Yizhao Ni
Director, Data Engineering
Littleton, Colorado, United States
Summary
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Senior🎓
Top SchoolYizhao Ni is a data engineering and AI leader with over a decade of experience building ML-driven search, NLP, and information retrieval systems across healthcare and enterprise domains. Currently Director of Data Engineering at CoBank, he previously led AI/ML and unified enterprise search efforts at UnitedHealth Group, where he shipped a provider search engine, filed six patents, and won Optum’s 2023 Make IT Happen award. His background blends academic rigor—a PhD in machine learning for NLP and postdoctoral work in music information retrieval—with hands-on production experience integrating EHR-driven analytics and RAG-based solutions into clinical and customer-facing products. He is experienced mentoring engineers and data scientists and designing user-feedback and learning-to-rank platforms that close the loop between signals and model improvement. Based in Littleton, Colorado, Yizhao combines research-grade methods with pragmatic deployment at scale, often surfacing subtle signals from noisy clinical and enterprise text data to drive measurable product impact.
10 years of coding experience
10 years of employment as a software developer
University College LondonDoctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Machine learning for NLP, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Machine learning for NLP at University of SouthamptonMaster of Business Administration - MBA Technology innovation & Management, Master of Business Administration - MBA Technology innovation & Management at University of CincinnatiBachelor's degree Automation Engineer Technology/Technician, Bachelor's degree Automation Engineer Technology/Technician at Xiamen UniversityPost-doctoral Training Machine learning for Music Information Retrieval, Post-doctoral Training Machine learning for Music Information Retrieval at University of Bristol
Chinese, EnglishGithub contributions (2)
skyloadGithub/HPA
Aug 2015 - Oct 2015
Contributions:21 commits, 15 pushes, 2 branches in 2 months
skyloadGithub/DPR
Aug 2015 - Aug 2015
Contributions:14 pushes, 1 branch in 1 day
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