About

Backend and platform engineer at Pepper, an AI-first platform for independent distributors. The work centers on cloud data infrastructure and production AI: the pipelines that bring each customer's ERP data into the product, and the AI systems that set up new customers.

Before engineering

Adam spent six years as a clinical pharmacist in hospital emergency medicine and critical care, at Boston Medical Center, Waterbury Hospital, Orange Regional Medical Center, and LewisGale Medical Center, where the last role was clinical pharmacy manager.

That career started with a PharmD and an ASHP-accredited residency at Buffalo General Medical Center, and went on to include board certification in pharmacotherapy (BCPS), adjunct faculty appointments at Northeastern University and the University of Connecticut, and published research and talks on emergency medicine pharmacotherapy. Adam also earned a Master of Business Administration (MBA).

The switch

The turn toward engineering started with a statistics problem. As a clinical pharmacy manager running research studies, Adam learned R to analyze the data and soon found the code more interesting than the p-values. Meanwhile, the next decade in hospital pharmacy was starting to look a lot like the last six years. So Adam traded a stable, well-paid pharmacy career for a data job at a food distributor, a move that surprised nearly everyone except Adam.

At Ginsberg's Foods, the reporting work started in R and moved to Python and SQL as the projects got bigger. That led to running the company's data warehouse, and from there to software engineering at Pepper. Emergency medicine and production systems turn out to have a lot in common. Both depend on accurate data and calm decisions under pressure, and both need safety checks before anything reaches a patient or a customer.

Outside of work

Reading, fitness and nutrition, Stoic philosophy, and mindfulness practice rooted in Zen Buddhism.