Open to opportunities

Vanessa Umar

@vanessaumar

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Experienced software and AI engineer specializing in production-ready ML systems and applied computer vision.

United States

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What I'm looking for

I seek senior engineering roles building production ML/AI systems with practical impact, collaborative teams, strong testing, and opportunities to improve model safety and reliability.

I am a software engineer with a decade of experience building and launching AI systems that handle real-world data, flawed models, and production bugs. I specialize at the intersection of engineering and applied ML, turning research ideas into dependable pipelines and practical tools for teams.

My work spans computer vision, video/audio analysis, NLP, and LLM workflows, using Python and C++ alongside PyTorch/TensorFlow, Kafka/GStreamer, and AWS. I have led efforts on prompt engineering, RAG, LangChain, evaluation rubrics, and guardrails to keep model behavior consistent and safe.

I focus on practical ML delivery: clear label and data formats, repeatable experiments, robust evaluation, and collaboration with cross-functional teams to ship reliable, maintainable systems in production.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

AI Software Engineer

Outlier AI

Aug 2022 - Dec 2025 (3 years 4 months)

Developed prompt workflows, evaluation rubrics, and test cases to keep LLM responses consistent and safe, reducing labeling disagreements and early failure modes. Coordinated cross-team feedback to align model behavior with real-world usage.

Prompt Engineering LLM Evaluation Feedback Quality Systems

Machine Learning Engineer

Scale AI

May 2017 - Aug 2022 (5 years 3 months)

Led data-quality and annotation guideline efforts to improve training datasets, optimizing sampling and review methods to balance speed and label reliability. Produced repeatable evaluations and summaries to drive model improvements.

Data Labeling Model Evaluation Annotations Machine Learning

Junior Software Developer

MJH Life Sciences

Nov 2014 - Feb 2017 (2 years 3 months)

Built and maintained web features and backend services for healthcare publishing, focusing on reliability, accessibility, and editor usability to streamline content workflows. Delivered UI components and internal tools in collaboration with editorial teams.

JavaScript TypeScript React HTML CSS Backend Services Accessibility

Software Engineering Intern

Salesforce

Aug 2013 - Oct 2014 (1 year 2 months)

Implemented internal web-app features and backend tools, adopting production best practices like code reviews and testing to deliver readable, maintainable code. Participated in sprint planning and debugging across the team.