About

Bio

I’m Francesco Pira, a software engineer and technical lead from Catania, Italy, working across cloud-native systems, applied AI, developer tooling, and open source.

I have spent more than a decade building software and, today at Leonardo, I lead an engineering team designing and building immersive simulators for specialized operators while staying hands-on with architecture, implementation, CI/CD, cloud integration, and technical delivery. I own customer-facing technical decisions, turning broad requirements into roadmaps and working systems.

Outside work, I build and publish open-source tools, with Rust my language of choice, and experiment with practical LLM engineering, agentic workflows, local inference, quantization, and hardware-aware AI systems to build my next venture.

I’m a curious mind by nature: I like understanding how things work, questioning the why, fixing what’s broken, and turning ambiguous problems into working systems, which sometimes leads me to shape my own tools when the existing ones do not quite fit.

Skills

Software Development and Architecture:

  • Languages: Rust, TypeScript, JavaScript (ES5+), Python, modern Java (11+), Java 6+, Java EE 7, Bash, SQL
  • XR / Immersive Technologies: XR application architecture, immersive simulators, VR-based training systems, simulation systems, remote asset-monitoring solutions, technical leadership of XR development teams
  • AI / LLM Engineering: Local LLM inference, quantized LLMs (GGUF), prompt engineering, agentic AI workflows, model evaluation and inference optimisation
  • Software Architecture: Distributed systems, microservices, REST APIs, event-driven architectures, cloud-native architectures, service-oriented architectures (SOA), API-based system integration
  • Cloud-native: Kubernetes (including AKS, EKS, and OKD), Apache Kafka and Strimzi, Docker, containerised application deployment
  • Cloud platforms: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Cloudflare, Hetzner, Aruba Cloud, Scaleway
  • Back-end dev: node.js, SpringBoot, Java EE, Flask. In the past: Ruby on Rails
  • Databases: MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Oracle DB 9 and 12c, SQLite, CouchDB, MySQL/MariaDB
  • Front-end dev: Vue.js, React, TypeScript, CSS, SCSS, Vite, Tailwind CSS, WebAssembly. Some experience in Angular
  • Web and Browser technologies: WebAssembly (WASM), client-side applications, browser-based applications, REST APIs, JSON

DevOps and System Administration:

  • CI/CD: Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, automated build/test/deployment pipelines
  • System Administration: Bash scripting, nginx configuration, server deployment, configuration and hardening (sshd hardening, Iptables, firewalld, OpenVPN, etc.), Linux networking, SSH, reverse proxies, VM deployment and administration
  • Networking: TCP/IP networking, routing, NAT, network bridges, VLANs, firewalls, VPNs, reverse proxies, SSH bastion hosts
  • Virtualisation and On-Premise Infrastructure: Proxmox VE, KVM/QEMU virtual machines, Linux virtualisation, PCIe / IOMMU device passthrough, GPU passthrough, virtual networking, NAT, VLANs, isolated networks, storage and infrastructure management
  • Cyber Security: Fundamentals of computer security and cryptography, system hardening, network security, secure remote access, SSH hardening, firewall configuration, VPNs, security-conscious infrastructure design
  • VCS Git (including platforms for Agile project management like Azure DevOps and GitHub), SVN
  • Development workflows: Git-based development, pull requests and code review, Agile development, issue tracking, automated testing and CI/CD, AI-assisted software development and delivery

Enterprise and Other Technical Skills:

  • J2EE Application servers: Oracle WebLogic, IBM WebSphere, Tomcat
  • SOA products: Oracle Fusion Middleware 12c (including JDeveloper), Oracle Service Bus 12c, Oracle WebLogic, XSLT, XQuery
  • Operating Systems: Debian Linux-based, CentOS 6+, Ubuntu Linux, macOS 10.6+, Windows XP+, iOS and Android
  • Static-site generators and CMS: Jekyll
  • Other technical skills: Hardware and software integration, technical prototyping, system integration

Leadership and Soft Skills:

  • Technical Leadership: Technical architecture and decision-making, team leadership, mentoring and coordination, project planning, technical roadmap definition, cross-functional collaboration
  • Soft Skills: Problem Solving, Team Working, Project Management and Tracking, Team Leadership, Social Networking, Event Organisation

What’s next?

  • Research on ternary models, BitNet and llama.cpp fork
  • Synthetic dataset generation
  • Low-bit inference, model benchmarking
  • Writing kernels for AI inference (WebGPU and RDNA4)

Resume

Download my resume

Coding

I like to realize new ideas and experiment with new technologies, then turn them into practical projects. Sometimes I also write utilities and snippets.

Sources are available on GitHub, usually MIT licensed.

Talks and Events

Certifications

Badges are also available on Credly.

Honours

Languages

  • Italian, native proficiency
  • English, CEFR Level C2 (test results)
  • Spanish, CEFR Level A2

Other things I like

Running I running with friends at dawn a couple of times a week. It’s my reset button and a good way to start a new day.

Reading I read about programming, best practice, new technologies, startup stories and anything that can improve myself.

DIY Something my father taught me. It’s fun to tinker away from keyboard, too.

Meeting people A good chat is a good moment and with people I haven’t met it’s even better. Valuable things happen when people share their experiences and thoughts.

Traveling Visiting new places and discovering new cultures widens your mind and challenges you. When I have the chance to leave, I always do.

Every now and then I find quotes and speeches that inspire me. Below are some of my favorites.

Contact me

Get in touch.


Thanks for reading this page. I look forward to hearing from you.