About me

active

Current mission · since July 2026

Rebuilding AI engineering from first principles

I left my Associate Director role to learn AI properly — real systems, real practice, no shortcuts. With a small study group I've gone from micrograd and makemore through RAG and hybrid search to LangChain agents and MCP, testing everything on my homelab.

  • 9study sessions
  • 6experiments
  • 21garden notes

I'm a software engineer with over nine years of experience, specialising in backend systems, microservices, and cloud. I like simple, effective solutions built on core computer-science principles.

I've worked everywhere from fast-moving startups to VMware's Professional Services Center of Excellence, delivering business-critical systems for Fortune 500 customers. Along the way I've been a Software Engineer, Senior Engineer, Technical Lead, and most recently Associate Director at Uzabase, working on the SPEEDA Edge market-intelligence platform.

Many people add AI to products without understanding how it works, connect an API and call it done. I want to be the engineer who understands the system: why it works, and when it will break. So I'm going back to basics and learning in public in my digital garden.

Skills

  • Backend Development

    Robust backend systems in Java, Kotlin, and Spring Boot, following Clean Architecture.

  • Microservices & Cloud

    Breaking monoliths into maintainable services on AWS, Azure, and private clouds.

  • AI Systems in training

    Language-model fundamentals, RAG and hybrid search, LangChain agents, MCP, and local LLMs.

  • Team Leadership

    Leading and mentoring backend teams to deliver on time — now also running an AI study group.

Technologies

  • Java
  • Kotlin
  • Spring Boot
  • Python
  • LangChain
  • MCP
  • Postgres + pgvector
  • Redis
  • Docker
  • Ollama
  • Cloudflare
  • AWS
  • Proxmox

Holocron

Live archives from my digital garden — notes, study sessions, and experiments as I learn. Some are polished, some are still growing. Showing saved snapshot

Latest transmissions

  1. Experiments AskHolocron askholocron.sugeesh.dev — what I built and what broke, from Cloudflare Tunnel walls to FastAPI 404s.
  2. Study Sessions · 22 Sept 2026 AI Study Sessions — Session Nine What happens when the tool stops being a function and becomes a service: the Model Context Protocol.
  3. Study Sessions · 15 Sept 2026 AI Study Sessions — Session Eight LangChain basics, then the agentic basics on top of them: messages, tools and the agent loop.
  4. Study Sessions · 9 Sept 2026 AI Study Sessions — Session Seven Rebuilding the index with Docling and PGVector, then hunting for queries where cosine similarity falls over.
  5. Random Thoughts Art of Learning I think the most important thing for a successful knowledge worker is having a framework for learning.
  6. Experiments Wallpaper Rotator for Ubuntu I wanted something simple: a new wallpaper on my Ubuntu desktop every day, picked from a folder of images I already had.

Archive sectors

Enter the garden

Missions

Current — AI & homelab

  • AI Systems Study Group

    ongoing

    from micrograd to MCP, nine sessions in

    A small group of engineers working up from the fundamentals: bigram models, micrograd and makemore MLPs, then RAG and hybrid search, LangChain agents, and the Model Context Protocol, alternating theory with small builds.

    PyTorch / LangChain / Docling / pgvector / MCP

    see the sessions

  • Ask Holocron

    in progress

    retrieval over your own documents

    Upload a document and it becomes something you can question. It runs the whole retrieval pipeline in the open: ingesting the file, indexing it into passages, then answering from what it actually retrieved and pointing back at the pages. Self-hosted on my homelab behind a Cloudflare Tunnel.

    LangChain / Docling / FastAPI + React / pgvector

    what I built and what broke

  • Nuruodo Chess

    in progress

    a chess board for testing agents

    A two-player chess server built as a client application for agents to play through: live over WebSocket, scriptable over REST, every move validated by a rules engine. I use it to test agents, both my own and OpenClaw, on a task where every move can be checked.

    Node.js / WebSocket / REST / Discord bot

    source

  • sg-wallpaper-rotator

    finished

    a new wallpaper every day

    A tiny GNOME wallpaper rotator with a top-bar icon, built with AI in less time than it would have taken to find and test an existing app.

    Bash / gsettings / GNOME

    how it works

Previous campaigns

  1. SPEEDA Edge — market intelligence platform

    Oct 2024 — Jul 2026

    A platform giving insights into emerging industries and startups for strategic decisions. On the core engineering team I worked on the Kotlin backend: Clean Architecture, performance optimisation, and the migration from a monolith to microservices.

    Kotlin · React · Go · AWS · Spring Boot

  2. VMware PS Center of Excellence

    Oct 2023 — Oct 2024

    Built solutions that integrate VMware and third-party products for Fortune 500 customers, extending products with automation and new capabilities, working directly with customers.

    vRA · vRO · NSX · vSphere · SaltStack · Aria Automation Config · TypeScript · Java

  3. People Management Process Platform

    Feb 2023 — Sep 2023

    A company-wide platform for performance reviews, goals, skills, and career growth, with role-based access from employees to top management. Refactored and optimised the backend services.

    Cuba · Java · Microsoft SQL Server · GitLab

  4. Gaming Portal in the WOW Super-App

    Jan 2022 — Dec 2022

    A hyper-casual gaming portal inside a major Sri Lankan telco's super-app, with leaderboards, prizes, and automated anti-cheat validation. Designed the microservices architecture and led the backend team; deployed on AWS Kubernetes with S3 + CloudFront and Keycloak for OAuth2.

    Java 11 · Spring Boot · AWS · Redis · Keycloak · GitLab

  5. Keells Millionaire

    Jan 2021 — Feb 2021

    A random prize-distribution game for one of Sri Lanka's largest supermarket chains. Designed the architecture and led the backend team.

    Java · Spring Boot · JPA · MySQL

  6. Event-based Election Broadcast System

    Oct 2019 — Nov 2019

    Real-time election result broadcasting for a major TV station, used for the 2019 presidential and 2020 parliamentary elections. Designed the architecture and led the backend team.

    Java · Spring · RabbitMQ (AMQP) · MySQL

  7. IMI Games Portal & IMI Game Maker

    Mar 2018 — Jan 2023

    Sri Lanka's first localised multi-genre mini-game portal: 100+ games and a 200k+ user base, plus a no-code game maker for designers. Designed the architecture and led the backend team.

    Java · Spring Boot · MySQL · MongoDB · Redis · Keycloak · Azure Functions

Journey

Experience

  1. AI Engineering — self-directed sabbatical

    Jul 2026 — Present

    • Studying AI engineering full-time from first principles
    • Running a weekly AI systems study group: nine sessions from micrograd to MCP
    • Building RAG apps, local LLMs, and agents on a self-hosted homelab
    • Learning in public at garden.sugeesh.dev

  2. Associate Director EDGE, Uzabase Sri Lanka

    Oct 2024 — Jul 2026

    • Applied Clean Architecture and SOLID principles to new features
    • Decoupled a monolithic codebase into microservices
    • Measured and optimised Kotlin backend performance

  3. Sr. Member of Technical Staff, VMware

    Oct 2023 — Oct 2024

    • Delivered projects for global customers with the PS CoE team across the full VMware suite
    • Solved complex integration problems independently and in teams
    • Built strong client relationships through direct customer engagement

  4. Software Engineer, Musala Soft

    Jan 2023 — Sep 2023

    • Refactored and optimised existing backend services
    • Maintained and debugged production code in a Scrum team

  5. Technical Lead, Arimac

    Nov 2021 — Jan 2023

    • Proposed technology stacks and designed high-level system architecture
    • Developed backend modules and performed code reviews
    • Mentored and managed teammates

  6. Senior Software Engineer, Arimac

    Sep 2019 — Nov 2021

    • Implemented project modules in clean, OOP Java
    • Performed code reviews and mentored teammates

  7. Senior Software Engineer, Apptizer Inc.

    Apr 2019 — Sep 2019

    • Built Java modules on PostgreSQL with Swagger-documented APIs and unit tests

  8. Software Engineer, Arimac Digital

    Jan 2018 — Feb 2019

    • Implemented Java modules and unit tests in a Scrum team

  9. Software Engineering Intern, AdroitLogic

    Jul 2016 — Dec 2016

    • Analysed requirements, designed components, and wrote tested Java code

Education

  1. BSc, Computer Science and Engineering

    2014 — 2017

    University of Moratuwa

  2. Certificate in Computer Software Engineering

    2011 — 2013

    Institute of Java & Software Engineering

Writing

Older articles from Medium. New writing lives in the .