Apache SOLR based elastic search applications with Lucene indices • Developed Scala/Spark code to transform and ingest (ETL) XML based Graph datasource into Enterprise platform • Develop and perform data mining utilizing link analysis visualization via clustering, classification and neural networks • Develop and consume JSON and XML bases microservices to facility data, ingest, transformation with storage and access via Postgres • Experience utilizing testing tools eg. Rational Performance Tester, JUnit test drive development • Developed applications with backend servers which run as AWS services including EC2, S3 and RDS • Provide pre-sales and post-sales consulting and system design • Experience in database design using PL/SQL to write Stored Procedures, Functions, Triggers and strong experience in writing complex queries for various RDBMS. • Strong experience in Object-Oriented Design, Analysis, Development, Testing and Maintenance. • Experience creating and running clusters using HDInsight ### Software Engineer / Technical Sales Engineer @ IBM Jan 2006 – Jan 2016 • Extensive SDK coding using C# and Java to customize processes in IBM Analyst’s Notebook • Develop link analysis data visualization systems utilizing clustering, classification and neural network algorithms including K-Means clustering and Euclidean distance similarity measurements with complex entity resolution • Developed data connectors to Apache SOLR based elastic search applications with Lucene indexing. • Develop POCs to store client data in various RDBMS including, SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL and DB2 and Cassandra and Hadoop NoSQL repositories • Create and consume SOAP and RESTFUL webservices using both C# and Java • Provide pre- and post-sales services, to identify customer technical requirements relating to technical, performing customer analysis, creating custom demonstrations and developing POCs. • Responding to technical RFIs/RFPs. • Provide pre- and post-sales services, to identify customer technical requirements relating to technical, performing customer analysis, creating custom demonstrations and developing POCs. • Respond to technical RFIs/RFPs. • Responsible for XML schema and XSLT development • Responsible for the design and development of windows and web forms using the Java Script, VB.net, C#.net and ASP.net • Responsible for the development of client and server side web services using C# and Java • Responsible for cleansing structured and unstructured data using SQL, Java and C# • Responsible for MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server and Access database design and development, designing schemas, creating tables, views and database optimization • Developed scripts using Python • Responsible for custom, link analysis data visualization development for Commercial, State and the Intelligence community using Analyst Notebook • Creating and verifying SOW (Statements of Work), project plans and other scope and scheduling documents ### Technical Consultant @ Northrup Grumman Jan 2005 – Jan 2006 ### Senior Computer Scientist @ Computer Science Corporation Jan 2003 – Jan 2005 ## Education ### Master’s Degree in Computational Science George Mason University ### Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting Fairleigh Dickinson University ### Master’s Degree in Computer Systems Management University of Maryland Global Campus ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/rick-j-819ba98 --- Source: https://flows.cv/rickj JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/rickj/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-17