Qian Zhu

As a founding software engineer, I led the team in building vector database products from the ground up, achieving $500K+ in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR).

• Designed and implemented the company's foundational vector database service architecture, enabling performant, cloud-native search for AI/ML applications.
• Established feedback-driven product iteration loops, translating developer needs into technical priorities and increasing adoption and satisfaction among early users.
• Drove team execution, balancing hands-on development with architectural leadership.
• Authored comprehensive technical specifications and architectural documents that guided team implementation.

I led a team of 35+ engineers specializing in machine learning data (ML Data), delivering solutions for data search, ground truth (GT) labeling, and feature engineering to support across cross-functional organizations.

• Spearheaded the technical vision and execution for Cruise's ML data platforms, including labeling, search, and collaboration tooling used by hundreds of engineers.
• Led development of real-time collaborative ground truth labeling platform enabling simultaneous work by hundreds of annotators and engineers
• Established technical standards and architectural principles that guided development across the organization
• Built a team of 35+ engineers and led multiple re-orgs to improve cross-team collaboration with Perception and Behavior groups.
• Championed developer experience, delivering robust backend services and intuitive UIs that empowered internal platforms.
• Led cross-team recruiting within ML Infrastructure and served as a key member of the Cruise AI org's hiring committee (500+ engineers).
• Recognized for strong leadership, technical expertise, and commitment to fostering innovation, engineering excellence, and team growth.

I led a 15-person team that delivered essential data processing tools for ML teams.

• Delivered essential internal developer tools, enabling high-velocity ML experimentation and iteration
• Created a collaboration-first culture by mentoring engineers and establishing best practices across engineering teams
• Partnered with product and infrastructure teams to align on roadmap, tooling goals, and long-term strategy

I led the personalization team, expanding it to 8 engineers, and built core features that empowered various Trulia products, including the Activity Feed, Real-time Pipeline (powering the Trulia homepage), and Neighborhood Discovery.

• Led development of real-time personalization features used by millions of consumers daily
• Established collaborative process that enabled product managers, designers, and engineers to rapidly iterate on personalization features
• Developed and launched the Activity Feed, Real-Time Pipeline, and Neighborhood Discovery features, which increased user engagement by 2x
• Improved the performance of the Real-Time Pipeline, resulting in a 40% reduction in page load times

Developed cross-device user identification models and implemented the RTP data ingestion and storage pipeline.

• Developed cross-device user identification models that improved user recognition accuracy by 25%
• Implemented the RTP data ingestion and storage pipeline, handling 500+ TB of data per day

Delivered multiple client initiatives encompassing capacity management for distributed systems, API analytics, and highly resilient infrastructure based on hybrid clouds.