Location: Denver/Boulder metro

Remote: Yes (also open to onsite in Boulder County)

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: Python, SQL, applied ML, RAG/LLM systems, embeddings, signal processing, data pipelines, instrumentation, optics/photonics, C++, MATLAB, AWS

Résumé/CV: heffern.net/rob

Email: Robert.Heffern@gmail.com

Applied physicist and engineer, 15+ years. Put me on a messy, physical, high-consequence problem that crosses disciplines and has to ship — not demo.

Recent: 6 years at Agilent building production ML over instrument telemetry — fleet-wide failure prediction, and a RAG/LLM system for 300+ field engineers taken from prototype to production (including the confidence logic for when it answers vs. hands off to a human). Cut data-prep time 8x.

Before that I built scientific instruments from scratch — a fiber-based STED nanoscope and an OCT microscope — so I know data from the sensor up, not just after it lands in a warehouse. Earlier: DoD hardware reliability (former TS/SCI), precision timing, published detector-physics work.

Strongest where software meets the physical world: instrumentation, sensor data, ML that has to be right because being wrong has consequences. I own problems end to end, and I'll tell you when the result isn't trustworthy yet.

Open to full-time or contract. Health/medical-device mission a strong plus.