James Brosnan
Nominated Award: Young AI Role Model of the Year
Linkedin profile of Person: https://www.aciworldwide.com/
ACI Worldwide is a payments tech company, established in 1975 with its European headquarters located in Limerick. Its employees just over 4000 people in 34 countries across the globe. We server 19 of the top 20 banks in the world and 80000+ merchant/shops both directly and indirectly via PSPs. ACI’s Data Science presence in Limerick began in 2019, and two date have proved to be an award-winning team as well as achieving a critical patent in the that short time, which has advanced machine learning in the fraud prevention space. It continues to innovate and grow year on year, showcases the advancements of AI in the fintech industry
Reason for Nomination
Introduction
James joined the team earlier this year, and previously was a part of our internship program. He specifically works on performance testing, an area of Data Science that is not talked about very often. It is a critical key component for the success of any Data Science team. James has come to us as a graduate of UL, but in that short period of time has shown with hard work, and passion for your speciality that a lot can be achieved quickly, which inspires others to follow. James is that person. A quiet guy, but full of passion, that spreads to his teammates. He is very much respected, and is always looking out for others, even though he is not far into his own journey.
Importance of Up-and-Coming Role Models in Automation and Performance
Though most of the excitement around AI is specific to the ML advancements, and new innovative ways to advance the domain –automation and performance take those innovations and put them in the hands of the user. Without having the platforms, working in a way that’s production ready, most of the innovation gets put on the shelf. It is one of the key challenges in business, being cost efficient while bringing AI to market. Having someone so young like James understanding that so early in their career and interacting with others to spread that message is inspiring to see. James is a great role model for his domain, and his journey is a great success story for others thinking of automation/MLOps as a career. It is not a topic you readily hear at a recruitment fair.
A Genuine Great Person
James is one of the nicest people you could meet. Always welcoming, stops for a chat in the hall. He is genuinely interested in how other colleagues’ days are going. He is engaging and eager to learn from others while doing his best to help in any way he can. He has been known to travel up from Kerry to work, as he does face the ongoing challenges of accommodation at the moment. He talks about family a lot, and you can see how much that means to him. It is a pleasure to have James in the team and watch as his career grows. As a younger member of the team, James is being mentored by more senior colleagues. His attention to detail and work ethic have been commented on at length from every one of his more experienced teammates and he has rapidly gained respect and admiration from peers who are far more advanced in their careers than he is in his.
Full Stack Product Advancements
James’s direct team is small and due to that he has had to learn new techniques and processes quickly with the pressure of time constraints as we all face coming new product releases. Data Science is releasing its first completely self-built end to end product to market in October. A huge achievement, as most Data Science are components of another product, or an extension of a more traditional SDLC model. James has worked to ensure our models are tested in new innovative ways at exceedingly high throughputs. He has helped test our platform at 1000s of transactions per second in only a few months in the job. It can be overwhelming to take on a new role, specifically one that is not defined in academia the same way model development is. James has embraced this and is a true role model for anyone new to the career. While this area is complex and demanding, James wastes no opportunity to tap into the knowledge we have in the team. His method of asking well-researched questions has struck a chord with technical teammates and is a great lesson to any young individual starting a career in tech. In essence, he is never afraid to display a lack of knowledge in order to gain it, but simultaneously does his research in order to ask the right question.
Spreading the Knowledge
James is going to be a part of this years Foobar event, which is our hackathon. His passion will be a great ambassador for young people starting out in their careers. It will also help James to be able to communicate his journey to a wider audience. His eagerness and determination to succeed is seen by all and that is what has gained him the respect he has amongst his peers in such a short period of time. He works very well with other teams and colleagues around the company and has established a reputation as very approachable and always eager to help. Entering technically demanding areas can be very intimidating for some young people, but James is a great example of how openness and dedication can bring immediate rewards.