Stefan Decker, Developer in Berlin, Germany
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Stefan Decker

Bio

Stefan is a senior data scientist and AI engineer specializing in NLP and LLMs. He builds production ML systems in healthcare AI, including transformer models that automate medical coding for millions of radiology reports and LLM-powered labeling pipelines that replaced manual expert annotation. Stefan has 10 years of experience across data science, startup founding, and enterprise consulting. He also builds AI-powered products independently, from B2B order automation to AI workout generation.

Portfolio

Maverick
Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Web Services (AWS), MongoDB...
Mathemathicai
Python, Pandas, NumPy, Scikit-learn, TensorFlow, Amazon Web Services (AWS)...
Zeitgold
Python, PostgreSQL, NumPy, Scikit-learn, TensorFlow, Django, Pandas...

Experience

  • Python - 8 years
  • Machine Learning - 6 years
  • Transformers - 5 years
  • Natural Language Processing (NLP) - 4 years
  • API Integration - 4 years
  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 3 years
  • Large Language Models (LLMs) - 2 years
  • Prompt Engineering - 2 years

Preferred Environment

PyCharm, MacOS, Slack

The most amazing...

...thing I built is an extractive QA system for medical coding that became a top-requested product feature, from concept to production with LLM-based labeling.

Work Experience

Senior Data Scientist

2022 - PRESENT
Maverick
  • Led the data science workstream for a major client onboarding, coordinating cross-functional teams (product, engineering, key accounts) to deliver on time, with model performance exceeding expectations.
  • Built a custom multi-input BERT classifier for automated medical coding (CPT/ICD) on radiology reports, combining clinical text with patient metadata to automate 85% of coding decisions in production.
  • Designed and shipped a novel extractive QA system that highlights evidence text for thousands of ICD codes across millions of radiology reports, a previously unsolved capability and one of the most requested product features.
  • Pioneered a large language model (LLM)-based data labeling pipeline that replaced manual annotation by domain experts, enabling rapid model development with only spot-check validation, cutting labeling time and cost by an order of magnitude.
Technologies: Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Web Services (AWS), MongoDB, Large Language Models (LLMs), BERT, Hugging Face, Transformers, Prompt Engineering, Medical Coding, Python, Data Labeling, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Natural Language Processing (NLP), PyCharm, Pandas, NumPy, Scikit-learn

Data Scientist

2020 - PRESENT
Mathemathicai
  • Conceptualized and trained a model for the IoT classification task (predictive maintenance) based on power consumption.
  • Created a BERT model for the sentiment classification of English text.
  • Supported with iterative model improvements by creating custom evaluation pipelines.
Technologies: Python, Pandas, NumPy, Scikit-learn, TensorFlow, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, Deep Learning, Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Science, Git, Google Sheets, PyCharm, Hugging Face, PyTorch, Transformers, OpenAI GPT-4 API, Large Language Models (LLMs), ChatGPT, Prompt Engineering, API Integration, Automation, Data Analytics, Data Visualization, Amazon Bedrock

Data Scientist

2019 - 2020
Zeitgold
  • Conceptualized, trained, and implemented deep learning and other machine learning models for document classification to significantly reduce the need for manual labor.
  • Provided analysis and took part in discussions with top-level executives about the machine learning strategy of the company.
  • Improved and maintained existing models and integrated retraining functionality in the core back end.
Technologies: Python, PostgreSQL, NumPy, Scikit-learn, TensorFlow, Django, Pandas, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT), Deep Learning, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Science, Git, Google Sheets, PyCharm, Hugging Face, PyTorch, Transformers, Automation, Data Analytics, Data Visualization, Document Processing

Data Scientist

2017 - 2019
I2x
  • Built production-ready NLP features (Python, C++) that are now an integral part of the product.
  • Trained custom word vector models on movie subtitles to improve the handling of swear words.
  • Led a team of two machine learning engineers through the development of critical NLP components.
  • Acted as technical project lead for a machine learning project with the largest customer.
  • Conceptualized the data labeling process and built classifiers to improve labeling efficiency by using active learning.
Technologies: Git, NumPy, Pandas, TensorFlow, Python, PostgreSQL, Scikit-learn, Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Leadership, Data Science, Google Sheets, Data Analytics, Data Visualization

Co-founder and Managing Director

2014 - 2017
Invincible Brands
  • Bootstrapped brand with no external funding to €20,000 monthly revenue in less than 12 months.
  • Built an Instagram scraping and analytics tool using Excel (XML Import) that enabled rapid scaling of marketing activities.
  • Initiated and facilitated the acquisition by Invincible Brands.
  • Set up a process to outsource almost all operational work.
  • Hired and managed a team of four fulfillment and customer support employees.
Technologies: Web Scraping, Leadership, Google Sheets, eCommerce

Growth & Analytics Specialist

2015 - 2016
SwitchUp
  • Set up a complex rule-based Excel tool to manage the send-out of reminder emails for customers. This made the development of a Ruby application unnecessary for the time being.
  • Developed an Excel BI tool using system and Mixpanel data to monitor company-wide KPIs and support strategic decisions.
  • Set up and managed A/B testing campaigns to help the company find product-market fit.
Technologies: Mixpanel, Facebook Ads, Google Sheets

Co-founder | CMO

2012 - 2014
JUNIQE.com
  • Raised €450,000 from institutional investors. Co-created the pitch deck and financial model and took part in the negotiations.
  • Led a cross-functional team of seven, including designers, back- and front-end developers, to accomplish a product pivot.
  • Set up the web and mobile BI system using Google Analytics, Mixpanel, and Adjust.io.
Technologies: Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Leadership

Consultant

2011 - 2012
EY
  • Supported several M&A deals including the biggest real estate deal in Germany since 2008.
  • Calculated ß factors with regression by using historical stock prices for all internal customers of Ernst & Young Germany.
  • Managed the outsourcing of data retrieval tasks in an M&A project to meet critical deadlines.
Technologies: Accounting, Financial Modeling, Capital Markets, Consulting

Experience

Order Robot | AI-powered B2B Order Automation for Shopify

Built Order Robot as a solo developer from concept to production—an AI-powered tool that automates the conversion of PDF and email-based B2B orders into Shopify Draft Orders.

THE PROBLEM
D2C brands receiving wholesale orders via PDF or email manually re-enter them into Shopify, a tedious and error-prone process. Order Robot eliminates this by using a large language model (LLM)-based document parsing to extract line items, quantities, pricing, and customer data from unstructured order documents, then automatically creates Draft Orders via the Shopify GraphQL API.

TECHNICAL HIGHLIGHTS
LLM-powered document parsing with structured output extraction, Shopify GraphQL API integration (Draft Orders, B2B pricing with Company/Location/Catalog/Price List hierarchy), email-based order intake, and a web-based interface for order review and confirmation.

This project demonstrates end-to-end AI product development: identifying a real business pain point, designing the solution architecture, building the full stack, and deploying to production all as a single developer.

SpinForge | AI Workout Generator for Zwift

https://spinforge-restless-water-7912.fly.dev/
Built SpinForge (Zwift AI Workout Generator) as a solo project, a web application that generates custom indoor cycling workouts for the Zwift platform using AI.

Users specify their training preferences (duration, focus area, intensity) and receive a structured workout tailored to their goals. The key differentiator: workouts can be refined through natural language conversation. Users describe changes in plain English (e.g., 'make the intervals shorter but more intense' or 'add a longer warm-up'), and the LLM modifies the workout accordingly while ensuring it still meets the original constraints.

TECHNICAL IMPLEMENTATION
Large language model (LLM)-powered workout generation with constraint validation (ensuring duration, intensity zones, and training focus remain consistent), conversational refinement interface for iterative workout editing, structured output generation in Zwift-compatible workout format, and deployment on Fly.io.

This project showcases practical LLM application design: not just generating content, but maintaining structured constraints while allowing flexible natural language interaction, a pattern applicable to any domain where users need AI-assisted creation within defined parameters.

Neural Search QA System for German Politicians

I built a German-language question-answering system that lets users ask natural language questions to politicians and receive relevant answers from their social media statements. The system uses a Dense Passage Retriever for semantic document retrieval and a fine-tuned Electra transformer model as a ranker to identify the most relevant answers, even when they don't share keywords with the question.

• Created custom training and evaluation datasets by hand-labeling 144 questions across 525 political tweets.
• Fine-tuned both retriever and ranker on this domain-specific data, significantly boosting recall and F1 scores.
• Deployed as a Flask web app on Google Cloud Run with a PostgreSQL-backed FAISS document store.
• Built the full pipeline solo: data collection via the Twitter API, text normalization, model training, evaluation, and cloud deployment.

Deep House Spy

https://github.com/sbadecker/deep_house_spy
The Deep House Spy is an artist classification project based on a convolutional neural network (CNN). CNNs have proven to be really effective for image classification and can also work with audio when put in the right form.

The idea for the project came to me while listening to a deep house DJ set on SoundCloud. I really liked the song that I was listening to, but Shazam just wouldn't recognize it. This happens very often, and the reason is (most of the time) that Shazam doesn't have the song in its database because it hasn't been released yet.

My approach to solving this problem was to learn the styles of artists by using already released songs and then identifying the respective artists of unreleased songs.

Education

2004 - 2010

Master's Degree in Business Administration

Georg-August-Universität - Göttingen, Germany

Certifications

MARCH 2018 - PRESENT

Deep Learning Specialization

Coursera

APRIL 2017 - PRESENT

Data Science

Galvanize

Skills

Libraries/APIs

Pandas, NumPy, Scikit-learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch, Shopify API

Tools

PyCharm, Google Sheets, ChatGPT, Google Analytics, Git, Haystack

Languages

Python, SQL

Paradigms

Automation

Platforms

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Mixpanel, Google Ads, Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Storage

PostgreSQL, Google Cloud, MongoDB

Frameworks

Django

Other

Data Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Analytics, Deep Learning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT), Hugging Face, Transformers, Large Language Models (LLMs), Prompt Engineering, API Integration, Data Visualization, Facebook Ads, Web Scraping, Capital Markets, Leadership, Consulting, OpenAI GPT-4 API, eCommerce, Amazon Bedrock, BERT, Medical Coding, Data Labeling, Document Processing

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