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Salih Siddiqi

@salihsiddiqi

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Senior ML Engineer with 7+ yrs experience in LLMs, RAG, GenAI, and scalable AI systems.

Germany

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What I'm looking for

I seek a dynamic role where I can leverage my AI expertise to drive impactful projects and foster innovation within a collaborative team.

I’m a Senior Machine Learning Engineer and LLM Platform Engineer with deep experience building large-scale AI systems, high-performance search, and production-grade ML infrastructure. My work spans multimodal RAG pipelines, transformer-based recommendation engines, diffusion and generative models, and enterprise LLM orchestration at scale.

I’ve designed and deployed end-to-end AI platforms—covering fine-tuning, evaluation, multi-tenant training, distributed inference (vLLM), and GPU-optimized serving. I also build robust backend architectures using FastAPI, Django, PostgreSQL, and Kubernetes, with strong focus on performance, observability, and scalability.

Across roles at NexGen Cloud, Holi, StudySmarter, and JustWatch, I’ve delivered systems such as real-time RAG chatbots, multi-agent pipelines, transformer-based search and recommendation engines, automated data pipelines, and distributed ML workflows—consistently improving latency, relevance, and user engagement.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Current

Holi GmbH

May 2024 - Present (1 year 7 months)

Built RAG pipelines using vLLM, Typesense with real-time streaming, and PEFT fine-tuning of open-weight models, boosting search performance by 40%. Spearheaded diffusion-based pipelines and advanced TTS to transform natural language prompts into rich multimedia content, leveraging agentic frameworks and vector databases to create autonomous agents.

Senior Machine Learning Engineer

StudySmarter GmbH

Oct 2021 - Present (4 years 2 months)

Built a search engine using transformer-based semantic vectorization in ElasticSearch and deployed a two-tower neural network to boost content relevance by 30%. Developed conversational AI engines using GPT-like models, implementing features like Explain-AI, Exam-AI, and Mind Maps, employing prompt engineering, PEFT, and RAG for personalized learning.

Machine Learning Engineer

JustWatch GmbH

Oct 2019 - Present (6 years 2 months)

Developed an unsupervised learning system to address user-level cold start challenges, boosting key performance indicators by 10%. Introduced a Transformer-based hybrid recommendation engine for streaming content, increasing personalized suggestions and discovered content by 36%, and achieved 10x speed improvements in collaborative filtering via GPU-accelerated ALS/Matrix Factorization.

Team Lead

CDS Group

Apr 2016 - Present (9 years 8 months)

Led a team of four engineers to drive end-to-end product development and technical strategy, ensuring solutions aligned with long-term business objectives. Managed the entire product lifecycle from requirements gathering to production deployment, while ensuring technical strategies supported CDS Group’s long-term goals.

Team Leadership Product Development Technical Strategy Product Lifecycle Management Requirements Gathering Architecture Design Real Time Guard Patrol Management System NFC Tags Web Applications Timetronic Platform PyTorch Job Posting Matching Agile Workflows Continuous Improvement Testing AngularJS Ionic SQL

Software Engineer

Confiz Limited

Jul 2014 - Present (11 years 5 months)

Contributed to an award-winning email and audience development solution for top-tier publishers, enhancing targeted campaign delivery and optimizing user engagement through robust architecture and implementation. Developed a comprehensive Android application serving as a digital medical directory, enabling remote diagnosis by efficiently matching patient symptoms with relevant healthcare providers

Campaign Delivery User Engagement Digital Medical Directory Patient Symptom Matching Healthcare Provider Matching Technical Leadership Big Data NoSQL Databases Java 8 Spring Framework Java EE Python Apache Torque ActiveMQ SonarQube Ruby on Rails PostgreSQL Jenkins

Software Development Intern

ICI Pakistan Limited

May 2013 - Present (12 years 7 months)

Worked on the integration of SAP and Microsoft SharePoint. Contributed to streamlining business processes through effective system integration.

Microsoft SharePoint System Integration

Education

Degrees, certifications, and relevant coursework

Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

MS Computer Science, Computer Science

Specialized in Cognitive Technical Systems, focusing on Machine Learning, Reinforcement Learning, Computer Vision, and Deep Natural Language Processing. Gained expertise in areas such as Information Retrieval, Robotics, Recommendation Systems, and Distributed Systems.