From Employee Number Two to Head of Engineering

MLOps podcast #193 with Pierre Salvy, Head of Engineering at Cambrium, LLM in Material Production co-hosted by Stephen Batifol. // Abstract Delve into the world of proteins, genetic engineering, and the intersection of AI and biotech. Pierre explains how his company is using advanced models to design proteins with specific properties, even creating a vegan collagen for cosmetics. By harnessing the potential of AI, they aim to revolutionize sustainability, uncovering a future of lab-grown meats, molecular cheese, and less harmful plastics, confronting regulatory barriers and decoding the syntax and grammar of proteins. // Bio Head of Engineering at Cambrium, a biotech company utilising genAI to design sustainable protein biomaterials for the future. Pierre spent the last decade researching ways to make computers calculate better biological systems. This is a critical step to engineering more sustainable ways to make the products we use every day, which is their mission at Cambrium. // MLOps Jobs board https://mlops.pallet.xyz/jobs // MLOps Swag/Merch https://mlops-community.myshopify.com/ // Related Links Website: cambrium.bio --------------- ✌️Connect With Us ✌️ ------------- Join our slack community: https://go.mlops.community/slack Follow us on Twitter: @mlopscommunity Sign up for the next meetup: https://go.mlops.community/register Catch all episodes, blogs, newsletters, and more: https://mlops.community/ Connect with Demetrios on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dpbrinkm/ Connect with Stephen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-batifol/ Connect with Pierre on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/psalvy/ Timestamps: [00:00] Pierre's preferred coffee [00:10] Takeaways [05:10] Please like, share, and subscribe to our MLOps channels! [05:25] Weights and Biases ad [07:52] Ski story [09:54] Pierre's career trajectory [13:35] From employee #2 to hiring a team [14:42] From employee #2 to head of engineering [15:50] Uncomfortable things to say essential for growth and effectiveness [18:27] From biotech to engineering [21:10] LLMs at Cambrium [24:26] Slackbot [25:43] Quick and Easy Solutions [26:47] Products created at Cambrium [31:56] Impact of EU Regulation on Cambrium [35:39] 2nd Biotech Winter [36:35] Cost of error vs service not working [38:00] Protein Synthesis and Mutations [40:03] Large-Scale System Engineering Challenges [43:28] Expensive Factors in Experiments [44:39] LLMs vs Protein Models [47:03] Protein Design with LLMs [49:43] Eco-Friendly Product Vision [53:28] Space glue [54:00] Wrap up