Alexey Kuntsevich

Data professional, PhD Candidate in Physics

Summary

Data professional with 16 years of hands-on experience specializing in data science, machine learning, data engineering, and enterprise information system development. I work on ML-heavy projects since 2016 and for the last 3 years I’m focusing on language modeling. I’ve applied my in-depth technical knowledge to solve complex problems in insurance and digital marketing domains, using proactive and structured approaches. I have a strong track record in guiding teams through complete product life cycles, from requirements collection to model deployment. As a technologist, my primary focus is on employing cutting-edge data modeling and machine learning techniques to address intricate business challenges. I’m adept at collaborating with both technical and non-technical stakeholders, leveraging agile methodologies for effective project management. I’m currently seeking a technical role to contribute to the development of the language model technology and engineering.

Job history

Allianz SE,

2021 - present

Language model engineer

• Fine-tuning models for specific domains: I’ve refined and fine-tuned language models to adapt to a particular area of knowledge and vocabulary, noticeably improving their performance and relevance.
• Training automation: I’ve designed and build an automated training&evaluation pipeline for Flan-T5/Flan-UL2 and LayoutLM models, to enable faster training&feedback cycles for the end-users.
• Model integration and optimization: I’ve optimized language models for internal k8s-based serving, streamlining the integration process with various products and services. 4 applications went live to be actively used by stakeholders, more are in development.
• I’ve improved prompting for document Q&A specific applications to improve the quality of model responses.
• Code Optimization: I’ve taken the initiative to refine the code for T5 model family, particularly by enhancing encoder output caching and supporting larger context lengths. This has resulted in significant improvements in processing efficiency and model performance.
• LLM enablement: I develop documentation and materials to let the business stakeholder and technical teams decide for their path to integrate, serve and develop LLMs for their business cases. I run an internal LLM leaderboard, similar to one from huggingface for internal LLMs and benchmarks.

2020 - 2021

Senior Data Scientist

• Gradually introduced a number of technologies and development approaches to enable team’s process and product scalability. That resulted in smaller development iterations and more reliable delivery of products.
• I drove smooth migration of data products from an on-premise infrastructure into the cloud while keeping the services uninterrupted.
• Developed an MLOps application framework which increased the team velocity by streamlining backlog.

Flixbus, Munich

2017 - 2020

Senior data scientist/Product owner, leading 6-people team in marketing automation domain.

• Modeling: I introduced several modeling and conceptual approaches to the team and led implementation of some of them (portfolio forecasting and optimization, multi-actor simulations, bandit algorithms).
• AI-Driven Solutions: Together with the team, I designed and implemented a large-scale Ad portfolio forecasting and optimization framework, and integrated it into daily operations of digital marketing teams. This contributed to a 15% improvement of marketing ROI.
• Framework Implementation: I’ve introduced and continuously improved a process of reproducible experimentation of the ad portfolio optimization system. It enabled testing of the model improvements in isolation and on a small scale in live system, leading to shortening the model development cycle from several months to 2-3 weeks.
• Team Building: I actively participated in the hiring process and the definition and implementation of the product team setup, contributing to a well-structured and efficient team.
• Knowledge Sharing: I’ve been a speaker for internal and external talks and workshops, raising both technical and domain awareness within the company.

2014 - 2016 CHECK24, Munich

Data engineer, worked on the data warehouse processing insurance contracts data.

• Enabled a team of data scientists through ensuring availability, accessibility and latency of data in internal datasets. Supported a team of data scientists in building, deploying and integration of various models.
• Worked on a migration from Microsoft BI stack to OSS toolset (PostgreSQL, PyData) in order to provide better experience for data science team.
• Drove an end-to-end development of customer behaviour analysis model (including data acquisition, training process optimization and building an interactive visualization dashboard) that helped the business unit in understanding of customer behaviour, and journey, which paved the path toward experimentation and optimization of it, increasing conversion rates and improving customer experience.

2007 - 2014 Apnet LLC (former Amiprint), Moscow

Software developer, later Technical leader

Worked on various public and internal data products for a major international hardware vendor. The deliverables included ETL processes, web dashboards and data management applications deployed on top of Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft BI Suite. Drove technical processes and excellence in a team of 4 software developers. Introduced continuous integration and testing practices. Improved customer experience by introducing SPA approaches in the product development.

Skills

Development stacks Python (poetry, fastapi, pytest), PyData stack (pandas, scikit-learn, seaborn, etc), Rust development stack (cargo, rocket).

Language modeling Huggingface stack, T5x toolset, PyTorch

Databases&storage PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, RabbitMQ, Distributed storage (S3, Minio, Azure blob store)

Process tooling Git, DVC, Jira, Confluence

OPS and Automation Docker, Ansible, Kubernetes, AWS, Debian family of Linux

Methodologies Agile from a perspective of a developer and product owner, scientific method, data-driven decision making, value-driven prioritization, A/B experimentation, writing CV without usage of LLMs

Languages Russian (native), English (working proficiency), German (intermediate)

Just a fan of Vim, tmux, zsh, systemd, tabs, rust programming language, game theory

Education

2012 - 2017 Nizhny Novgorod State university

PhD student on the topic of vacuum electrodynamics in particle accelerators.

Worked on particle accelerator electromagnetic field configuration improvement in order to achieve better electronic beam precision and focus by reducing harmful effects of beam oscillation.

2003 - 2009 Nizhny Novgorod State university

Diploma in physics on the topic of vacuum electrodynamics.

Certificates

CSPO Certified Scrum product owner, 2019-2022.

AWS Solution architect - Professional

MCP Multiple Microsoft certifications on SQL Server (development, administration, BI suite) and .NET development

Sun microsystems SCWCD, SCBCD, SCJP

PostgreSQL Certified PostgreSQL associate