David C. Leberknight

CURRICULUM VITAE

I am a seasoned consultant, solution architect, and technical leader with diverse experience, including cloud-based AI. I can lead projects, manage stakeholders, solve complex challenges, and deliver results. I can code too. The AI revolution is here, and I am dedicated to understanding how it works and how to apply it in practice.

WORK EXPERIENCE

8090 Solutions, Inc. and CacheQ Systems, Inc. / Remote from Tauranga, New Zealand
Member of Technical Staff : February 2024 - January 2025

• Improved AI performance on AWS Neuron and Google TPU chips, achieved by optimizing the mathematics for LLM attention (High-Performance Computing).

• Software architect for CqTorch, a drop-in replacement for PyTorch that uses gRPC to automatically send ML workloads to cloud GPUs from edge devices.

• Developed a compiler pass to optimize sharding large tensors across multiple GPUs.

• Technologies used: PyTorch, Python, C++, AWS SageMaker, Git, Docker, MLIR.

• The 8090 HPC team was brought over from CacheQ, and then laid off, despite successfully delivering on our mission.

2014 - 2023 : Sabbatical.

• Dedicated study of cloud design and AI, with certifications: AWS Machine Learning (2023), AWS Solutions Architect (2022), CompTIA Security+ (2022)

Inland Revenue Department / Wellington, New Zealand
Consulting Principal Enterprise Architect : 2012 – 2013 (18 month contract)

• Principal Solution Architect for New Zealand's tax department.

• Responsible for delivering solution designs for all I.T. change projects such that they aligned with enterprise strategy.

• Member of the Enterprise Architecture Leadership Team.

• Matrix-managed up to 15 Enterprise Solution Architects.

• Co-chair of the Enterprise Architecture Council.

• Chair of fortnightly meetings with the Principal I.T. Consultants (operations team).

• De-facto Security Architect, and author of the Information Security Reference Architecture document.

• Implemented significant improvements to the Solution Architecture process.

Solnet Solutions Ltd. / Wellington, New Zealand
Senior Consultant : 2010 - 2012

• Prior to my promotion to Principal Solution Architect at IRD NZ (described above), I designed the system for taxpayers to opt in for email notifications by topic. This project delivered the Party Management Application (including a domain model for Identity) plus a new Service-Oriented framework.

• For the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC), I designed and delivered the eGateway, a web service for health-care providers to submit forms over a secure channel.

Jade Software Corporation Ltd. / Christchurch, New Zealand
Delivery Manager New Zealand : 2008 - 2009

• Managed numerous software teams ala Prince2. Scrum Master for several agile teams.

• This was my first job in New Zealand. Prior to this, I led a successful consulting company in the USA.

Software Federation, Inc. ( SFI ) / Colorado, USA
Co-Founder / Principal Partner and Consultant : 1996 - 2007

• Sales and contract negotiations, but mostly hands-on consulting for SFI clients.

SFI Client: Xilinx, Inc. / Colorado, USA
Principal Consultant : 2007

• Introduced VMware Enterprise technology to Xilinx's Computer Farm Services group.

Latis Networks, Inc. (Still Secure) / Colorado, USA
Director of Product Engineering : 2006

• Project manager and technical lead for the Cobia Unified Network Platform, designed to integrate open-source TCP/IP components (router, DNS, DHCP, Firewall, ...) with a great browser interface. Brainstormed requirements, recruited team members, designed the software, led the agile team, and coded core infrastructure.

SFI Client: National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR / UCAR) / Colorado, USA
Principal Consultant : 1997 - 2003 (various roles)

• Recipient of NCAR / UCAR's 2001 Outstanding Accomplishment Award for Scientific and Technical Advancement - for the 4DWX project (Four Dimensional Weather Engineering), a comprehensive suite of state-of-the-art tools for meteorologists. As the Software Engineering lead, I led an agile effort to redesign the system to make it scalable and modular (this involved pair programming in Java, a great way to mentor the team).

• Primary consultant for an enterprise-wide business-process re-engineering effort, creating analysis models that were used to identify operational inefficiencies.

• Invited lecturer on Commercial Middleware for a workshop on I.T. strategy.

University of Colorado (CU - Boulder)
Department of Computer Science, Faculty / Lecturer : 1999 - 2002
Division of Continuing Education : 1997 - 1998

• Course author for CSCI 4448: Object-Oriented Programming and Design. Topics include: Java, C++, UML, OO design patterns, multi-threaded concurrency, databases, architecture, and (agile) project management. Software Engineering in the wild.

• The lecture notes are online as PDF files: www.Leberknight.com/csci4448.html

• Here's an example JavaScript program with which you can create Fractal Art.

• Also taught Advanced C++ evening classes for adults.

Early Career / Colorado, USA
Consultant and Software Engineer : 1987 - 1997