FIG. 00 · SYSTEM OVERVIEW

William
Ronchetti

Senior backend & infrastructure engineer

I build secure, scalable AWS data platforms in Python, the plumbing that moves petabytes of research data from raw instrument output to something scientists can query, and increasingly the LLM/RAG systems layered on top of it.

Base
Alexandria, VA
Focus
IaC · data pipelines · LLM/RAG
Domain
Genomics & omics platforms
Compliance
FISMA-Moderate · HIPAA · GDPR
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RAW SOURCES vendors · CROs · PDFs INGEST Lambda · Glue · Batch VALIDATE + MODEL Parquet · Athena STORE + INDEX Postgres · Elastic · vectors SERVE ECS Fargate · Nginx · API RAG / LLM Bedrock · vector + text-to-SQL observability · Splunk HEC
The shape of most of my work: ingest → validate → store → serve, now with an LLM/RAG layer on top, instrumented end to end.
01

About

I'm a back-end and infrastructure engineer with 7+ years living where research data meets production infrastructure. The recurring theme of my career: taking systems that grew organically (the ones held together by tribal knowledge and a few brave shell scripts) and turning them into reproducible, audited, compliant platforms.

My strengths are infrastructure-as-code, API and database performance optimization, container-based deployments, and observability. I've delivered FISMA-Moderate, HIPAA, and GDPR-compliant systems that have passed multiple independent security audits, and I care as much about the engineers using the platform as the platform itself.

Lately that work has grown upward into LLM/RAG systems, a document-intelligence pipeline that reads thousands of scientific reports and answers questions over them with hybrid retrieval on AWS Bedrock, backed by a PHI de-identification layer so it can touch sensitive data safely.

  • 7+ years building
    data platforms
  • PB scale of data
    under management
  • 5 peer-reviewed
    publications
  • 267 citations across
    that work
02

Experience

  1. Data Product Engineer

    Novo Nordisk · contract · Remote

    Sept 2024 – Present
    • Lead backend engineer for the Omics Platform, an internal AWS system managing petabytes of diverse omics data for dozens of research teams, spanning cataloguing and analysis alike.
    • Built an LLM-based document intelligence system that ingests thousands of scientific PDF reports (born-digital and scanned), extracts structured data, and serves a chat agent over a hybrid retrieval architecture combining vector search and text-to-SQL on AWS Bedrock.
    • Designed a two-zone PHI de-identification pipeline to meet HIPAA requirements, enabling LLM processing of sensitive documents with small-cell suppression and controlled re-identification.
    • Built a highly scalable ingestion pipeline on Lambda, Glue, and Batch for validation and transfer of raw data and discovery metadata across several dozen vendors/CROs.
    • Designed a Parquet/Athena metadata model for tracking diverse omics datasets, cutting dataset onboarding and discovery time for research teams.
    • Review code and mentor a small team on software, cloud-engineering, and security best practices to ensure GDPR compliance.
    • AWS Bedrock
    • RAG
    • text-to-SQL
    • Lambda
    • Glue
    • Batch
    • Athena
    • HIPAA

  2. Senior Software Engineer

    Harvard Medical School · Dept. of Biomedical Informatics · Remote / Boston, MA

    Aug 2019 – Present

    Senior since 2022 · half-time since Jan 2025 · previously Software Engineer

    • Lead back-end development in Python for the CGAP, 4DN, and SMaHT data platforms, supporting petabytes of raw data and associated metadata.
    • Refactored complex, organically grown AWS infrastructure into reproducible infrastructure-as-code (CloudFormation), achieving FISMA-Moderate compliance and passing multiple independent security audits, with workflows for promptly resolving vulnerabilities.
    • Migrated the web platform from Apache on Elastic Beanstalk to Nginx on ECS Fargate, cutting compute costs by 50% with configurable autoscaling in response to traffic.
    • Implemented observability with structured event logging via a Splunk HEC pipeline and container log shipping through FireLens / Fluent Bit.
    • Optimized Postgres and Elasticsearch query performance by resolving aggregation timeouts from large terms filters, for 50% faster responses.
    • Devised and implemented advanced security protocols (encryption, secrets management, access controls) and mentored junior engineers and domain experts on feature development and code review.
    • CloudFormation
    • ECS Fargate
    • Nginx
    • PostgreSQL
    • Elasticsearch
    • Splunk
    • FISMA

  3. Associate in Research (part-time)

    Duke University · Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering · Durham, NC

    Feb 2019 – Present
    • Develop assignments for an advanced C++ course and improve introductory C programming assignments on Coursera; support students with C and Python coursework.

  4. Teaching Assistant (part-time)

    Cornell University · Ithaca, NY

    Aug 2016 – Dec 2018
    • Taught Operating Systems (CS 4410/4411) and System Security (CS 5430/5431) with practicum sections; built and improved C autograders and graded exams.
03

Selected Work

Co-author on 5 peer-reviewed publications for data-platform and pipeline contributions, with 267 citations. Selected highlights:

Stack

Languages

Python · SQL · C/C++

Backend & Data

PostgreSQL (RDS) · Elasticsearch / Lucene · Redis · DynamoDB · Amazon Athena · S3 · Parquet · Kafka · SQS · Pyramid · Flask · boto3 · SQLAlchemy · pytest

AI / LLM

AWS Bedrock · retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) · vector search · text-to-SQL · embeddings · PHI de-identification

Infrastructure & IaC

CloudFormation (Troposphere) · Terraform · VPC · EC2 · ECS (Fargate) · ECR · Lambda · Batch · Step Functions · API Gateway · Route 53 · Elastic Beanstalk · Docker · Nginx · Apache

Observability & CI/CD

CloudWatch · Splunk (HEC) · Fluent Bit / FireLens · Sentry · GitHub Actions · Travis CI

Security & Compliance

AWS KMS · Secrets Manager · Security Hub · ACM · FISMA-Moderate · HIPAA · GDPR

Scientific Pipelines

Nextflow · Seqera

04

Education

Cornell University · Ithaca, NY

  • M.Eng., Computer ScienceGPA 3.69 · Dec 2018
  • B.A., Computer ScienceGPA 3.43 · May 2018

Varsity Cross Country, Indoor & Outdoor Track · Association of Computer Science Undergraduates.

05

Off-Hours

Coaching

Assistant Cross-Country and Track & Field coach at Arlington Public Schools (Yorktown), helping the next generation of distance runners train, race, and stick with the sport.

Volunteering

Volunteer with Virginia German Shepherd Rescue and the Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation, supporting fostering and adoption.

Running

Varsity Cross Country and Indoor & Outdoor Track at Cornell. A lifelong endurance athlete, and it's the same patience and consistency I bring to long-running systems work.