00 Engineering Profile

Stoke-on-Trent, UK · Applied AI & Infrastructure · Available

Available for work Stoke-on-Trent, UK

AI Developer @ University of Warwick. Applied AI, LLMs & Agentic Systems.

I build systems that stay up.

Software engineer working at the intersection of applied AI and production infrastructure. I work part-time and remotely as a Graduate AI Developer at the University of Warwick, where I research LLM architectures, design agentic systems and automate internal workflows; across 5+ years before that I shipped systems for 100+ UK businesses, from architecture through CI/CD to deployment on Docker, Linux and Go.

Download CV Inspect Experience Selected Systems

Core Stack

Applied LLM
Agentic Engineering
RAG
Solution Architecture
Laravel
Go
Cloud
DevOps

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01 METRIC
5+ YRS Shipping production systems
02 METRIC
100+ UK businesses supported
03 METRIC
1.4 TB Migrated with zero downtime
04 METRIC
99.9% Production uptime maintained

01 About & Core Highlights

Applied AI · Uptime · Migrations · Low-Latency Systems

I work on the parts that are hard to fake.

Research that has to survive contact with real users, and systems that have to stay up while you change them underneath. The unglamorous middle ground between a promising idea and something a team can actually depend on.

01 PRODUCTION PROOF

Applied LLM research

At the University of Warwick I investigate model architectures and evaluation methods, turning early-stage research ideas into working prototypes the team can actually test and adopt.
02 PRODUCTION PROOF

Agentic engineering at scale

I design and ship agentic LLM systems — tool-using agents, retrieval pipelines and workflow automation — that take repetitive internal processes off people’s plates and make them reproducible.
03 PRODUCTION PROOF

Solution architecture

I take ambiguous requirements and turn them into concrete system designs: model selection, data flow, evaluation strategy and the infrastructure to run it reliably.
04 PRODUCTION PROOF

Restaurant ecosystem at scale

I maintain a full restaurant management system, including POS and customer ordering, and orchestrated the migration of that legacy Laravel monolith for 100+ UK restaurants from v5.6 to v12 with zero service interruption.
05 PRODUCTION PROOF

Infrastructure engineering

I replaced a third-party Pusher dependency with a custom Go real-time engine I built from scratch, which cut infrastructure costs and noticeably lowered latency.
06 PRODUCTION PROOF

Zero-downtime migration

I led a high-stakes migration of over 1.4TB of production data using rsync, holding 100% data integrity with absolutely no downtime.
07 PRODUCTION PROOF

Automated media pipelines

I developed a custom FFmpeg pipeline in PHP that integrates with the Discord API to fetch videos, transcode and crop them for compatibility, and securely store the results in AWS S3.
08 PRODUCTION PROOF

Payment systems

I designed and deployed a multi-currency subscription system on Stripe, fully tested and reliable for global transactions.
06 OPERATING PRINCIPLE

End-to-end ownership

From schema design and application code in PHP/Go to Dockerized CI/CD pipelines, Linux kernel tuning, and zero-downtime cutovers.

02 Production Experience

6 Roles · University · Agency · Consultancy

Five years of production, now in applied AI.

Currently a part-time, remote Graduate AI Developer at the University of Warwick, researching LLM architectures and building agentic systems — alongside five years of shipping production software across the UK, Canada, the US and Bangladesh.

01 Part-time ACTIVE

University of Warwick

Remote · United Kingdom

Aug 2026 — Present 3 mos
Graduate AI Developer

Part-time, remote research-led engineering for the university: exploring new LLM architectures, designing agentic solutions, and automating internal team workflows.
- Research emerging LLM architectures, evaluation methods and prompting strategies, then turn viable ideas into working prototypes.
- Act as solution architect for internal AI initiatives — scoping requirements, choosing models and data flow, and defining how success is measured.
- Build applied agentic LLM systems using tool calling, retrieval and multi-step orchestration to automate real internal workflows.
- Automate repetitive team processes end to end, replacing manual handoffs with auditable, reproducible pipelines.
- Work across research and delivery: communicate findings to non-specialists and ship what survives contact with real users.
- Collaborate with academics, professional services staff and other engineers on shared platform and data-governance decisions.
02 Part-time

Agora Studio

Montreal, Canada

Apr 2025 — Jun 2026 1 yr 3 mos
Full Stack Developer, PHP

Architecting core systems for an animation community platform (Agora.Community) on the TALL stack, with FFmpeg pipelines, Stripe and AWS.
- Designed an automated video processing pipeline integrating FFmpeg and Discord for competition submissions.
- Collaborated to build a digital store (subscriptions + one-time purchases) using Stripe and Laravel Cashier.
- Implemented PHPUnit, Pest and Playwright testing integrated into Bitbucket CI/CD pipelines.
- Engineered scalable S3-based asset storage and optimised the delivery workflow.
- Modernised legacy modules to align with current Laravel architecture standards.
- Working in a collaborative environment in line with ISO data protection regulations.
03 Part-time

Magic Office

London, United Kingdom

Jan 2020 — Dec 2025 6 yrs
Software Engineer

Lead engineer for a cloud-based restaurant POS ecosystem, supporting 100+ UK clients independently.
- Migrated the core platform from Laravel 5.6 to 12, improving maintainability and scalability.
- Designed a dynamic table booking and merging system for high-traffic restaurant workflows.
- Built a complex meal-deal pricing engine handling conditional discount logic.
- Developed a custom print server supporting USB ESC/POS and network printers.
- Replaced Pusher with Go-based WebSocket (publisher/subscriber) infrastructure for real-time messaging.
- Managed Linux servers, automated deployments and monitoring to maintain 99.9% uptime.
- Built companion applications using Swift, Android and Electron JS.
- Ensured web accessibility (WCAG) compliance across user-facing platforms.
04 Contract

Data Envelope

Bangladesh

Jan 2024 — Dec 2025 2 yrs
Infrastructure Consultant

Specialising in high-scale migrations and server stabilisation.
- Migrated a 1.4TB+ WordPress-based newspaper ecosystem (Daily New Nation) across hosting environments.
- Applied a logical, problem-solving approach to resolve MySQL memory exhaustion and optimise high-concurrency performance.
- Recovered system integrity following a security breach involving immutable bits using low-level Linux troubleshooting.
- Deployed aaPanel and MailCow as professional, zero-cost management alternatives to cPanel and WHM under strict budget constraints.
05 Contract

Developer Look

United States

Jul 2025 — Aug 2025 2 mos
PHP Developer
- Built a Laravel–Airtable integration with bi-directional webhook synchronisation.
- Implemented OAuth2 authentication and rate-limit handling.
- Designed a secure data transformation layer for legal record mapping.
06 Full-time

Kodezen

Bangladesh

Dec 2023 — Nov 2024 1 yr
Lead PHP Developer

Developed high-scale WordPress e-commerce (Store Engine) and LMS (Academy LMS) systems.
- Architected a modular e-commerce engine as a WooCommerce alternative.
- Built a dynamic pricing system supporting complex conditional rules.
- Integrated Stripe and PayPal for PCI-compliant recurring billing.
- Engineered CRM and Mailchimp synchronisation pipelines.
- Optimised cart and checkout state management for high traffic.

03 Selected Systems & Open Source

Agentic LLM · OS Auth · Linux Systems · Real-Time Go · Rust Desktop

Things I built because the alternative was worse.

Each of these started as a real constraint — a bill that was too high, a library that didn't exist, a latency budget that couldn't be met.

University of Warwick · Applied LLM / Agentic Systems

Agentic Workflow Automation

Designed agentic LLM systems that plan, call tools and orchestrate multi-step tasks against real internal data.
Built retrieval pipelines so agents ground their answers in source material rather than relying on model memory.
Developed evaluation harnesses to compare architectures, prompts and models against measurable task outcomes.
Automated internal team workflows end to end, removing manual handoffs from recurring processes.
Worked as solution architect: scoping requirements, choosing models and data flow, and defining success criteria before building.

Focus: Agentic
Domain: Applied LLM
Role: Architect
Since: Aug 2026

Linux Authentication · Computer Vision / OS Security

OpenFace

REPO

Face unlock for Ubuntu — Windows Hello, but open source: look at the camera and you are in.
Built a PAM module (pam_openface.so) that intercepts the login prompt and delegates to a background auth service, falling back to password on failure.
Integrated InsightFace/ArcFace recognition with optional IR-based liveness detection to resist photo and video spoofing.
Shipped a full CLI for enrolling faces, checking service status and testing authentication end to end.

Architecture: PAM
Recognition: ArcFace
Liveness: IR
License: MIT

Linux Systems · AI Virtual Webcam

ustudiod

REPO

AI-powered virtual webcam daemon that turns a real camera into /dev/video10 with auto-framing (crop and follow your face).
On-demand lifecycle: the physical camera is only opened while an application is actually watching the virtual device.
Engineered for weak CPUs — threaded capture, downscaled and skip-frame landmark detection, reused NumPy buffers and per-frame cost logging.
Ships as a self-contained 164MB bundle (Python + OpenCV + NumPy + MediaPipe embedded), so a target machine needs only a kernel that can run the v4l2loopback module.
Idempotent installer wires up the kernel module, a systemd --user unit and a GNOME Shell extension, needing sudo only for the module step.

Device: /dev/video10
Bundle: 164 MB
Autostart: systemd
Target: x86_64

Applied LLM · Network Automation Agent

Loom CLI

REPO

Conversational CLI agent that turns plain English ("harden SSH on this router") into ready-to-deploy Cisco IOS commands.
Combines Netmiko SSH automation with an LLM to generate the how from a described what, occupying a gap no existing tool (Ansible, NAPALM, Nornir) fills.
Human-in-the-loop command editor lets engineers review, edit and approve every command before it is pushed to a device.
Secure, auditable sessions with configuration backup and session logging; operates in privileged EXEC mode by default.
Validated across ten real-world use cases spanning OSPF, VLAN provisioning, NAT, ACLs and compliance auditing.

Focus: Agentic
Domain: NetOps
Input: English
Use cases: 10

Desktop App · Rust / Tauri

DDEV GUI

REPO

Lightweight Linux dashboard and tray indicator for managing local DDEV projects — see what is running at a glance.
Start, stop and restart projects with in-progress feedback, and quick-launch the site, Mailpit or project folder.
Tray icon summarises how many projects are running, with a quick menu to control them without opening the window.
The app never talks to Docker directly — it shells out to the ddev CLI and parses JSON, keeping DDEV the single source of truth.
Desktop notifications, run-in-background, and optional start-on-login minimised to the tray.

Shell: Tauri 2
Core: Rust
Output: .deb
Target: GNOME

Vision-Language Model · Llama 3.2 Vision

RadInsight

Fine-tuned the 11B Vision-Instruct model using LoRA.
Trained on 750,000+ radiology image-text pairs (MIMIC-CXR, CheXpert).
Built a WhatsApp-based automated report delivery system with 15–30 second response times.
Optimised training on an RTX 3060 under 12GB VRAM.

ROUGE-L: 0.78
BLEU-4: 0.62
CIDEr: 1.21
Training pairs: 750k+

Real-time messaging server

Gusher

REPO

A Go-based real-time WebSocket server built as a lightweight, self-hosted alternative to Pusher.
Implemented connection pooling and webhook handling for production workloads.
Optimised for low-latency broadcasting in single-tenant environments.

Bengali transliteration engine

Avro PHP

REPO

High-performance Avro Phonetic library that converts Banglish to Bengali script, with Trie-based pattern matching for O(m) lookups instead of linear search.
Context-sensitive rule engine that resolves conversion intelligently based on surrounding characters.
Laravel-ready with auto-discovery, a Facade and config publishing — and standalone-compatible with any PHP project.
Covered by 180+ tests and compatible from PHP 5.6 through 8.x.

04 Technical Matrix

11 Domains · Backend · Cloud · DevOps · AI

The kit I reach for.

Deepest in the PHP and Laravel ecosystem, now spending most of my time in applied LLM work — agentic systems, retrieval pipelines and the infrastructure underneath both.

Applied AI & LLM

LLM architecture research
Agentic LLM systems
Tool calling / function calling
RAG & retrieval pipelines
Prompt engineering & evaluation
Fine-tuning (LoRA / QLoRA)
MCP servers
Solution architecture
Workflow automation

Languages

PHP (Laravel)
Go
Python
SQL
JavaScript

Frontend

TALL Stack
Tailwind
Alpine.js
Livewire
Vue.js
Blade / Twig
Vite
ES6

Databases

MySQL
PostgreSQL
Vector databases
Knowledge graphs

Cloud & Infrastructure

AWS (S3, EC2, Lambda, Aurora)
Azure
Cloudflare
Nginx / Apache
Load balancing
DB scaling
DNS
Bastion / VPN / Port security

DevOps

Docker
Terraform
GitHub Actions
Bitbucket Pipelines
Linux
Git

Testing & Reliability

PHPUnit
Pest
Playwright
Cypress
TDD

Architecture

Domain-Driven Design
REST APIs
SOLID
DRY / KISS
Scalability

Monitoring & Identity

Grafana
Prometheus
Zabbix
New Relic
Sentry
OAuth2
JWT

AI Tooling

Claude Code
Antigravity
Cursor
GitHub Copilot
OpenAI / Anthropic APIs

CMS & Platforms

WordPress
Shopify (Liquid)
Moodle
OpenCart
WooCommerce

05 Education & Recognition

Academic Credentials · Competitive Programming

05.A / ACADEMIC DEGREES

Still studying, still shipping.

Feb 2026 — Present United Kingdom

MSc Cloud & Network Computing Engineering

University of Staffordshire
2020 — 2025 Bangladesh

BSc Computer Science & Engineering

University of Dhaka

CGPA 3.63 / 4.00 · Session 2019–20, delayed due to COVID-19

05.B / RECOGNITION

Competitive programming.

01

Runner-Up

Code Refactoring Contest (IUT)

2024
02

3rd Place

FEC Technofest Programming Contest

2022
03

Regional Participant

ICPC Asia Dhaka Regional

2021 · 2022 · 2023

06 Initiate Contact

Direct Channel · Engineering & Infrastructure

Available for Full-Time & Contract

Got something that needs to keep running?

I'm open to engineering roles and contract work — particularly around Laravel, Go, and the infrastructure that carries them. The fastest way to reach me is email.

erfan.siam98@gmail.com Download CV (PDF)

01 / LOCATION: Stoke-on-Trent, United Kingdom
02 / DIRECT LINE: +44 7344 085666
03 / CURRENT STATUS: Open to engineering opportunities

AI Developer @ University of Warwick. Applied AI, LLMs & Agentic Systems.

Applied LLM research

Agentic engineering at scale

Solution architecture

Restaurant ecosystem at scale

Infrastructure engineering

Zero-downtime migration

Automated media pipelines

Payment systems

End-to-end ownership

Graduate AI Developer

Full Stack Developer, PHP

Software Engineer

Infrastructure Consultant

PHP Developer

Lead PHP Developer

Agentic Workflow Automation

OpenFace

ustudiod

Loom CLI

DDEV GUI

RadInsight

Gusher

Avro PHP

Applied AI & LLM

Languages

Frontend

Databases

Cloud & Infrastructure

DevOps

Testing & Reliability

Architecture

Monitoring & Identity

AI Tooling

CMS & Platforms

Still studying, still shipping.

MSc Cloud & Network Computing Engineering

BSc Computer Science & Engineering

Competitive programming.

Got something that needs to keep running?