David Rivard
Software Engineer
Software engineer focused on backend systems, data pipelines, and machine learning infrastructure. Experienced with Python, C++, Linux clusters, and cloud deployments.
7+ Yrs
Software Development
3.9
GPA (B.S. CS)
High Throughput
ETL & Data Pipelines
Full Stack
Web & Cloud Systems
Professional Experience
Engineering roles across cloud infrastructure, data pipelines, backend services, and automated systems.
Click any position title to view full system details.
Software Engineer →Apr 2025 - Present
DTE Energy, Grant-Funded (Remote)
- Built a real-time data pipeline across 400+ industrial sensors and analog meters, maintaining 98% uptime during sensor dropouts and cutting data latency by 90 seconds.
- Designed and built deep learning time-series forecasting models from scratch, boosting next-day steam heating demand accuracy from an 81% baseline to 94%.
- Created live operational dashboards and automated anomaly alerting workflows with human operator sign-off before boiler adjustments.
AI Research Engineer →May 2025 - Aug 2025
University of Central Florida, Center for Research in Computer Vision (Orlando, FL)
- Managed distributed model training and evaluation sweeps across multi-node GPU clusters with up to 50 concurrent jobs.
- Built multiprocessing data loaders to clean, validate, and curate over 30 million images, reducing data preparation time by over 100 hours.
- Evaluated model checkpoints against physical distance thresholds, achieving 35.87% accuracy within 25 km on the IM2GPS3K benchmark.
AI Research Engineer →Aug 2024 - May 2025
Lake Superior State University (Sault Ste. Marie, MI)
- Implemented autoregressive Transformer language models from scratch in code, exploring self-attention mechanisms and token-packing data loaders.
- Built a semantic search retrieval pipeline using vector embeddings to ground model responses in verified technical reference documentation.
- Authored formal research posters and delivered live technical demonstrations on attention weight distributions to university faculty and leadership.
Software Engineer →Aug 2024 - May 2025
Lake Superior State University (Sault Ste. Marie, MI)
- Built an automated computer vision tracking system to detect and track Low Earth Orbit satellites in real time at 120 frames per second.
- Combined orbital propagation math with closed-loop motor control to steer camera mounts and keep fast-moving targets centered across overhead passes.
- Developed operator scheduling interfaces and live telemetry feeds to track pass verification metrics and pointing accuracy.
Software Engineer (Contract) →Jan 2024 - May 2024
Chippewa County Information Systems (Sault Ste. Marie, MI)
- Modernized county operations by replacing an unstable shared desktop database with a centralized web application and RESTful backend.
- Migrated all historical county equipment and document records to a normalized relational database with zero downtime and zero data loss.
- Built custom in-app administrative tools for user management, role-based access control, audit logging, and compliance export reports.
Freelance Software Developer →Jan 2019 - Dec 2022
Independent Client Engagements
- Delivered dozens of custom client applications from design through production deployment (0 to 1), including web platforms, native desktop software, and mobile tools.
- Built large-scale data pipelines that processed and visualized high-volume datasets, helping clients uncover trends and automate reporting.
- Overhauled legacy client applications to fix critical bugs, eliminate performance bottlenecks, and modernize outdated tech stacks.
- Engineered custom solutions integrating real-time sensors, automation workflows, computer vision, OCR, and voice processing.
Technical Skills
Core engineering domains, frameworks, tools, and infrastructure.
AI & Machine Learning
Deep learning models, vision pipelines, acceleration runtimes, and agentic workflows.
Deep Learning & LLMs
PyTorchKerasTransformersQwen2.5-VLKimi-VLLoRA / QLoRADirect Preference Optimization (DPO)SimPOSupervised Fine-Tuning (SFT)Curriculum LearningML.NET
Computer Vision
OpenCVYOLO (Object Detection)Tesseract OCRDeepFaceAlbumentationsPillow (PIL)Frame DifferencingBackground SubtractionImage GeolocationHaversine Distance
ML Acceleration
vLLMDeepSpeedFlashAttention-2PyTorch AMPCUDAbitsandbytesFP8 / INT8 QuantizationBatched Inference
Agents & RAG
LangGraphModel Context Protocol (MCP)Claude CodeRAG PipelinesVector DatabasesSemantic RerankingPrompt Engineering
Software Engineering
Core programming languages, web frameworks, desktop software, and system design.
Programming Languages
PythonC++CC#TypeScriptJavaScriptGoPHPSQLBash / ShellHTML5CSS3
Web & APIs
ReactNext.jsNode.jsFastAPIDjangoFlaskASP.NET CoreRESTful APIsViteTailwind CSSAJAX / Fetch
Desktop & Mobile
WPFWinUI 3WinForms.NET MAUIBlazorRazor PagesXAML
Architecture & Systems
Data Structures & AlgorithmsObject-Oriented DesignMultithreadingAsynchronous I/OSerial Protocols (RS-232)Unit Testing
Data Engineering
Telemetry ingestion, streaming pipelines, database architecture, and query optimization.
Data Pipelines & Streaming
Apache KafkaApache Spark (PySpark)Python MultiprocessingCustom Data LoadersETL PipelinesData StreamingBatch ProcessingPandasNumPy
Databases & Storage
PostgreSQLMySQLMariaDBMicrosoft SQL ServerRedisSQLiteVector Databases
Database Optimization
3NF NormalizationB-Tree IndexingComposite IndexingQuery OptimizationACID TransactionsReferential IntegrityPDO Prepared Statements
Cloud & Infrastructure
GPU cluster management, container orchestration, Linux systems, and automated CI/CD.
High-Performance Computing (HPC)
SLURM Workload ManagerMulti-Node GPU ClustersNVIDIA H100NVIDIA V100CUDA EnvironmentsParallel Experiment SweepsCheckpoint Evaluation
Containers & Linux
DockerKubernetesLinux (Ubuntu, RHEL)Bash AutomationConda / MambaReproducible Environments
Cloud & CI/CD
AWSAzureGoogle Cloud (GCP)GitHub Actions CI/CDTerraformGitOpsVirtual Machine Deployment
Education
Lake Superior State University
B.S. in Computer Science
Status: Graduated
Relevant Coursework: Software System Design, Data Structures and Algorithms, Operating Systems Concepts, Multi Platform App Development, Computer Architecture, Discrete Structures, Calculus I and II, Mathematical Proofs, and Independent Math Research.
Awards and Organizations
- ★Dean’s List: Consecutively awarded 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025
- ★C# Programming Winner: Business Professionals of America Michigan 2023
- ★Python Programming Winner: Business Professionals of America Michigan 2023
- ♥Volunteer Work: Business Professionals of America, Escanaba River Association, Bay College, and LSSU