Berk Gökden

AI/ML & Data Engineer | Multi-Agent Systems · RAG · Data Infrastructure
Amsterdam, Netherlands berkgokden@gmail.com +31 62 719 89 52 berkgokden.com linkedin.com/in/berkgokden github.com/bgokden

Professional Summary

Full-stack AI/ML & Data Engineer who builds production systems end-to-end, fast and cost-efficiently. Delivered multi-agent AI systems, RAG pipelines, and data infrastructure at Klarna (5,000+ employees), Booking.com, and ING. Led engineering at Vamp.io (acquired by CircleCI) managing a 12-person team. Open-source contributor to vector search libraries (Annoy) with expertise in Python, Go, TypeScript, and distributed systems.

Professional Experience

Senior AI Engineer
Klarna
Sep 2023 - Dec 2025
Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • Built AI platform serving 5,000+ employees with multiple agent systems: meeting intelligence (40% efficiency improvement), conversational agents with voice capabilities, automated feedback systems, and internal search infrastructure
  • Deployed using OpenAI and Anthropic LLMs under enterprise agreements with custom RAG implementations
  • Implemented vector search using PostgreSQL+pgvector, FAISS, and Annoy for cost-effective semantic search
  • Created Slack integrations and workflow automation tools including project management functionality
  • Deployed multi-agent systems that saved teams 15+ hours per week through automated workflows
  • Technologies: Python, TypeScript, Go, OpenAI, Anthropic, LangChain, RAG, PostgreSQL+pgvector, FAISS, Docker, AWS
Senior Software Engineer - Data
Booking.com
May 2023 - Sep 2023
Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • Supported cloud migration from on-premise to AWS, facilitating data quality during infrastructure modernization
  • Developed data validation services and pipelines using microservices architecture
  • Improved data quality through governance framework, achieving 99% pipeline reliability
  • Validated millions of booking records daily across large-scale data processing systems
  • Technologies: DBT, Apache Spark SQL, Snowflake, Hadoop, Java, Python, Argo, Kubernetes, AWS
Senior Data Engineer
ING
Jul 2022 - Apr 2023
Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • Automated environmental sustainability data processing for ING Wholesale Banking, reducing processing time from weeks to hours
  • Built reliable daily pipeline tracking sustainability metrics for hundreds of companies used in credit score calculations, replacing manual Excel workflows
  • Developed framework and tools to help data engineers build production pipelines faster
  • Solved complex entity resolution challenges tracking company histories through mergers, closures, and restructuring
  • Technologies: Python, Apache Spark, PySpark, Kedro, Docker, Airflow, Kubernetes (OpenShift)
Big Data Engineer / ML Engineer
VodafoneZiggo
Sep 2021 - Feb 2022
Utrecht, Netherlands
  • Built predictive ML models to detect TV/internet box failures before they occurred, analyzing heat patterns and device telemetry
  • Automated proactive customer support by triggering service calls when boxes showed failure patterns, reducing box-related complaints by over 70%
  • Developed forecasting models to predict volume of failing boxes for capacity planning and inventory management
  • Delivered ML pipelines to production in collaboration with data scientists
  • Technologies: AWS (S3, EMR, Glue, Athena, DynamoDB, Lambda), Python
Machine Learning Engineer
DPG Media Netherlands
Sep 2020 - Aug 2021
Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • Built search re-ranking system for DPG Media magazine app using user history while avoiding filter bubbles
  • Developed notification optimization models tracking user engagement patterns to improve message interactions
  • Built user data pipeline merging clickstream data from multiple websites and apps across DPG Media acquisitions to create unified user profiles for ad targeting
  • Won company hackathon by building vector-based recommendation system using transformers for article enrichment and fast search, first transformer-based system deployed at DPG Media
  • Developed streaming applications using Apache Kafka (AWS MSK) and Spark Streaming for real-time data processing
  • Technologies: Apache Kafka, Spark, AWS (S3, DynamoDB, EKS), Airflow, MLFlow, FastAPI, Flask, Terraform, Transformers
Senior Software Engineer
Caspar AI
Mar 2020 - Sep 2020
Rotterdam, Netherlands
  • Built AI sensor system for elderly care facilities in US, monitoring falls, controlling lighting/heating, and alerting nurses
  • Set up on-premise Kubernetes clusters inside buildings for privacy compliance, ensuring no user data left facilities
  • Deployed deep learning models for image recognition on edge servers, processing data locally for security
  • Built data pipeline sending only operational metrics to cloud while keeping sensitive data on-premise
  • Technologies: Kubernetes (Kubespray), TensorFlow Serving, Nginx, AWS (S3, EC2, MSK), Kafka
Engineering Lead
Vamp.io (acquired by CircleCI)
Oct 2017 - Mar 2020
Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • Led engineering team of 12 people building cloud-native AIOps platform for canary releasing and microservices deployment
  • Built distributed systems and container orchestration infrastructure on Kubernetes
  • Developed AI load prediction algorithm for Vamp Continuous Cloud Optimizer, optimizing CPU and memory usage and reducing infrastructure costs by over 90%
  • Company subsequently acquired by CircleCI
  • Technologies: Go, Kubernetes, Docker, microservices architecture, machine learning
Senior Software Engineer
Zoover / Weeronline
Sep 2016 - Sep 2017
Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • Rebuilt weather data ETL pipeline for Weeronline app/website, reducing radar image and rain prediction latency from 45 minutes to under 1 minute
  • Rapidly built fraud detection system using Apache Spark analyzing review patterns and user behavior to identify and flag fraudulent reviews on Zoover platform
  • Set up CI/CD pipelines with Kubernetes (GKE), CircleCI, and GitLab using Scala
Developer
SAP SE
Mar 2015 - Sep 2016
Istanbul / Waldorf, Germany
  • Developed SAP Vora in-memory query engine integrated with Apache Spark for Big Data analytics on Hadoop
  • Built Docker-based deployment system for running Spark clusters in cloud environments
  • Worked on database internals and cloud service integrations for SAP Vora
Software Engineer
T2 Software
Nov 2013 - Mar 2015
Ankara, Turkey
  • Developed full-stack solutions for major Turkish telecom operator handling 100M+ subscriber records
  • Built customer service systems including provider transfer functionality completing migrations in under 10 minutes
  • Built service-oriented architecture and improved backend performance
  • Negotiated with stakeholders to improve API design
  • Technologies: Java, JavaScript, Oracle SQL
Software Engineer
Aselsan
Sep 2011 - Nov 2013
Ankara, Turkey
  • Developed real-time simulation system for radar test laboratory testing missile guidance systems
  • Built flight scenario simulator commanding radar hardware while logging and visualizing test results
  • Implemented distributed architecture using multi-threading and reflective memory in C/C++ on Linux

Open Source Contributions & Projects

veri - Vector Search in Go
github.com/bgokden/veri

Vector search engine built in Go for ML systems. High-throughput feature serving with low latency. 54+ GitHub stars.

llama-constrain - Constrained LLM Generation
github.com/bgokden/llama-constrain

Library for constrained text generation with Large Language Models for structured output.

Annoy - Vector Search Library (Contributor)
github.com/spotify/annoy

Contributor to Spotify's approximate nearest neighbors library for vector search. Built custom implementations for production use cases.

Technical Skills

AI/ML (High Priority)

  • RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
  • Multi-Agent Systems
  • Agentic AI
  • LLMs (Large Language Models)
  • Conversational AI / Voice Agents
  • TensorFlow, PyTorch

Languages

  • Python
  • Go
  • TypeScript
  • Scala
  • Java

Data & Vector Search

  • PostgreSQL + pgvector
  • FAISS
  • Annoy (contributor)
  • ETL/ELT Pipelines
  • Streaming Data Processing
  • Feature Stores
  • Data Warehousing
  • Analytics

Infrastructure & Architecture

  • Microservices Architecture
  • Service-Oriented Architecture
  • Kubernetes
  • Docker
  • CI/CD Pipelines
  • Distributed Systems
  • AWS
  • GCP

Education

Master of Science - Electronics & Electrical Engineering (Not Completed)
Bilkent University, Ankara
2010 - 2012

Focus: Machine Learning applied to signal/image processing. Worked as Research and Teaching Assistant.

Bachelor of Science - Electronics & Electrical Engineering
Bilkent University, Ankara
2006 - 2010

Languages