Peter Rifel
@peterrifel
I build production AI platforms, retrieval systems, and enterprise LLM agents at scale.
United StatesWhat I'm looking for
At Glean, I own retrieval architecture and the agentic reasoning engine behind Glean Agents, automating multi-step work across Slack, Jira, and other enterprise tools.
I redesigned hybrid retrieval to combine vector search and keyword matching, improving search quality by roughly 20%. I also built permission-aware retrieval, LLM evaluation, model routing, and observability systems for large enterprise deployments.
Previously at NICE, I built the Enlighten NLP inference stack and delivered the first GPT integration in enterprise contact center software. I designed RAG, PII masking, and cost-optimization systems that supported compliance-sensitive AI workloads.
At Google, I worked on BigQuery, Cloud ML Engine, and the AI Platform infrastructure that later shipped as Vertex AI. Across 14 years, I’ve built reliable ML infrastructure, led engineering teams, and brought production AI products from early systems to enterprise scale.
Experience
Work history, roles, and key accomplishments
Redesigned the core retrieval pipeline to combine semantic vector search with keyword matching, improving search quality by roughly 20% across the document corpus. Built permission enforcement directly into vector retrieval and led the agentic reasoning engine behind Glean Agents.
Staff Software Engineer, Conversational AI & LLM Integration
Mar 2019 - Aug 2023 (4 years 5 months)
Built the NLP inference service from scratch and delivered the industry's first GPT integration in contact center software. Designed the RAG pipeline behind CXone Expert and reduced LLM inference cost per interaction by about 65%.
Led a sub-team of 6 engineers building the unified ML development infrastructure that later shipped as Vertex AI. Prototyped the Feature Store and presented the AI Platform unification roadmap at Google Cloud Next 2018.
Software Engineer to Senior Software Engineer, Cloud Platform
Jun 2012 - Dec 2016 (4 years 6 months)
Spent four and a half years across BigQuery and Cloud ML Engine, growing from new hire to the engineer leading reliability and ML infrastructure work on both teams. Shipped Cloud ML Engine's training orchestration at the 2016 beta launch.
Education
Degrees, certifications, and relevant coursework
Michigan State University
Bachelor of Science, Computer Science
2008 - 2012
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Michigan State University, completed in 2012.
Availability
Location
United StatesAuthorized to work in
Salary expectations
Job categories
Skills
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