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Orhan Kislal

@orhankislal

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I build database and ML infrastructure, improving distributed analytics, vector search, and SQL performance.

United States

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What I'm looking for

I'm looking to build AI-driven database and cloud-efficiency infrastructure, working closely with database and platform engineering teams on distributed SQL performance, vector search, and ML-enabled systems.

I'm building an AI-assisted platform at QueryScale AI to optimize query performance in distributed SQL systems, detecting execution-plan inefficiencies, data skew, and indexing gaps across large-scale workloads.

At Microsoft, I maintained diskANN vector indexing for PostgreSQL and integrated LlamaIndex and LangChain with Azure PostgreSQL for retrieval-augmented generation workflows. I also resolved a critical bottleneck that improved performance by about 4X in scaled-out Citus PostgreSQL clusters and Azure Flexible Servers.

Over more than eight years at VMware, I enhanced Apache MADlib and Greenplum Database, led the advanced analytics team, and served as a MADlib committer and release manager. My work included distributed graph analytics, geospatial capabilities, CI pipelines, low-latency prediction services, and roughly 10X improvements to correlation and association-rules algorithms.

I bring 13+ years of database, distributed analytics, machine learning infrastructure, and performance-engineering work, grounded in a Ph.D. focused on hardware-aware computation for memory-intensive applications.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Founder / Principal Engineer

Current

QueryScale AI

Jan 2026 - Present (8 months)

Building an AI-assisted platform for query performance optimization in distributed SQL systems. Designing systems to detect execution plan inefficiencies, data skew, and indexing gaps across large-scale workloads.

AI SQL Distributed Systems Performance Optimization

Software Engineer

Microsoft

Jul 2024 - Oct 2025 (1 year 3 months)

Maintained and improved diskANN vector indexing library for PostgreSQL to support vector search workloads. Integrated retrieval-augmented generation platforms with Azure PostgreSQL to enable RAG workflows.

PostgreSQL DiskANN LlamaIndex Lang Chain Azure Database For PostgreSQL Citus Performance Optimization

Staff Software Engineer

VMware

Jan 2016 - Jul 2024 (8 years 6 months)

Maintained and enhanced machine-learning routines in the MADlib software library for distributed databases. Served as technical lead and release manager for Apache MADlib, delivering major improvements in core algorithms.

MADlib Greenplum PostgreSQL Machine Learning Geospatial Analytics Graph Analytics CI CD Deep Learning Gemfire Apache Geode

Compiler Optimization Intern

Intel

Sep 2015 - Dec 2015 (3 months)

Analyzed performance of Intel's LLVM compiler across benchmark suites to assess optimization impacts. Debugged regressions introduced by newly developed optimizations for Intel compilers.

LLVM ILO Performance Analysis Debugging

Research Assistant

The Pennsylvania State University

Aug 2010 - Aug 2015 (5 years)

Developed techniques to improve k-means clustering performance via computation skipping and data locality optimizations. Optimized sparse matrix-vector multiplication on multicore systems and explored graph algorithms for online data locality improvements.

KMeans Clustering Sparse Matrix Computation graph algorithms Cache Optimization

Teaching Assistant

The Pennsylvania State University

Aug 2009 - Aug 2015 (6 years)

Supported courses including Programming Language Concepts, OOP with Web Applications, C++ Programming for Engineers, and Data Structures and Algorithms. Provided feedback on assignments and exams and offered guidance to over 200 students.

Teaching Programming Languages C++Data Structures Algorithms

Performance Analysis Intern

Intel

Jul 2014 - Dec 2014 (5 months)

Analyzed performance of advanced driving assistance systems across Intel and NVIDIA platforms. Explored use cases for Intel gateways in Internet of Things and data analytics solutions.

Performance Analysis IoT Data Analysis

Process Technology Modeling Intern

Intel

May 2013 - Aug 2013 (3 months)

Designed and implemented a Non-uniform FFT (NUFFT) application with two levels of parallelism using OpenMP and MPI. Explored data structures to optimize performance and accuracy of NUFFT implementations.

NUFFT OpenMP MPI Performance Optimization