Christian Haller

Senior Machine Learning Engineer – Tech Lead at Cisco

Large Language Models (LLMs)Vision TransformersMLOps & EngineeringDistributed TrainingReinforcement Learning (RLHF)Technical Leadership

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About

I'm Christian Haller, currently a Senior Machine Learning Engineer and Tech Lead at Cisco. My journey has been a bit of a pivot—I started deep in the world of Marine Science and Geosciences, eventually earning a Ph.D., before moving into the heart of AI engineering. I spent several years at General Motors leading technical development for Super Cruise, where I focused on scaling autonomous driving models and filing patents for ML innovations. I’m passionate about the entire lifecycle of production ML, from data curation to the nuances of LLM reasoning and multimodal models. I tend to value pragmatic results over vanity metrics like GitHub stars, and I believe in the power of clear communication between technical teams and leadership. I’m currently looking to connect with other leaders in the Deep Learning space and am particularly interested in mentorship that can help me grow into high-level orchestration roles.

Networking

What I can offer

›Expertise in scaling AI from research to production
›Technical leadership in high-stakes industries like autonomous driving
›Deep knowledge of MLOps and LLM evaluation

Looking for

›Visionary leaders and peers in the Deep Learning and MLOps space
›Mentorship to help transition into 'conductor' or high-level orchestration roles

Best fit for

Deep Learning researchersMLOps engineersTech executivesAI startup founders

Current Interests

LLM reasoningMultimodal foundation modelsVibe codingProduction ML lifecyclesMarine science

Background

Career

Transitioned from a deep academic and research background in Geosciences and Marine Science into high-stakes Machine Learning roles at General Motors and Cisco, moving from data science to technical leadership in autonomous driving and LLMs.

Education

Ph.D. in Marine Science from University of South Florida; CORe Professional Program from Harvard Business School Online; Master’s and Bachelor’s in Geosciences from The University of Bonn and The University of Freiburg.

Achievements

›Filed three U.S. patents and one trade secret for autonomous-driving ML at GM
›Directed technical development for GM’s flagship Super Cruise product
›Managed and processed datasets exceeding 500 million data points
›Authored over 15 research papers with 10+ academic awards

Opinions

GitHub repository stars are a gameable and unreliable metric for quality.
Maintaining 'emergency slide-making skills' is vital for communicating with Senior Leadership, even if engineers dislike it.
Senior MLE job requirements are often 'off the charts' and target an unrealistic fraction of talent.
Rigorous benchmarking for accuracy, bias, and safety is essential for foundation models.