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Richard OkonichaRO
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Richard Okonicha

@richardokonicha

I architect sovereign AI clouds, agentic systems, and high-scale infrastructure platforms.

Zimbabwe
Message

What I'm looking for

I'm looking to architect and ship AI, cloud, and distributed infrastructure systems where I can solve complex technical problems, work closely with customers, and deliver measurable improvements in performance, reliability, and cost.

At Fugoku, I architected a sovereign AI cloud on bare-metal OpenStack with GPU/TPU compute, an LLM gateway, model routing, and automated failover—reducing inference latency to under 50ms in Lagos and tenant operational costs by 65%.

I've also built AI integrations at MindsDB, enterprise AI pipelines at AI365Services, and resilient multi-tenant systems at InferenceCloud.ai and Swell. My work spans Python, Go, Kubernetes, OpenStack, LLM serving, fine-tuning, distributed systems, and full-stack product delivery, including ML forecasting that reduced forecast error by 30% and health platforms used across 12 Nigerian states.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Fugoku logoFU
Current

Lead Systems Architect

Oct 2025 - Present (11 months)

Architected sovereign AI cloud platform on bare-metal OpenStack with GPU/TPU compute fabric; engineered LLM gateway with custom
model-routing, LiteLLM, and Helicone analytics. Built orchestration layer with SkyPilot, automated failover, and browser-based terminal
(xterm.js). Reduced inference latency from 300ms+ (EU) to <50ms (Lagos); cut tenant operational costs by 65% via microservices
migration

MindsDB logoMI
Current

AI Integrations Expert (Open Source Contributor)

Sep 2025 - Present (1 year)

- Build and maintain core AI integrations enabling developers to query LLMs via SQL workflows. Collaborate with the core engineering team
on production-grade model serving and automated fine-tuning pipelines.
Stack: Python, SQL, MindsDB Core, Model Serving, LLM Integrations

AI365Services logoAI

AI Systems Architect

Jan 2026 - Apr 2026 (3 months)

- Architected AI adoption strategies for enterprise transition to agent-driven systems. Implemented Turbo Quant quantization on self-hosted
LLMs, optimizing VRAM and inference throughput. Built production AI pipelines with LoRA fine-tuning, function-calling accuracy
optimization, and agentic harnesses with guardrails and human-in-the-loop fallback.
Stack: Python, Turbo Quant, LoRA, OpenClaw, Herme

InferenceCloud.ai logoIN

Senior Infrastructure Engineer

Sep 2024 - Nov 2025 (1 year 2 months)

- Led enterprise application architecture for Swiss AI writing platform with strict multi-tenant isolation. Resolved high-concurrency race
condition in async request queue, eliminating production 500 errors. Redesigned request pipeline for enterprise traffic spikes; served as
technical liaison between stakeholders and engineering teams.
Stack: Python, Tenant Isolation, High-Concurrency Queues, Doc

Swell logoSW

Senior Engineer (Storefront )

Jan 2022 - Aug 2024 (2 years 7 months)

- Owned the core storefront theme engine and spearheaded feature development for a next-generation, high-scale enterprise SaaS platform.
Designed a resilient Stripe payment architecture processing thousands of concurrent global transactions daily. Refactored the checkout
pipeline to eliminate distributed state race conditions, resolving duplicate transaction charge bugs. Built a containerized clie

Cardagraph logoCA

Senior Engineer & Architect ( Core Team )

Dec 2020 - Dec 2022 (2 years)

- Designed production ML pipelines forecasting software delivery timelines; built predictive analytics engine reducing forecast error by 30%.
- Architected full-stack interfaces and integrated ML engine into client dashboards via high-performance REST APIs.
Stack: Python, React.js, Docker, PostgreSQL, REST APIs, Feature Engineering

The Linux Foundation logoTF

Backend Engineer ( Covid19 Rapid Response Team - Public Health )

Mar 2020 - Nov 2020 (8 months)

- Built high-throughput REST API backend for large-scale contact-tracing/exposure notification application (By Linux Foundation in partnership with Kiel university; COVID19 ). Isolated and
patched a critical memory leak in the upstream MongoDB driver causing system degradation under peak traffic loads. Optimized database
query paths and connection pooling to ensure uninterrupted availability durin

eHealth4everyone logoEH

Team Lead ( Python App Development Team )

Mar 2018 - Feb 2020 (1 year 11 months)

Led team of 6 engineers building health data systems for government clients. Designed OpenHisa health insurance system deployed
across 12 Nigerian states; engineered MSDAT platform (Gates Foundation) serving 10,000+ users. Refactored legacy database paths,eliminating N+1 query patterns to reduce critical API latencies by 40%.
Stack: Python, Django, React.js, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Docker, Kubernetes

Swedish Nigerian Accelerator Program ( Ideon Science Park & Lion Scien logoSS

Software Engineer and Startup Founder

May 2016 - Aug 2018 (2 years 3 months)

- Selected for international accelerator focused on agile development and VC fundraising. Architected and shipped multiple MVPs from
scratch in Python and JavaScript under constrained timelines.
Stack: Python, JavaScript, Shell Scripting, MVP Architecture

Education

Degrees, certifications, and relevant coursework

HU

Harvard University

CS50 (Certificate), Computer Engineering

2020 - 2021

Advanced Computer Science Concepts
Memory Management
Algorithms
Data Structures
Arrays
Database Systems
Problem-Solving Techniques
Web Technologies
Programming Languages: C and Python
Cloud Fundamentals
Distributed Systems
Course Director: Dr. David Mulan (Ph.D.)

UN

University of Nigeria, Nsukka

BSC Degree, Mechanical Engineering

2015 - 2019

Startup Involvements:
Roar Start-Up Incubation Hub - Cohort 4
Rotary Club
Cedars Group
Nigerian Universities
Startup Creation
Best Time Ever!

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