:: ~/mani-rash-ahmadi

work

a journey from IT administration to autonomous chip design. if you want a PDF copy of my resume, you can get it here.

01Experience

Mar 2026 - Present

Consulting Software Engineer

First Principles Research, Inc.

Building a content engine for Atlas Network using Supabase, Vercel, and Anthropic/Grok APIs for automated content processing and delivery. Designing full-stack architecture with serverless functions, PostgreSQL schema design, and API integrations for an early-stage product.

SupabaseVercelAnthropic APIPostgreSQLServerless
Jan 2026 - Present

Systems Engineer Co-op

Flodraulic Systems Inc.

Proposed company's AI strategy and built automated extraction pipeline that reverse-engineers proprietary binary formats into structured, queryable knowledge. Parsed and structured 85+ binary record types, reconstructing page hierarchy, wire connectivity, and block naming across projects with 1,200+ pages and 3,700+ blocks from formats with zero existing documentation. Turning undocumented industrial control data into natural-language-searchable documentation.

PythonNLPBinary Reverse EngineeringAI StrategyKnowledge Systems
Sep 2025 - Present

Research Engineer - Municipal Data Infrastructure

University of Guelph - Dr. Gharabaghi Research Group

Building real-time data pipelines and dashboards for a City of Guelph municipal partnership (in collaboration with Flodraulic Systems), processing sensor data for winter road condition monitoring and salt truck route optimization. Designed and installed hardware prototypes and production units on field sites. Managing data collection infrastructure and stakeholder relationships across partner organizations in a government-funded research program.

Data PipelinesSensor SystemsMunicipal InfrastructureHardware DeploymentStakeholder Management
May 2025 - Aug 2025

AI Researcher - Knowledge Systems & RAG Integrations

University of Guelph Computing & Communications Services

Built three RAG ingestion pipelines parsing unstructured institutional documents (SharePoint, Teams, FootPrints) into searchable knowledge bases, deployed on Azure Container Instances with Docker. Developed custom MCP servers integrating LLMs with university systems using Azure Functions and Azure OpenAI Service. Evaluated 5+ agent architectures using DSPy, LangChain, LangGraph, and Azure Cognitive Search. Implemented Azure AD-integrated access control with SpiceDB for department-specific AI assistants. Architected Azure Machine Learning pipelines using Claude Code, contributing to the university's enterprise AI strategy.

RAGAzureDockerMCPLangChainDSPySpiceDBEnterprise AI
May 2024 - Aug 2024

Network Infrastructure Co-op

University of Guelph Computing & Communications Services

Maintained campus-wide Wi-Fi systems and contributed to migrating the device database to a new platform, improving accessibility for 100+ employees.

Wi-Fi SystemsNetwork InfrastructureDatabase Migration
Sep 2019 - Nov 2021

IT Admin/Developer

Zamand Co.

Set up company website, email hosting, and automated accounting workflows. Provided technical support and training across the organization.

System AdministrationWeb DevelopmentAutomationIT Support

i have also worked in the capacity of construction worker.

02Projects & experiments

jan 2026

p1p-observerflagshipactive

Reverse-engineered a proprietary binary file format with zero existing documentation. Parses 85+ binary record types, reconstructs page hierarchy, wire connectivity, and block naming across projects with 1,200+ pages and 3,700+ blocks. Turns opaque industrial control data into natural-language-searchable documentation.

PythonBinary Reverse EngineeringNLPKnowledge Systems
dec 2025

analog-gradientsflagshipactive

Autonomous chip design exploration platform. LLM agents orchestrate commercial EDA tools (Cadence Genus/Innovus, Synopsys PrimeTime, GPDK045 PDK). PyTorch model in, silicon PPA metrics out, ~11 minutes end to end. Produced a working 4-lane SIMD GPU (320 params, int8 quantized, 25.8 kGE, 118 MHz, 0.6 mW). Ran the lowRISC Ibex RISC-V core through 12 configurations matching published references within 1–15%. Extended with analog neuromorphic research: coupled oscillator optimization over 24–52D parameter spaces using CMA-ES with 2,000+ Spectre simulations.

PyTorchLLM AgentsCadence Genus/InnovusSynopsys PrimeTimeGPDK045CMA-ESSpectre
aug 2025

YouTube Semantic Search (yt-aperture)

Python tool for extracting YouTube subtitles and performing semantic search over video content using sentence transformer models. Features intelligent chunking, embedding cache, and AI-optimized workflows for Claude Code integration.

Pythonyt-dlpsentence-transformersscikit-learnPyTorchCLI
jun 2025

wispr

Production-grade voice-to-text system for macOS using Fn key as global trigger. Features native Cocoa integration, real-time AssemblyAI streaming, background service architecture, and robust error handling. Built as Wispr Flow alternative.

PythonmacOS CocoaAssemblyAIWebSocketPyAudiolaunchd
may 2025

Sorya (Entangled LLM)

Novel AI architecture enabling LLMs to make irreversible internal commitments and maintain consistent identity. Implements variational latent commitment vectors, QLoRA training, and mathematical framework for AI consciousness research.

PyTorchQLoRALlama-2CUDAVariational InferenceRLHF
may 2025

AEP (Attention Event Protocol)

Experimental framework for improving AI systems by tracking attention patterns. Built logging SDK, RAG integration, and evaluation tools showing attention-weighted re-ranking can improve Precision@5 from ~0.75 to ~0.87.

PythonLangChainOpenAIFAISSFastAPIReactRAG
apr 2025

The Box

RFID-enhanced physical item tracker combining Arduino hardware with PWA frontend and backend API. Features Wi-Fi provisioning, real-time tag scanning, item presence tracking, and web-based item management interface.

ArduinoRFIDPWABackend APIWi-FiIoT
dec 2024

Apple MCP (OSS Contribution)

Open source contribution to Apple-native tools for Model Context Protocol. Implemented comprehensive email functionality including multi-recipient support, attachments, scheduling, and search capabilities. Project has 3,000+ GitHub stars.

TypeScriptAppleScriptMCPEmail APIsOpen Source
nov 2024

Arboro

Community event series (previously Crescentia) inspired by Socratica, hosting weekly work sessions where creatives, enthusiasts, and professionals gather for collaborative productivity and networking.

Community BuildingEvent ManagementLeadershipNetworking
jul 2024

Calendar++

Experimental calendar system built with structured output and chain of thought reasoning for LMS integration. Early exploration of AI-native calendar interfaces before structured output became mainstream.

Structured OutputChain of ThoughtLMS IntegrationAI-Native UI
mar 2024

mnist-from-scratch

Educational neural network implementation from scratch in Python for MNIST handwritten digit classification. Built without high-level ML frameworks to demonstrate fundamentals of neural architecture, training, and evaluation.

PythonNumPyMatplotlibNeural Networks
mar 2024

typing-game

React web app to test typing speed with real-time accuracy tracking, visual feedback for keystrokes, and random sentence generation from dictionary.

ReactJavaScriptCSSHTML
oct 2020

cinefile

Movie archive assistant built with Python and Qt frontend. Uses IMDb API to automatically organize movie folders and manage your personal film collection with metadata.

PythonQtIMDb APIRaspberry Pi