about the authors

Serj Smorodinsky is a software developer, AI engineer, and data leader with over a decade of experience across software development and data science. He leads teams that bridge the gap between research and production, turning experimental AI into reliable, real-world systems. He also teaches at Nebius Academy and creates friendly content that makes AI feel a little less mysterious.

Brett Kennedy is a software developer with over 30 years of experience in the field, including 15 years working in data science and AI. He remembers the AI winter of the 1990s, when just about everything in Python was named after something from Monty Python, when XGBoost finally made boosted models effective, and when the first word vectors appeared. He lives in Toronto with his spouse and two children.