Reflecting on two years at Lamini 🪞✌️🦙

Two years ago, I joined Lamini as the second engineer. It’s hard to believe how much has changed since then—both for the company and for me personally. When I started, my role was a bit of a moving target. Officially, I joined as a founding engineer, but in reality, I wore every hat imaginable: chief of staff, sales, customer success, product management, fullstack development, systems engineering, and platform design. As the company evolved, so did my responsibilities, and each new challenge became an opportunity to learn and grow.

Now, as our product has matured and gained traction, my focus has shifted towards platform engineering. With a growing user base and increasing customer expectations, ensuring the stability, scalability, and reliability of our platform has become a top priority. This shift in focus is also a reflection of how far we’ve come. We’re no longer in "firefighting" mode; instead, we’re focused on building a stable foundation for a growing product.

The Early Days: "Duct Tape" Solutions 🦖🛠️🏗️

In the beginning, we faced countless challenges and had to find resourceful and inventive solutions. Our scrappy approach was our greatest asset to moving fast. I still remember physically going to the datacenter to unbox our new GPUs and installing the 100+ pound servers into our cabinets by hand—we learned about server lifts many installations later! We sourced cables from the local hardware store, routers from Best Buy and Walmart, switches from a nearby computer shop, and adapters from Amazon. It wasn’t fancy, but it got the job done quickly, and it was exciting to make things work.

Today, things look very different. We’ve moved out of an office closet and into a professionally managed datacenter. We now have an entire section of the datacenter to ourselves, and we work with a company that handles the hardware and provisioning for us. It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come in just two years.

Learning by Doing 📚🤔💪

One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned is the importance of curiosity and persistence. When I first joined, I didn’t know how to do half of what was needed—but then I realized, no one else did either! So, I leaned into the unknown, asked plenty of “dumb” questions, and sought advice from anyone willing to share their expertise—whether it was datacenter technicians, computer store staff, or customer service reps for networking equipment. Each challenge became an opportunity to learn and grow, and over time, I’ve gained a broad range of experience and, for what’s still unfamiliar territory, the confidence to step in and trust that I can figure things out.

The Dynamic of a Close-Knit Team 👯🪢✨

When I first joined Lamini as the second engineer, it was just a small group of people that could fit around a single table. Now, with over 20 people, it’s incredible to see how much we’ve grown and how we’re still in constant motion. New teammates bring fresh ideas, new products take shape, and we’re constantly adapting to better meet our customers' needs. It’s still a fast-paced, ever-evolving environment—and that’s what makes it exciting. We’re not just reacting to change; we’re shaping it together as we grow, constantly fine-tuning what we do to stay aligned with both our team's goals and our users' needs. (And adding tables as needed!)

A Standout Memory 📩✍️🎉

One moment that stands out to me was when I received an email from a customer letting us know they’d secured spending approval. It felt like a major milestone, especially because they were our first annual customer contract. We had worked closely together during our three-month proof of concept, fine-tuning Lamini to meet their specific needs and continuously improving it based on their feedback. But it wasn’t just about delivering a solution—it was about creating something that truly addressed a real problem. The fact that they trusted us enough to commit to a long-term partnership made that moment even more fulfilling. Now, they’re even writing a paper on the research they’ve conducted using our platform (stay tuned for the publication!). Moments like these are a powerful reminder of why our work matters and the lasting difference it can make.

Looking Ahead🔮👀🚀

As we scale, we’re working to expand the team, conducting more interviews to bring in great talent, and navigating the growing pains of building a company that enables developers to train high accuracy LLMs. With more users depending on our platform, there’s a heightened focus on stability and availability, and we’re building out internal tooling to support an expanding engineering team. At the same time, we’re continuing to innovate with exciting products like Memory Rag and Memory Tuning that will empower users to build even more powerful LLMs.

As I reflect on the past two years at Lamini, I’m filled with gratitude for the growth and progress we’ve made as a company. It’s been a journey of constant learning and adaptation, and being a part of it has been an incredibly rewarding experience. Lamini’s vision is to empower developers to build their own superintelligence by transforming how we teach machines to learn and think, making this process intuitive and accessible for everyone. We’re not just pushing boundaries with LLMs — we’re committed to creating a future where building advanced, human-centric AI is within reach of anyone. With a team dedicated to bringing this vision to life, the future feels incredibly promising, and I can’t wait to see what we’ll achieve next.

Interested in joining the team? Check out our openings!

‍