Biography of AI Engineer Lee Boonstra
AI Engineer & Advocate, Office of the CTO, Google
AI Software Engineer & Advocate for the Office of the CTO, Google.
Biography: Lee Boonstra (they/them) is a Software Engineer and Tech Lead at Google’s Global Office of the CTO, Innovation Factory. They specialize in building large-scale machine learning systems that disrupt markets and foster global collaboration. With over a decade of experience, Lee has worn many hats, from technical trainer and developer advocate to web developer and prompt / AI engineer. Lee is a self-starter who excels at driving innovation projects that leverage their deep expertise in Conversational AI, Generative AI and Natural Language Understanding (NLU).
Their technical skills are extensive, spanning Google Cloud, LLMs, GenAI, finetuning, as well as Speech Technology and Vector Embeddings. A recent project Lee led involved designing an end-to-end GenAI speech solution for Wendy’s, showcasing their ability to implement and deploy models to production. Lee’s work is also featured in an Invention Disclosure for “Scalable High-Accuracy Transactional Agents.”
"I'm good at explaining engineering to beginners and explaining to engineers where to begin.
—Lee Boonstra
SWE, Google
Beyond their work as an engineer, Lee is a respected public keynote speaker, having presented at over 50 large conferences, including Google I/O and Google Cloud Next, to audiences of up to 5,000 people. They are also a published author for O’Reilly and Apress, having written the book The Definitive Guide to Conversational AI with Dialogflow & Google Cloud and recently, Lee authored the viral Prompt Engineering Whitepaper for Google/Kaggle, which has been read by developers, prompt engineers, and AI researchers all over the world.
Lee’s journey is a testament to their passion for creating technology rather than just consuming it.
My Resume
Experience
20 years of experience in the tech industry. More than 5 years experience in the areas of AI & machine learning.
AI Software Engineer, Tech Lead, Global Office of the CTO, Innovation Factory
- Designed and implemented an end-to-end GenAI speech solution for Wendy's to automate drive-thru orders.
- Co-authored an Invention Disclosure for "Scalable High-Accuracy Transactional Agents".
Senior Developer Advocate & Applied AI Engineer, Google
- Spoke at over 50 large conferences, including Google Cloud Next and Google I/O, to audiences from 10 to 5,000.
Customer Engineer, Google Netherlands
- Provided technical solutions for major clients including ING and Rabobank.
Sales Engineer, EMEA, Sencha Inc.
- Customer-facing work for clients like BMW, CERN, and Thales.
Lead Technical Trainer, EMEA, Sencha Inc.
- Trained customers at EMC, Nielsen, McAfee, and NASDAQ.
Lead Front-end Developer, eFocus (Valtech)
- Team lead for a team of 5, working with clients like Heineken and Philips.
Senior Java Developer, Accenture
- Worked as a consultant for clients including KLM/Air France, KPN, Liberty Global.
Education
Saxion University of Applied Sciences
Bachelor of Science in Information and Communication Technology
Technical Skills
AI / ML
Languages
Frameworks & Tools
Publications
- Authored the viral Prompt Engineering Whitepaper for Google/Kaggle.
(2025) | View on Kaggle - Book Author: The Definitive Guide To Conversational AI (Apress)
ISBN 978-1-4842-7014-1 & 978-1-4842-7013-4 (2021) | View on Springer - Book Author: Hands-on Sencha Touch 2: A real world app approach (O'Reilly)
(2013)