AI/ML EngineerApplied AI EngineerSenior Data ScientistGenAI EngineerMLOps Engineer

Open to SF Bay Area, Seattle, NYC, Chicago, Austin, and Remote roles

Saket Garodia

AI/ML Engineer building production GenAI, RAG, optimization, and MLOps systems

I turn ambiguous business problems into shipped AI systems: pricing optimization at enterprise retail scale, lookalike models across 35M+ households, agentic AI tools, RAG products, and production ML workflows with monitoring, CI/CD, and measurable impact.

Annualized Business Impact
$40M+
Households Modeled
35M+
Production SLA / Reliability
90%+
Years ML + AI Experience
8+
Professional headshot of Saket Garodia

Featured Projects

Real AI systems: agents, RAG, full-stack LLM apps, model compression, and alignment.

Recruiter-facing proof that the work goes beyond notebooks: shipped apps, open-source tools, cloud deployments, model compression, and applied LLM workflows.

Open-source agentic coding assistant

Coder Buddy

Impact

Published to PyPI as coder-buddy with multi-provider support for OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Groq, and OpenRouter.

Problem: Developers need a code-building assistant that can clarify intent, plan architecture, and modify projects while keeping human approval in the loop.

Solution: Built a LangGraph-orchestrated 4-agent pipeline with Clarifier, Planner, Architect, and Coder agents plus sandboxed file, glob, regex search, and shell tools with dangerous-command blocking.

LangGraphGPT-4oClaudeGeminiGroqPythonPyPI

Production-style GenAI SaaS

AI Consultation Assistant

Impact

Containerized with Docker and deployed to AWS App Runner via ECR with CI/CD, environment management, logging, and a clean Next.js/FastAPI REST architecture.

Problem: Consultation notes are often unstructured and slow to convert into reliable client-ready follow-ups.

Solution: Built a full-stack GenAI SaaS that converts notes into structured summaries, action items, and email drafts using real-time SSE streaming, structured LLM outputs, Clerk authentication, and subscription-gated access.

Next.jsFastAPIOpenAIClerkDockerAWS App RunnerECR
Case study available on request

Hybrid search and streaming AI Q&A

RAG Search System

Impact

Supports streaming AI Q&A over 50K+ Medium articles, with Prefect and FastEmbed automating continuous RSS ingestion and incremental embedding updates.

Problem: Users need to search and ask questions over a large Medium article corpus with both lexical precision and semantic recall.

Solution: Built a full-stack hybrid-search RAG system using BGE-base embeddings, BM25, reciprocal-rank fusion, FastAPI, Qdrant, and a Next.js frontend.

Next.jsFastAPIQdrantBGEBM25/RRFPrefectGCP Cloud Run

BERT fine-tuning and model compression

IT Ticket Classifier

Impact

Reached 88.2% accuracy and 87.9% macro-F1, reducing memory 74% from 255 MB to 66 MB with less than 0.1% accuracy loss.

Problem: IT tickets need accurate classification while keeping deployment footprint practical.

Solution: Fine-tuned BERT-base on 47.8K IT tickets, then compressed the model via knowledge distillation into DistilBERT and FP16/INT4 NF4 quantization.

PyTorchHugging FaceBERTDistilBERTQuantizationKnowledge Distillation
Case study available on request

Fine-tuning and preference optimization

LLM Alignment Pipeline

Impact

Reduced perplexity by 71% with 40M trainable parameters out of 6.8B and completed DPO with final loss of 0.040.

Problem: Large open-source models need practical alignment workflows that can run efficiently without full-model training.

Solution: Applied QLoRA-based SFT to Llama-2-7B, then aligned Mistral-7B with DPO on 12.8K preference pairs without a reward model.

QLoRASFTDPOLlama-2-7BMistral-7BPEFT
Case study available on request

Educational transformer implementation

Build & Learn: GPT from Scratch

Impact

Published as a companion GitHub repository and 4-part Medium learning series.

Problem: Understanding LLMs deeply requires implementing core transformer components rather than only calling APIs.

Solution: Implemented a character-level GPT in PyTorch with multi-head self-attention, LayerNorm, residual connections, and a full training loop.

PyTorchTransformersSelf-AttentionLanguage ModelingMedium

About

AI systems that connect model quality to product and business outcomes.

The portfolio narrative is intentionally recruiter-friendly: production ML depth, hands-on GenAI building, and measurable business impact in one place.

I am an AI/ML Engineer and Senior Data Scientist with a software engineering foundation and 8+ years across machine learning, MLOps, optimization, NLP, and production AI systems.

At 84.51 / Kroger, I build pricing, promotion, forecasting, and targeting systems that operate at enterprise scale. My work spans forecasting models, Pyomo optimization, Databricks and MLflow deployments, drift monitoring, CI/CD, A/B measurement, and production support.

Outside core production ML, I build hands-on GenAI systems: LangGraph agentic coding tools, RAG search systems, full-stack LLM SaaS products, BERT fine-tuning and compression, and QLoRA/SFT/DPO alignment workflows.

How I work

  • Ship models into durable workflows, not isolated notebooks.
  • Connect model quality to business outcomes, adoption, and reliability.
  • Design AI products with evaluation, guardrails, observability, and clear user workflows.

Experience

Production ML, optimization, NLP, and full-stack engineering across enterprise environments.

Senior Data Scientist - Machine Learning / MLOps

84.51 / Kroger

Chicago, IL

Jan 2022 - Present

  • Built and scaled production pricing and promotion optimization systems generating millions of item-location recommendations across enterprise retail workflows, contributing $40M+ in annual incremental profit.
  • Led pickup, delivery, and eCommerce lookalike/lookahead models with 0.84 AUC, scoring 35M+ households and supporting $20M+ in potential value through Databricks, MLflow, drift monitoring, CI/CD, production testing, and A/B measurement.
  • Re-architected digital engagement segmentation across 28M+ households, replacing a legacy rules-based pillar system used by Kroger targeting and marketing teams for personalized digital coupon campaigns.
  • Built RPO-Upkeep, a repricing engine that translates cost changes, competitor price changes, size parity, brand spread, cost constraints, and competitive reactions into production logic with $5M+ potential annual value.
  • Won a 2025 84.51 / Kroger Innovation Days hackathon with Forecast API Copilot, a multi-agent GenAI system using OpenAI Agents SDK, GPT-4o, RAG over ChromaDB, Pydantic validation, internal forecasting APIs, and Gradio.
  • Sustained 90%+ SLA across millions of monthly optimization runs while mentoring junior data scientists and partnering with product, business, engineering, and executive stakeholders.
DatabricksMLflowPySparkSQLPyomoAzureGitHub ActionsOpenAI Agents SDK

Data Scientist - Machine Learning / NLP

Asurion

Remote

Oct 2020 - Dec 2021

  • Reduced Home+ product churn by 20%+ with a churn-risk model built on 100+ customer, engagement, and POS features, deployed on AWS SageMaker for personalized retention strategies.
  • Improved call-center messaging sales per 100 contacts by 15% by fine-tuning and deploying a BERT-based sentiment model on call transcripts for real-time agent recommendations.
  • Built NLP capabilities across customer sentiment, keyword detection, topic mining, call routing, and live agent reply suggestions in partnership with operations, product, and engineering teams.
AWS SageMakerBERTNLPPythonModel Deployment

Associate - Machine Learning / Data Science

Edelweiss Financial Services

Mumbai, India

Apr 2018 - Aug 2019

  • Reduced loan defaults by 30%+ with credit-risk models using demographic, loan-purpose, and geospatial features to predict delinquency probability.
  • Developed customer profiling and segmentation frameworks with PCA, K-Means, and DBSCAN for targeted marketing and delivered Tableau dashboards to senior stakeholders.
Gradient BoostingRandom Forest0.85 AUCPCAK-MeansDBSCANTableau

Application Engineer - Full Stack

Oracle

Bangalore, India

Jul 2014 - Aug 2015

  • Built features for Oracle CRM Cloud across data model design, frontend development, and service-layer integrations while resolving Jira-driven defects and enhancements.
Full-stack EngineeringCRM CloudService IntegrationsJira

Skills

Stack coverage from modeling and LLMs to deployment, data pipelines, cloud, and product surfaces.

AI/ML

PyTorchTensorFlowScikit-learnXGBoostLightGBMBERT/DistilBERTNLPForecastingA/B TestingCausal Inference

GenAI / LLMs

OpenAI Agents SDKLangGraphLangChainCrewAIMCPMulti-Agent SystemsRAGFunction CallingStructured OutputsEmbeddings

MLOps

DatabricksMLflowModel ServingBatch InferenceReal-Time InferenceDrift MonitoringCI/CDGitHub ActionsDockerTerraform

Data Engineering

SQLPySparkDelta LakeETL PipelinesData ValidationTableauLarge-Scale Pipelines

Optimization

PyomoMathematical OptimizationPricing SystemsPromotion OptimizationForecastingBusiness Constraints

Cloud

AWS SageMakerAWS App RunnerECRGCP Cloud RunAzureVercel

Backend / Full-stack

FastAPIREST APIsNext.jsTypeScriptSSE StreamingClerkGradio

Tools

QdrantChromaDBPrefectPydanticHugging FaceGitJiraOpenRouter

Writing

Technical writing that reinforces depth across ML fundamentals and modern AI.

A focused selection of Medium articles that show how I explain AI/ML systems, deployment patterns, recommender systems, NLP, and deep learning clearly.

Medium

These articles show how I explain AI/ML concepts clearly: from transformers and APIs to Spark analytics and deep learning.

View all writing on Medium

Featured series

Build and Learn GPT From Scratch

Four-part PyTorch series explaining transformer fundamentals by implementing a character-level GPT with attention, LayerNorm, residual connections, and a full training loop.

LLMsTransformersPyTorchDeep Learning
Read on Medium

Model serving

From Zero to API: The Data Scientist's Guide to FastAPI

Practical guide for turning data science work into API-backed applications with FastAPI.

FastAPIBackendModel ServingDeployment
Read on Medium

Large-scale analytics

Market Basket Analysis on 3 Million Orders from Instacart

Market basket analysis using Spark on the Instacart orders dataset.

SparkAnalyticsRetailData Engineering
Read on Medium

Deep learning

Image Classification using CNN and Transfer Learning

Applied deep learning article covering convolutional models and transfer learning approaches.

Deep LearningCNNsTransfer LearningComputer Vision
Read on Medium

GitHub / Open Source

A builder footprint across AI tools, RAG products, and research agents.

Education & Certifications

Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and MLOps foundations.

Learning focus

Computer ScienceArtificial IntelligenceMachine LearningDeep LearningMLOpsAI / LLMs

I stay current through structured AI courses, hands-on projects, conferences, papers, and self-learning from YouTube and technical communities.

M.S. Business Analytics

University of Cincinnati

GPA 4.0/4.0, Graduate Merit Scholarship. Focused on applied analytics, machine learning, and data-driven decision systems.

Aug 2019 - Aug 2020

MBA, International Business

Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), New Delhi

Business and strategy foundation for applied analytics and product impact.

Jul 2016 - Mar 2018

B.Tech, Computer Science & Engineering

National Institute of Technology (NIT), Calicut

Computer science foundation across software engineering and systems.

Jul 2010 - Jun 2014

Certifications

  • AI Engineer Agentic Track: The Complete Agent & MCP course

    Udemy

    Issued Nov 2025

    Credential ID UC-34240328-d441-4040-ac8a-fb7775eadbd5

    Hands-on agentic AI development with LangGraph, OpenAI SDK, CrewAI, and Model Context Protocol.

  • LLM Engineering: Master AI, Large Language Models & Agents

    Udemy

    Issued Jun 2025

    Credential ID UC-98c7865f-9dc0-4a6c-92c7-922be614dfld

    End-to-end Generative AI development, LLM APIs, AI applications, and agent workflows.

  • AI Coder / Claude Code

    Udemy

    Self-directed AI engineering coursework

    Practical AI coding assistant workflows and modern developer-agent patterns.

  • LLMOps in Production

    Udemy

    Self-directed AI engineering coursework

    Production patterns for deploying, evaluating, and operating LLM-powered systems.

  • Neural Networks and Deep Learning

    DeepLearning.AI

    Online certification

  • Improving Deep Neural Networks: Hyperparameter Tuning, Regularization and Optimization

    DeepLearning.AI

    Online certification

  • Generative AI fundamentals

    Online certification

    Credential listed on LinkedIn

  • Stanford University Machine Learning

    Stanford University

    Online certification

  • Alation User Brilliance Badge

    Alation

    Credential listed on LinkedIn

Beyond Work

Curious builder, traveler, and lifelong AI learner.

I am a curious soul who loves to travel, meet people, and keep learning. I have studied across three continents, visited 25+ countries, attend AI conferences, and stay close to the fast-moving AI/LLM ecosystem through courses, projects, talks, papers, and self-learning from YouTube.

Global perspective, builder mindset.

I bring the same curiosity to people, places, and ideas that I bring to AI systems.

Studied across three continents
Visited 25+ countries
Attend AI conferences and builder events
Passionate about AI, LLMs, and continuous self-learning
Saket Garodia at a Vercel event
AI and builder community
Saket Garodia travel photo
Travel and people
Saket Garodia personal photo
Curiosity beyond work
Saket Garodia travel memory
Global perspective
Saket Garodia personal memory
Learning through places
Saket Garodia personal travel photo
25+ countries and counting

Contact

Available for senior AI/ML, applied AI, GenAI, MLOps, and data science roles.

Best fit: teams building production AI products, high-impact ML systems, RAG/agentic workflows, optimization engines, or data science platforms with real users.

Let us talk about production AI systems.

I am open to AI/ML Engineer, Applied AI Engineer, Senior Data Scientist, GenAI Engineer, and MLOps roles across SF Bay Area, Seattle, NYC, and remote teams.