Full Stack & AI Engineer building production systems that actually work.

I'm Mihai. I focus on building practical AI applications and the backend infrastructure that makes them stable. I'm interested in code that's reliable, deliberate, and solves real problems.

Mihai Timoficiuc
About

A short introduction

I spend most of my time building AI that actually makes it into production. Lately, that means wrangling LLMs and document-heavy pipelines into something stable, usually backed by Spring Boot and PostgreSQL. I'm not interested in AI as a bolt-on feature; I want it to be a core part of how the system functions.

I care about quiet, deliberate engineering. I'd rather lead by demoing a working solution than talking about one. To me, the people using the software deserve as much attention as the code itself.

Based in
Utrecht, Netherlands
Currently
Full Stack Engineer at FoodChain ID
Studying
MSc Artificial Intelligence, Universiteit Utrecht
Languages
English (C2)
Experience

Where I've worked

Jan 2024 - Present

FoodChain ID

Full Stack Software Engineer · Deventer, NL
  • I built Python and LLM pipelines to extract chemical data from complex PDFs. This cut manual review time and costs by about 80%.
  • Handled the migration from a legacy Domino system to Spring Boot and Angular 18. I rebuilt 60+ features and kept the old and new systems in sync during the transition.
  • Created multithreaded migration tools that processed 2 million entities, growing our regulatory database by 50%.
  • Focused on making the backend more robust with JWT authentication, better domain models, and production monitoring.
PythonLLMsSpring BootAngular 18PostgreSQLDocker
Feb 2025 - Apr 2025

Topicus

AI Software Engineer · Deventer, NL
  • I led a small team evaluating whether LLMs or transformers could handle extracting 1,200+ localization strings. We found that for real-world code, a custom regex solution was actually more accurate and much faster.
  • Built a DeepL translation pipeline with caching and validation that saved our engineers about 100 hours of manual effort.
  • Saved around €7,500 in localization costs while speeding up the rollout for a cancer-screening platform.
LLM EvalTransformersDeepL APILeadership
Nov 2023 - Jan 2024

Universiteit Twente

Teaching Assistant · Enschede, NL
  • Mentored 50+ students on multithreading and algorithms. I focused on helping them understand how to write code that actually scales.
  • Graded weekly assignments, giving feedback that was more about engineering thinking than just passing tests.
  • Evaluated final projects for five teams, looking specifically at their architecture and how they handled complex logic.
MentoringOOPAlgorithms
May 2022 - Jul 2022

CODE 932

Full Stack Software Engineer · Iași, RO
  • Shipped 30+ tasks for a Laravel platform, taking things from design files to working CRUD endpoints.
  • Prototyped a React and Laravel booking system that helped a startup client secure their next round of investment.
  • Worked in a tight Scrum loop, handling bug reports and delivering features on time.
LaravelReactPHPScrum
Selected Work

Case studies & Research

Case Study · 01

AI Regulatory Document Processing Platform

PythonLLMsSpring BootPostgreSQLDocker

I built a pipeline that uses LLMs and rule-based parsing to pull data from messy PDFs. It turned a task that took weeks of manual review into something that takes hours.

Challenge
Compliance teams were manually digging through dense documents for chemical data, which was slow and prone to errors.
Solution
I automated the extraction using document chunking and strict prompt validation, with a review queue for human supervision.
Outcome
Cut manual review time by 80% and expanded the knowledge base by 50%. It's now a core part of the product.
Case Study · 02

Automated Localization Pipeline

PythonDeepL APITransformersCaching

I built a system to extract and translate 1,200+ scattered strings from a large codebase. It uses a custom regex extractor and a DeepL pipeline to handle the bulk of the work.

Challenge
A cancer-screening platform was stuck because over 1,000 hardcoded strings were blocking it from launching in new markets.
Solution
I evaluated LLMs for extraction but found a custom regex solution was more accurate for code. I then built a DeepL pipeline to automate the translations.
Outcome
Saved 100+ engineering hours and roughly €7,500 in localization costs. Enabled rollout into Latvian.
Case Study · 03

Patch-Based Retina Recognition

PyTorchAutoencodersComputer VisionNumPy

A prototype for identifying people using small patches of a retinal image. I used a convolutional autoencoder to learn unique patterns without needing perfectly labeled data.

Challenge
Retinal vasculature is unique but high-variance, making it hard to identify individuals across different images.
Solution
I trained an autoencoder to learn patch embeddings and built a scoring function to find matches based on those features.
Outcome
Final grade of 8/10. It’s a project I still revisit when thinking about representation learning for medical images.
Entrepreneurship

Startups & Ventures

Startup · 01

ZZP Risico (zzprisico.nl)

2026 - Present
Founder & Lead Engineer

I'm building a platform to help Dutch freelancers manage the legal and operational risks they usually ignore. It started as part of an ICT Startups course at Utrecht University and is still in active development.

Highlight 1
Writing AI modules to spot red flags in freelancer contracts.
Highlight 2
Joined the INFOMICS incubator to turn the prototype into a real business.
Highlight 3
Focusing on making compliance and insurance actually understandable for solopreneurs.
Startup · 02

Hypex

2023 - 2024
Co-Founder & Full Stack Engineer

Hypex was meant to make physical billboard ads as simple to manage as digital ones. We built a platform that handled the entire 'Dynamic Out Of Home' workflow, cutting out the manual mess usually involved in outdoor advertising.

Highlight 1
I built the entire end-to-end platform using React and Node.js.
Highlight 2
We landed our first two paying clients within two weeks of launching.
Highlight 3
Validated the idea by talking to 25+ business owners and joining the Novel-T START incubator.
Highlight 4
Took the project to the semifinals of the UT Challenge 2024.
Skills

Tools I reach for

AI & Machine Learning

PythonTensorFlowPyTorchScikit-learnKerasTransformersLangChainOpenAI APIVector stores

Frontend

TypeScriptReactAngularHTMLCSSTailwind

Backend

JavaSpring BootNode.jsExpressLaravelJWTREST APIs

Cloud & Infrastructure

DockerCI/CDMulti-stage buildsLinux

Databases

PostgreSQLSQLSchema designMigrations

Tools & Collaboration

GitGitHub ActionsScrumCode reviewMentoring
Education

Background

Sep 2025 - Present

Universiteit Utrecht

Utrecht, NL
MSc Artificial Intelligence

Coursework in Machine Learning for Human Vision & Language and Methods of AI.

Sep 2022 - Jul 2025

Universiteit Twente

Enschede, NL
BSc Business Information Technology

System design, web programming, databases, AI, cybersecurity, and data science. Final projects in patch-based retina recognition with autoencoders (8/10) and mammary tumor classification (10/10). Led a 5-person team to the Best Project Award.

Contact

Let's get in touch

I enjoy building systems that merge intelligent automation with thoughtful engineering. If you're working on something hard, particularly where AI meets a real product, I'd love to hear about it.

Elsewhere
LinkedIn
Utrecht, Netherlands