William Stephen Poole
AI-Focused Software Engineer at Microsoft
About
I'm William Stephen Poole, an AI-Focused Software Engineer at Microsoft. Currently, I'm part of the DI ML team where I focus on agentic development and building sophisticated AI-based workflows. My career has been a blend of deep technical execution and entrepreneurial initiative—from co-founding HITCH to optimizing infrastructure at scale within Azure. I've always been driven by measurable impact, whether that's improving query speeds by 230x or finding ways to significantly reduce operational costs. I'm passionate about the intersection of AI, cloud connectivity, and health tech. I’m here to connect with fellow engineers and innovators who are pushing the boundaries of what agentic systems can do and to stay engaged with the broader tech and McGill alumni communities.
Networking
What I can offer
- ›Expertise in agentic AI development
- ›Deep knowledge of Azure infrastructure and CMDB systems
- ›Full-stack engineering across Java, Go, C#, and Python
- ›Experience scaling technical performance and reducing operational costs
Looking for
- ›expanding my professional network
- ›exploring mutual opportunities in AI/ML and cloud infrastructure
Best fit for
Current Interests
Background
Career
Progressed from multiple engineering internships (Medella Health, Magnet Forensics, Lightspeed HQ) and co-founding HITCH to a long-term tenure at Microsoft, moving from Azure Infrastructure to the DI ML team.
Education
Bachelor of Engineering (BEng), Computer Engineering from McGill University (2013 – 2018)
Achievements
- ›Reduced company costs at Lightspeed HQ by $240,000 per year
- ›Improved querying speeds by 230x using a concurrent requests model in Go
- ›Ranked 20th among all active Tilt.com ambassadors globally
- ›Co-founded HITCH, an offline content access platform
- ›Developed full desktop app and microcontroller firmware for Medella Health