DoctorLai

Zhihua Lai, PhD

Senior Software Engineer — Systems, Cloud & Networking

🏠 Cambridge, UK

📧 dr.zhihua.lai [AT] gmail.com

📞 +44 (0)7939 518997

ILR (UK)

Version 2025-Jan-16 View Source https://doctorlai.github.io
The Longer Version https://github.com/DoctorLai/resume/blob/main/zhihua-lai-resume-en.md
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doctorlai
GitHub: https://github.com/DoctorLai
GitHub (Microsoft Research): https://github.com/doctorlai-msrc
Microsoft Research Profile: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/zhihualai/

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft Research Cambridge
working on high-performance systems, cloud infrastructure, robotics AI and 5G/6G networking.
Former Amazon AWS engineer (Day-1 contributor to Amazon S3 Object Lambda)
Former General Electric Staff Software Engineer. working on Magik Compiler
PhD in Computer Science, published researcher (ACM MobiCom)
Top-3 Witness (Block Producer) on the Steem Blockchain (https://steemyy.com).

Proven record of delivering low-latency, production-grade systems across C/C++, eBPF, distributed cloud platforms, and large-scale storage systems.

Microsoft Certified

Code	Domain	Name	Certification Number	Earned-on Date
AI-900	AI	Azure AI Fundamentals	7Z9DA9-388866	December 19, 2025
DP-900	Data	Azure Data Fundamentals	CD4244-E236BG	December 19, 2025
SC-900	Security	Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals	B6A851-BECO96	January 13, 2026
AZ-900	Cloud	Azure Fundamentals	B6FAD6-2S7125	January 16, 2026

CORE SKILLS

Systems & Networking: C, C++, eBPF, Linux, O-RAN, 4G/5G, RAN, low-latency systems
Cloud & Distributed Systems:
Azure (AKS, Kubernetes, Functions, Service Bus, CI/CD etc),
AWS (S3, EC2, Lambda, DynamoDB, CloudFormation etc)
Languages: C/C++, Python, Go, Java, C#, Rust, PHP, Node.js etc
Research & Engineering: Performance optimization, rapid prototyping (0→1)
Blockchain: Infrastructure, tooling, APIs, block production (Steem)

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Microsoft Research Cambridge — Senior Software Engineer

Intelligent Network Systems (formerly Azure for Operators)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/group/ins/ July 2021 – Present

Build high-performance software running on 5G base stations using C/C++, eBPF, and Linux
Support researchers in turning ideas from prototype to production
Contribute to open-source research platforms used by the global RAN community

Selected Open Source Contributions (username doctorlai-msrc)

Publications (Selected)

Distributed AI Platform for the 6G RAN — Open-AI RAN’25
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2410.03747
Taking 5G RAN Analytics and Control to a New Level — ACM MobiCom’23
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3570361.3592493
Programmable RAN Platform for Flexible Real-Time Control and Telemetry —
ACM MobiCom’23 (Best Demo Award Runner-Up)
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3570361.3614065

Previous Publications

Chapter 2 - Radio Propagation Modelling, in Book “Heterogeneous Cellular Networks: Theory, Simulation and Deployment”, Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Chapter 5 - Outdoor-Indoor Channel, in Book “LTE-Advanced and Next Generation Wireless Networks: Channel Modelling and Propagation”, John Wiley & Sons, November, 2012.
Intelligent Ray Launching Algorithm for Indoor Scenarios - Radioengineering, Towards EUCAP 2012

Amazon Web Services — Software Development Engineer (L5)

AWS S3, Cambridge, UK
January 2020 – July 2021

Day-1 engineer on Amazon S3 Object Lambda
https://aws.amazon.com/s3/features/object-lambda/
Contributed to the successful global launch
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/introducing-amazon-s3-object-lambda/
Built internal tooling to identify performance bottlenecks in one of the world’s largest distributed storage systems.
Participated in on-call rotation for mission-critical AWS services e.g. S3 Object Lamda

Tech Stack: Java, Python, Node.js, AWS S3, Lambda, DynamoDB, CloudFormation

General Electric — Staff Software Engineer

Smallworld GIS, Cambridge, UK
December 2018 – January 2020

Core contributor to Smallworld GIS platform
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magik_(programming_language)
Designed and implemented language-level features in the Magik compiler

Key Contributions

Added while-loop, regular expression engine, HTTP and JWT libraries
Improved runtime performance and fixed multithreading race conditions
165+ pull requests merged; significant impact within first 3 months

Ranplan Wireless — Principal Algorithm Engineer

Cambridgeshire, UK September 2010 – November 2018
https://ranplanwireless.com/

Lead developer of radio wave propagation engine (core IP, ~500K LOC)
Designed ray-tracing and channel modeling algorithms used in commercial tools
Led C++ rewrite, GPU acceleration (OpenCL), and performance-critical inline assembly

EDUCATION

PhD, Computer Science (Wireless & Algorithms)
<The development of an intelligent ray launching algorithm for wireless network planning>
2010, University of Bedfordshire, UK

BSc, Computer Science (First Class)
2006, University of Luton, UK

PATENTS (SELECTED)

Method for Predicting Outdoor 3D Signal Field Strength PCT/GB2015/053224
Method for Predicting Indoor 3D Signal Field Strength PCT/GB2015/053223
Wifi Multi-Band Fingerprint-Based Indoor Positioning WO/2018/167500

BLOCKCHAIN & OPEN SOURCE LEADERSHIP

Top-3 Witness (Block Producer) on the Steem Blockchain
https://steemyy.com/witness-ranking/
Architect and operator of Steem infrastructure, APIs, explorers, and services
Maintainer of open-source blockchain tooling and load-balancing infrastructure

HONORS

ACM National Olympiad in Informatics (NOI) — Third Prize
Marie Curie Fellowship (EU)

MISCELLANEOUS

Clean UK Driving License (13 yr+)
Teaching Kids Programming (Python, Data Structures and Algorithms) for 700+ days