Arnaud Saint‑Pierre

Aspiring Software Engineer & Innovation Architect

I build the teams and tech that solve the right problems in the right way.

My approach combines first-principles thinking with cross-disciplinary leadership to turn ambitious ideas into market-defining products.

GitHub

LinkedIn

Experience at NVIDIA

Architecting beyond the code to solve core performance bottlenecks in graphics drivers.

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Experience at Microsoft

Building trust from first principles with a FIPS-compliant cryptographic library in Rust.

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First Principles

My approach to innovation, from a high school soda business to optimizing GPU drivers. Click to read the story.

Identify. Deconstruct. Build.

In high school, I saw two problems: I had no money, and our campus banned soda.

Instead of just breaking the rules, I broke down the problem. What *is* soda? Carbonated water, sugar, and flavor. I could source all of those. So I dove into the science, experimenting with sugar inversion ratios for mouthfeel and osmotic maceration to extract flavors from raw mint, ginger, and roots. I wasn't just making soda; I was engineering a flavor system from scratch.

The result was a product so good, the administration gave me a permit to sell it—on one condition: teachers got theirs for free. I learned a key lesson: when you understand a system from its first principles, you can rewrite the rules.

This mindset is how I approach everything, from a soda business to optimizing a GPU driver cache at NVIDIA. It’s about finding the core truth of a problem and building the most effective solution, whether for flavor or for performance.

Cross-Disciplinary Leadership

I build teams of diverse thinkers to find solutions that mono-culture teams can't conceive. Click here.

Building the Team Before the Product

In high school, I realized the most valuable skill wasn't just being the smartest person in the room, but finding them. I started curating a network of top performers.

I brought this to university and founded the 'Innovation Collective'. I didn't just recruit engineers; I actively sought out the sharpest minds in Psychology, History, and Physics from UCSC, Stanford, and Berkeley. Why? Because an engineer sees a system, but a historian sees its cycles, and a psychologist sees the user. True breakthroughs happen when these views collide.

We connected our projects to campus initiatives at Stanford and Berkeley, proving the model works. I don't just lead projects; I architect teams of diverse experts who can solve problems in ways a homogenous team never could.

Mastering a Craft

From Italian pasta to Japanese ramen, the discipline of mastering a craft—in the kitchen or the kernel—is the same. Click here.

For me, a recipe is a technical document written in the language of a culture. A little step out of VS Code and into the real world. I cook to deconstruct and understand. It's my way of inching towards my dream of traveling the world, one dish at a time.

Current Top 5

  • Pici all'Aglione
    Pici all'Aglione

    Hand rolling Tuscan noodles and balancing a ten clove garlic sauce. My personal favorite and a lesson in patience and elegance.

  • Shio Ramen
    Shio Ramen w/ Chashu

    A systems engineering challenge in a bowl; having to master the 12-hour multi-layered broth and flavor balance of a simple cozy dish.

  • Lamb Rogan Josh
    Lamb Rogan Josh

    Here I perfected the art of 'bhuno', the slow frying of spices for a layered Kashmiri curry.

  • Lomo Saltado
    Lomo Saltado

    Captured the 'wok hei' in this Chinese-Peruvian stir fry where high speed technique turned out to be everything.

  • Canelés de Bordeaux
    Canelés de Bordeaux

    Last but not least, an absolute classic. A two day test of pure precision baking to achieve the signature caramelized crust and custardy interior.

Discipline & Drive

The focus built through years of disciplined physical training directly translates to my work: pushing through hard problems when others stop.

My Training Protocol

Discipline isn't a mindset; it's a practice. This is the structured protocol I use to build resilience through progressive overload.

Push

  • Bench Press 4x5
  • Overhead Press 3x8
  • Incline DB Press 3x10
  • Tricep Pushdown 3x12
  • Lateral Raises 4x15

Pull

  • Deadlift 1x5
  • Weighted Pull-ups 4x6
  • Barbell Row 3x8
  • Face Pulls 3x15
  • Bicep Curls 4x10

Legs

  • Barbell Squat 4x5
  • RDLs 3x8
  • Leg Press 3x10
  • Leg Curls 3x12
  • Calf Raises 4x15

Let's Build Something New

I'm always ready for the next big challenge.

Get in Touch →

Professional Chronology

Experience

Jun 2024 - Sep 2024

Software Engineer Intern, Microsoft

Engineered a FIPS-compliant Rust crypto library and optimized C in Windows Cloud Infrastructure, cutting handshake latency by 10%.

Jun 2021 - Sep 2021

Software Engineer Intern, NVIDIA

Revamped Vulkan/OpenGL Linux tests, cutting firmware test time by 12%. Built a C++/Python FPS profiler to speed up regression identification by 25%.

Sep 2024 - Dec 2024

Software Engineer Intern, IntualAI

Built scalable Stripe payment microservices, lowering checkout latency by 32%. Optimized Docker CI/CD pipelines, improving deployment efficiency by 6%.

Mar 2022 – Jun 2024

Project Lead, Tech4Good Lab

Led a team delivering data insights for Santa Cruz County. Gained hands-on experience with Angular, React, and responsive front-end design.

Education

Sep 2020 - Dec 2024

University of California, Santa Cruz

B.S. in Computer Engineering, Minor in Computer Science