John Pierman — ML Engineer & Quantitative Researcher

About Me

I'm a Machine Learning Engineer with 3+ years of experience designing and shipping production ML, analytics, and security automation systems in Go and Python. I combine software engineering with mathematics, statistics, economics, and applied research to build end-to-end products spanning streaming ingestion, model orchestration, agentic workflows, APIs, data infrastructure, and analyst-facing interfaces.

At Arancia, my current work includes autonomous SOC decisioning, anomaly detection, probabilistic modeling, and high-volume enterprise event analytics. At Brock University, I'm pursuing two undergraduate theses in Bayesian network structure learning and cybercrime economics.

Outside of work, I contribute to open-source projects, compete in programming and chess events, lead the Brock Bouldering and Climbing Club, and stay active in track and field.

3+ Years Professional Experience

3.8 GPA at Brock University

2 Undergraduate Theses

$18K+ In Scholarships Awarded

Experience

Machine Learning Engineer

Arancia · Remote / Ontario

Aug 2024 — Present

Developed and productionized an end-to-end autonomous SOC platform that ingests security alerts through Kafka and orchestrates MCP-connected investigation tools to triage activity and reconstruct an auditable investigation timeline.
Designed severity- and confidence-based decisioning that automatically blocks confirmed malicious IOCs or opens cases, while routing lower-confidence outcomes to an analyst approval queue.
Built and integrated MCP tools, backend orchestration, and data services that enrich alerts, correlate evidence, and surface findings through an analyst-facing frontend.
Develop production ML and analytics services in Go and Python using OpenSearch, APIs, RAG, Terraform, Docker, and automated data pipelines across high-volume enterprise event data.
Translate security operations requirements into explainable, deployable decision systems and contribute across architecture, implementation, testing, and production delivery.

GoPythonKafkaMCPOpenSearchTerraformDockerRAG

Offensive Solutions Developer Intern

Calian IT & Cyber · Ontario

May 2023 — Aug 2024

Developed internal security-testing, automation, and reporting tools in Go and C, strengthening systems design, data engineering, and performance-oriented programming skills.
Built analyst-facing utilities that improved workflow efficiency and surfaced operational data for downstream reporting and decision support.
Integrated APIs and infrastructure tooling while applying secure software practices, automated testing, and deployment-oriented engineering workflows.

GoCSecurityAPIsAutomation

Projects

Featured Project

Brodie Bets

Rec League Sports Analytics & Predictions

Vercel-ready analytics dashboard and Go API that ingests Brodie League public statistics to project team moneylines and player stat props using exponentially weighted and rolling-average models. Includes a filterable betting board, model comparison and tuning, Postgres caching, and automated data synchronization. Walk-forward backtests achieved 69.0% moneyline accuracy and a 0.204 Brier score across 87 Niagara Spring 2026 games.

GoNext.jsTypeScriptPostgreSQLVercel

bngo

Bayesian Network Library

Go package for Bayesian networks supporting structure learning, parameter learning, probabilistic inference, simulation, prediction, and mixed discrete-continuous modeling. Connected to ongoing undergraduate research in Bayesian-network structure learning.

GoOpen SourceProbabilistic ML

2025 — 2026

Trackie Brock PB Fetcher

Sports Data Scraping

Python scraper that collects Trackie U SPORTS results and computes Brock University athlete personal bests across recent seasons. Produces analysis-ready datasets with normalized performances, meet metadata, and derived dates for downstream sports analytics.

PythonWeb ScrapingSports Analytics

2026

Terraform HTTP Provider

Infrastructure & APIs

Contributed to a Terraform provider that executes HTTP requests and stores responses in Terraform state for downstream workflow use. Strengthened experience with provider schemas, state management, API integration, and automated testing.

GoTerraformInfrastructure

2025

Niagara Hotels Ad Analysis

Regression Modeling

Regression-based geotargeting analysis for the Niagara Falls Canada Hotels Association to identify stronger advertising regions and improve return on advertising spend. Translated model findings into practical regional targeting recommendations for a non-technical stakeholder audience.

PythonRegressionBusiness Analytics

2024

Research

Undergraduate Thesis

Bayesian Network Structure Learning

Supervised by Dr. Pouria Ramazi

Conduct research under Dr. Pouria Ramazi on efficient search, scoring, and interpretable probabilistic modeling, translating theoretical methods into reusable algorithms and experiments. This work directly informs the bngo open-source library.

Probabilistic MLStructure LearningResearch

2025 — Present

Undergraduate Thesis

Cybercrime Economics

Supervised by Dr. Taylor Wright

Conduct research under Dr. Taylor Wright using empirical datasets and reproducible econometric workflows to study cybersecurity disclosure, market dynamics, and policy impacts.

EconometricsEvent StudiesPolicy Analysis

2025 — Present

Technical Strengths

Programming

Python Go R Java TypeScript C

ML & Statistics

Regression Forecasting Stochastic Processes Bayesian Networks Optimization Clustering Experimentation Econometrics Event Studies Statistical Inference

Data & Infrastructure

APIs OpenSearch PostgreSQL Terraform Docker Kafka MCP RAG Workflows Git Azure DevOps Vercel Next.js pandas NumPy matplotlib statsmodels

Education

Brock University

St. Catharines, Ontario

Expected 2027

Honours BSc in Mathematics and Economics

Concentration in Statistics • Minor in Computer Science • 3.8 GPA

Subject averages: Mathematics A+ • Statistics A • Computer Science A • Economics A+

Statistics & Econometrics

Topics in Stochastic Processes and Models, Mathematical Statistics I, Probability, Regression Analysis, Experimental Design, Forecasting Using Time Series Data, Econometrics, Microeconometrics

Computer Science & Quantitative Computing

Artificial Intelligence, Programming for Big Data, Advanced Data Structures, Computer Architecture, Bayesian and Causal Bayesian Networks, Discrete Optimization, Game Theory