Stan Furrer - AI/ML Engineer 🦾

Stan Furrer

Sr. AI Engineer @ IBM

AI/ML EngineeringDataOps & MLOps

GenAI (Text, Image, Audio)Deep LearningMachine Learning

MSc Robotics & Data Science • ETHZ - EPFL
BSc Microengineering • EPFL

About Me

I'm a Senior AI Engineer at IBM, passionate about crafting robust, large scale, and high-impact AI systems.

With 4+ years of experience, I specialize in transforming cutting-edge research into production-ready solutions that deliver measurable business value.

Core Expertise

  • DL/ML – Large-scale distributed ML training (Transformers, CNNs, LSTMs), production model development (XGBoost, Logistic Regression, KNN, ...), and experimentation at scale (A/B tests, bandits, latency optimization).
  • Multi-Agent – Graph & state-based interactions with multi-threading, async orchestration, memory & latency optimization
  • LLM Post-Training – SFT, DPO, GRPO, LoRAx for model fine-tuning and optimization
  • LLM Inference – Kubernetes, vLLM, speculative decoding, continuous batching, and DeepSpeed
  • RAG – Dual ingestion pipeline (Async CP / Sync AP) with reranker funnel, NDCG evaluation, contextual understanding and many more...
  • MCP Protocols – Model Communication & integration standards

Technically I am deeply interested into

  • Large Scale Distributed design – Scrum, Kubernetes, GPUs, Ray.
  • Inference services – Docker, ONNX, vLLM, DeepSpeed, TensorRT.
  • Memory/compute optimization – Quantize, mixed precision, Distill.
  • Pyspark Optimization – Yarn UI, caching, Disk spillage, partitioning
  • Evaluation – offline/online metrics, A/B testing, contextual bandits
  • Monitoring – model drift, Prometheus/Grafana, latency tracing, alerting
  • Deployment – CI/CD, Canary rollout, autoscaling, on-device inference
while True:
    raw_data = ingest_from_sensors()
    data = clean_and_transform(raw_data)
    insights = run_ml_pipeline(data)
    deploy_action(insights)

[PSEUDO CODE]
Synergy of bachelor's in Microengineering and Master's in Data Science & Robotics

Technical Skills

Programming

Expert Python, Spark, GoLang
Proficient C/C++, SQL, HTML, CSS

ML Frameworks

PyTorch (Lightning), TensorFlow, Keras, Scikit-Learn, DeepSpeed, vLLM

Development Tools

Git & GitHub, Bash/UNIX, Jenkins, Poetry

Cloud & Deployment

AWS, Azure, Docker, Kafka, Elasticsearch

Operating Systems

Linux, Windows, macOS

Distributed Computing

SLURM, Kubernetes, DDP, Multiprocessing, Async IO, Spark Clusters

My Professional Experiences

Sr. AI Engineer

Feb 2024 - Today

Scaled fine-tuning & agentic framework into a global product used across IBM as a Core Dev & Tech Lead.
Optimized GPU finetuning (SFT, DPO, GRPO, LoRaX) and built async multi-threading agents with RAG and MCP integration using Kubernetes, vLLM, and DeepSpeed.
Co-led IBM Synthetic Data generation and delivered 20+ enterprise use cases — eg. agentic CI/CD, Neo4j-based KYC, and SQL-generating — driving multi-million-dollar impact.

Challenges
Large Scale Systems and Lead Cross-Function Team.

Data Scientist

Feb 2022 - Feb 2024

RAG over 1M+ legal docs, featured in Microsoft Customer Story
Optimized terabyte-scale ETL and ML pipelines, reducing compute costs by 30% for hedge-fund strategies.
Fine-tuned FinBERT for NER and text classification.
Deputy Tech Lead (MLOps), guiding 10+ developers.

Challenges
Optimized Pipelines and first steps in leadership.

ML Research Assistant - EPFL

Feb 2021 - June 2021

Research project at EPFL's LASA Laboratory (Prof. Aude Billard) on real-time robotic manipulation using auditory and tactile inputs. Developed an LSTM–CNN model to enhance grasp stability in high-speed industrial robots, in C++ on ROS.

Challenges
Low Inference and robust to environment's changes.

ML Engineer Intern

Sep 2020 - Feb 2021

Led a deep learning project for early tremor detection, achieving an F1-score of 0.91 using LSTM–CNN models. The system analyzed keyboard and mouse dynamics to predict neurological disorders, with focus on SHAP interpretability.
Designed MLOps pipelines, A/B testing, and optimization.

Challenges
Unbalanced data and interpretability.

Business Developer - SMATCH

Feb 2016 - Feb 2018

Contributed for two years to developing a sports connectivity platform at a dynamic startup, analyzing user data to drive 50,000+ user growth and secure funding in Lausanne.

Challenges
Multidisciplinary - balance simplicity and perfection.

Teaching Assistant

Aug 2017 - Sep 2017

Teaching in Maths, Physics, and Biology in Primary School at College Arnold Reymond.

Challenges
Bringing clarity out of ambiguity.

My Selection of Projects

Thesis : Robust Loss image–text retrieval

Feb 2021 - Sep 2021

Master's Thesis at ETH Zurich (Prof. Roger Wattenhofer) — developed a robust multimodal contrastive framework for vision-language transformers, enabling image–text retrieval and enhancing cross-modal alignment through adversarial self-supervision. Trained large-scale models (50 x Nvidia V100) using PyTorch, DeepSpeed, SLURM.

Challenges
Manage Large Scale distributed computing.

Dimensionality Reduction

Feb 2020 - Jul 2020

Analyzed LLE and its improved variant across stability, topology, and classification metrics, benchmarking against t-SNE and UMAP.

Challenges
Defining geometry-preserving manifold metrics.

BERT Emotion finetuning

Feb 2020 - Jul 2020

Built a speaker-aligned dataset and fine-tuned BERT for emotion detection, assessing EmoBERT in social bot scenarios.

Challenges
First hands-on the transformer-based architecture.

Meta-Learner LSTM Few-Shot

Feb 2020 - Jul 2020

Enhanced Ravi & Larochelle's few-shot LSTM meta-learner with a GRU architecture and broader experiments for deeper analysis.

Challenges
PyTorch-to-TensorFlow translation.

Reinforcement Learning Pong

May 2019 - Jun 2019

Compared two policy-gradient methods, Actor-Critic and Advantage Actor-Critic (A2C), approaches for Pong training in PyGame.

Challenges
Tuning optimal hyperparameters.

Awards & Achievements

1st / 250 teams

Hackathon Microsoft x IBM

May 2024
  • Integrate a Multi-Agents system in Microsoft Teams-Call for smarter, data-driven decisions
  • Agents leverage; function call (Web scraping), RAG (internal DB), Tool (email, Jira), Whisper (Audio-to-text for RAG).
2nd / 230 teams

Hackathon UBS

Nov 2023
  • Legal Document Intelligence – Multi-agent RAG on Azure
  • Production-ready and currently used across the Bank.
2nd / 130 teams

Hackathon Databricks

Sep 2023
  • Jira Intelligence Assistant – RAG Q&A system for jira tickets.
  • Developed in Python, scaled in Pyspark, and deployed on MLFlow.
Select

50 Years Event @ EPFL

Sep 2019
  • Developed flexible, biocompatible thin-film sensor in cleanroom for vein temperature and blood flow measurements.
  • Built a C++ ESP32 interface for data acquisition.
1st / 1,700 participants

High Frequency Trading Poster

Dec 2015
  • 1st place among 1,700 EPFL students for the best poster analyzing latest high-frequency trading algorithm.

My Vision for Artificial Intelligence

I believe the next evolution of Artificial Intelligence lies not in larger models, but in integrated intelligence — efficient systems that run at the edge, embedded across our devices.

LLMs and MLLMs are becoming the computational kernel of modern operating systems, orchestrating data, tools, and actions in real time while adapting to each user’s context and preferences.

By compressing and distilling knowledge, we bring reasoning closer to where information lives — enabling generative and traditional ML to work seamlessly together.

This shift will redefine our relationship with technology, transforming devices into intelligent collaborators that act, learn, and evolve with us.

Proud to help build this new era of intelligence. 🚀