EXPLORE


7.1
7.1
100%
$80 USD / Hour
・

United States (4:39 AM)
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Joined on December 11, 2015
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4 Recommendations
$80 USD / Hour
・
Principal / Head AI Engineer with 25+ years of experience architecting and scaling complex software systems, now specializing in Large Language Models (LLMs), agentic workflows, and AI-first product development. Proven expertise in integrating OpenAI APIs, building RAG pipelines, and deploying scalable, production-grade LLM features using LangChain, pgvector, Pinecone, and related technologies. Hands-on leader with a track record of transforming business workflows through intelligent systems—semantic search, AI copilots, and conversational agents—while maintaining rigorous engineering standards across DevOps, observability, and frontend/backend architecture. Deep experience in embedding optimization, prompt engineering, fine-tuning GPT models, and delivering generative AI(GenAI) products that drive measurable impact. Skilled in mentoring engineers, leading cross-functional AI initiatives, and aligning technical strategy with executive goals in fast-paced, innovation-driven environments. Passionate about building the next generation of human-centered AI systems.
Verifications
On time
100%
On budget
100%
Accept rate
58%
Repeat hire rate
8%

Serverless AI Chatbot Platform

Frontend Engineer

Frontend Engineer

Frontend Engineer

Frontend Engineer

Frontend Engineer

Frontend Engineer

Frontend Engineer

Frontend Engineer

Frontend Engineer

Mobile Application Developer

Mobile Application Developer

Mobile Application Developer

Mobile Application Developer

Mobile Application Developer

Mobile Application Developer

Mobile Application Developer

Mobile Application Developer

Full stack Engineer, Admin Manager

Full stack Engineer, Admin Manager

Full stack Engineer, Admin Manager

Full stack Engineer, Admin Manager

Full stack Engineer, Admin Manager

Full stack Engineer, Admin Manager

Web/Mobile, Backend Developer

Web/Mobile, Backend Developer

Web/Mobile, Backend Developer

Web/Mobile, Backend Developer

Web/Mobile, Backend Developer

Web/Mobile, Backend Developer

Web/Mobile, Backend Developer

Web/Mobile, Backend Developer

Web/Mobile, Backend Developer

Web/Mobile, Backend Developer

Serverless AI Chatbot Platform

Frontend Engineer

Frontend Engineer

Frontend Engineer

Frontend Engineer

Frontend Engineer

Frontend Engineer

Frontend Engineer

Frontend Engineer

Frontend Engineer

Mobile Application Developer

Mobile Application Developer

Mobile Application Developer

Mobile Application Developer

Mobile Application Developer

Mobile Application Developer

Mobile Application Developer

Mobile Application Developer

Full stack Engineer, Admin Manager

Full stack Engineer, Admin Manager

Full stack Engineer, Admin Manager

Full stack Engineer, Admin Manager

Full stack Engineer, Admin Manager

Full stack Engineer, Admin Manager

Web/Mobile, Backend Developer

Web/Mobile, Backend Developer

Web/Mobile, Backend Developer

Web/Mobile, Backend Developer

Web/Mobile, Backend Developer

Web/Mobile, Backend Developer

Web/Mobile, Backend Developer

Web/Mobile, Backend Developer

Web/Mobile, Backend Developer

Web/Mobile, Backend Developer

Hercules is very professional, fast, and easy to work with. Great communication and excellent technical skills. I’m very satisfied with the project and I recommend him 100%. Looking forward to working together on long-term projects.
Artur-Mihail P.
@airobotcamstudio
•

Calimanesti, Romania
•
Share
Very professional and conscientious.
Matthew G.
@matthewg78
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Sicklerville, United States
•
Share

Hercules S. is genius when it comes about software engineering. He is also highly educated in well-known institution. Exceptional professional in his task. Would use anytime his service in the future. He just finished complicated hands free trading robot software. Thank you very much!
Sami H.
@Samih71
•

Clinton Township, United States
•
Share
Working with Hercules on this highly complex research-level bug localization project has been an outstanding experience. He delivered everything with precision and professionalism
Amany F.
@amanyf1
•

Hail, Saudi Arabia
•
Share

An experience and professional developer.
Fahad A.
@Raqieh
•

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
•
Share
Experience
Zest AI
Feb, 2021 - Present
•
4 years, 9 months
Lead AI & Full-Stack Engineer
Feb, 2022 - Present
•
3 years, 9 months
● Led end-to-end delivery of AI features powered by LLMs across multiple enterprise systems and userfacing platforms, increasing operational efficiency by 35%. ● Designed and built Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines using LangChain + pgvector for internal knowledge Q&A and semantic support agents, improving answer accuracy by 42%. ● Implemented OpenAI Function Calling agents to automate product recommendations, onboarding, and workflow decisions, reducing manual effort by 50%.

Burbank, United States
Principal / Head AI Engineer
Feb, 2021 - Jan, 2022
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11 months, 3 days
● Spearheaded the company’s first LLM initiative — from infrastructure design to capability prototyping — establishing a foundation for 100% of future AI-driven features.● Built early prompting pipelines for classification, summarization, and natural language autofill using GPT-3.5, reducing manual processing time by 40%. ● Structured metadata, embedding schemas, and ETL pipelines to support vector-based semantic search, enabling a future 35% improvement in knowledge retrieval accuracy.

Burbank, United States
Feb, 2021 - Present
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4 years, 9 months
Senior LLM & AI Engineer
Apr, 2020 - Jan, 2021
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9 months, 1 day
Hunter Boots Ltd
Apr, 2020 - Jan, 2021
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9 months, 1 day
● Architected and delivered cloud infrastructure and DevOps systems to scale LLM workloads, secure inference keys, and support high-availability AI pipelines, achieving >99.99% uptime. ● Provisioned AWS Lambda, EC2, RDS, and S3 environments, enabling future-ready LLM inference endpoints and elastic scaling under load. ● Built CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions, Jenkins, and AWS CodePipeline, reducing deployment time by 60% and improving rollback reliability by 100% for AI services.

NY, United States
Apr, 2020 - Jan, 2021
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9 months, 1 day
Senior Technical Consultant & Developer
Aug, 2017 - Apr, 2020
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2 years, 7 months
J. McLaughlin
Aug, 2017 - Apr, 2020
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2 years, 7 months
● Designed and deployed a raw material management system using Laravel, Django, SQL Server, and Vue.js, streamlining supply chain tracking and reducing manual entry errors by 60%. ● Engineered a company-wide intranet solution using CodeIgniter, Flask, and Bootstrap, eliminating workflow silos and cutting cross-departmental task delays by 45%.

NY, United States
Aug, 2017 - Apr, 2020
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2 years, 7 months
Education
University of East London
1999 - 2000
•
1 year
MSc in AI & Data Science

United Kingdom
1999 - 2000
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1 year
University of East London
1996 - 1999
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3 years
BSc in Computer Science

United Kingdom
1996 - 1999
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3 years
Publications
ExpressionEngine
2014
TrustRadius
ExpressionEngine is dream of any developer This is the best CMS on a market for developers. Turn your eCommerce project to a winner with Brilliantretail module. Anything can be accomplished without breaking your neck! No project will be brilliant without ExpressionEngine. Devot-ee is the place for all plugins needed to accomplish any project your client desires. http://www.trustradius.com/reviews/expressionengine-2014-04-08-08-34-47
2014
AWS Certified Solutions Architect
2010
Associate
The AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate certificate shows knowledge of cloud computing. It helps design secure and scalable solutions on Amazon Web Services (AWS). This certification is useful for IT professionals who want to improve their cloud skills.
2010
Certifications
P
Preferred Freelancer Program SLA