# Hamel Husain

> Hamel Husain is a machine learning engineer with 25+ years of experience who built part of the foundation beneath GitHub Copilot - his CodeSearchNet project was early LLM research later used by OpenAI for code understanding. Today he runs Parlance Labs, consults with AI teams across 35+ products, co-authored O'Reilly's 'Evals for AI Engineers', and teaches thousands of engineers how to move beyond vibes and actually measure their AI systems.

- **Role:** Founder at Parlance Labs
- **Organizations:** Parlance Labs, fastai, kubeflow
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** Bachelor's degree (Engineering/Science), Georgia Institute of Technology, Law studies (did not complete - left to return to engineering), Law School (unnamed)
- **Known for:** Co-authored CodeSearchNet Challenge paper - foundational LLM research that contributed to GitHub Copilot's development, Co-authored 'Evals for AI Engineers' (O'Reilly, 2025) - comprehensive guide to AI evaluation, Co-created Maven course 'AI Evals for Engineers & PMs' with 3,000+ students from 500+ companies

## Career timeline

- **2003** — Started career in ML building credit risk models at a bank immediately after college
- **2005-2008** — Management consulting across multiple industries, developed skills in problem framing and stakeholder management
- **2008-2010** — Enrolled in law school; left after realizing engineering was his true calling
- **2014** — Joined DataRobot in Boston, working alongside Kaggle grandmasters and open-source library maintainers
- **2016** — Joined Airbnb as Data Scientist; contributed to the BigHead ML platform
- **2017** — Joined GitHub; began work on semantic code search and ML tool integrations with GitHub Actions
- **2019** — Co-authored CodeSearchNet Challenge - early LLM research used by OpenAI for code understanding, a precursor to GitHub Copilot
- **2020** — Led development of fastpages (Jupyter-based blogging platform) and contributed heavily to nbdev and fastai ecosystem
- **2022** — Founded Parlance Labs; began independent AI consulting
- **2023** — Co-created 'Mastering LLMs' Maven course with Dan Becker; 3,000+ students from 500+ companies
- **2024** — Co-authored 'What We Learned from a Year of Building with LLMs' (widely shared O'Reilly series); co-taught 'AI Evals for Engineers & PMs' with Shreya Shankar
- **2025** — Published 'Evals for AI Engineers' book (O'Reilly); published 'A Field Guide to Rapidly Improving AI Products'

## Achievements

- Co-authored CodeSearchNet Challenge paper - foundational LLM research that contributed to GitHub Copilot's development
- Co-authored 'Evals for AI Engineers' (O'Reilly, 2025) - comprehensive guide to AI evaluation
- Co-created Maven course 'AI Evals for Engineers & PMs' with 3,000+ students from 500+ companies
- Led development of nbdev - literate programming environment with 5,300+ GitHub stars
- Created fastpages - Jupyter-based blogging platform with 3,500+ stars
- Co-published 'What We Learned from a Year of Building with LLMs' - one of the most-read O'Reilly pieces on practical LLM engineering
- Core contributor to fastai ecosystem alongside Jeremy Howard
- Co-authored 'A Field Guide to Rapidly Improving AI Products' (O'Reilly, April 2025)
- Consulted on 35+ AI products, developing deep expertise in real-world LLM evaluation
- Built ghapi - Python client for GitHub API

## Latest updates

- **2025-04** — Published 'A Field Guide to Rapidly Improving AI Products' on O'Reilly
- **2025-03** — Featured in O'Reilly Radar podcast 'Generative AI in the Real World: Getting Beyond the Demo'
- **2025-02** — Contributed to O'Reilly's 'AI Essentials for Tech Executives'
- **2025-01** — Released 'Evals for AI Engineers' book (O'Reilly) co-authored with Shreya Shankar
- **2024-06** — Completed three-part O'Reilly series 'What We Learned from a Year of Building with LLMs'

## Links

- Website: https://hamel.dev
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamelhusain
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/hamelhusain
- GitHub: https://github.com/hamelsmu
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@hamelhusain7140

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/hamel-husain
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-04-21