RealLIST Engineers 2024: Meet 15 people in Philly keeping the tech scene running

Technical.ly’s RealLIST Engineers 2024 is underwritten by Comcast. The list was independently reported and not reviewed by Comcast before publication.

The people who build the technology systems that make the world run, and who fix them when they break, are an integral part of any tech community. 

This is something we all saw firsthand during the global IT outage a few weeks ago. 

That’s why we like to recognize exceptional technologists every year on our RealLIST Engineers list. From enthusiastic public speakers to meetup leaders to people who are working on really cool projects for their organizations, this year’s cohort is a talented bunch. 

We gather nominations and comb through the past year of reporting to narrow down a list of 15 technologists doing great work every year. This is the sixth RealLIST Engineers list in Philly, with cohorts in 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020 and 2019. 

The list consists of people with startup experience, tech educators and employees at big companies like Comcast, the largest tech employer in the Philadelphia region according to the Philadelphia Business Journal. 

Read on to meet this year’s 15 honorees. 

Who else should we be watching to feature on future RealLISTs? We accept nominations for Startups, Connectors and Engineers all year long.

Sumayyah Ahmed

Square 

Ahmed is a technical lead at financial services software company Square. She was previously an Android engineer at University of California, Davis, scheduling and tutoring platform Penji and Comcast. 

Her nominator said she has been active at conferences speaking about development and architecture for android applications and described her as “absolutely brilliant.” 

Mike Bachman

Boomi 

After working in several technologist roles at cloud integration platform Boomi, Bachman is now the head of architecture and AI strategy. 

Also a member of the Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technology (PACT), Bachman leads the committee for PACT’s Phorum Technology Conference, helping to choose speakers and session topics. He moderated a conversation about AI at this spring’s event. 

“Bachman gives tremendous insight, breaks down hard topics in ways that the average person can understand, and does so much for the community at large,” his nominator said. 

Tim Dodd

SID Global Solutions

Dodd’s expertise is cloud transformation, development operations and financial operations. He currently works at global digital transformation company SID Global Solutions. 

Earlier this summer, Dodd helped organize a local meetup event called RePhil that coincided with AWS Re:Inforce. The event served as an in-person meetup while also raising money for local tech nonprofits. 

Grace Francisco

Panto, AI Data CO OP, Daytona

After working in the tech industry for 20 years, Francisco wears many hats as an advisor, board member and investor. 

She’s a strategic advisor for intellectual property startup Panto, a board member for AI Data CO OP, and an angel investor in development environment manager Daytona. She is dedicated to bringing software development leaders together to make Philly a more inclusive ecosystem for companies and technologists. 

Francisco has worked at small startup and global companies, with technologists in developer relations roles. However, she started her career building up technical skills as a software engineer. 

Devangna Kaushish

Comcast

After working her way up through the previous levels of engineering roles, Kaushish is an engineer four for product development engineering at Comcast. She is also an instructor for tech education program TechGirlz Charitable Foundation. 

She is an expert in network analytics, and committed to improving network performance and customer experience, her nominator said. Kaushish developed and implemented machine learning algorithms that detect anomalies in network monitoring

“Devangna ensures that the solutions she develops have a direct positive impact on end-users, enhancing the reliability and quality of network services,” her nominator said.

Myron Law

Tech Elevator

Law teaches in-person and online software engineering courses at Tech Elevator, where he’s been an instructor for the last three years. Before turning to education, Law worked in the IT and software development space for over 20 years, including as the VP of software development at the Police and Fire Federal Credit Union. 

“He has helped countless coding bootcamp students learn technical aspects of the field as well as soft skills while also working on his own development as a technologist,” his nominator said. 

Warren Longmire

Pluralsight

Longmire has 15 years of experience as a software developer, working for companies like tax tech platform Vertex as a senior developer. Now, he is a contract instructor at Pluralsight, an online tech education platform.

The past four years, Longmire has been invested in computer science education, teaching coding courses at LaunchCode, Lamda School, Dev 10 and Galvanize. He also creates art and literature that intersects with tech, founding his own consultancy that combines the fields.

Guillermo Pita Gil

Burro

Pita Gil started out at autonomous farming robotics company Burro as the VP of engineering in 2022 before moving up to CTO last spring. He came to the startup after 15 years of experience in the automotive industry at Toyota Research Institute and Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi. 

Pita Gil now leads a team of 30 engineers and manages Burro robots globally. Pita Gil’s nominator said he is a “high impact” engineer that takes care of his team while also staying hands on with the product. “Guillermo is in the top of the field,” they said. 

Yash Prabhu

NBCUniversal

Prabhu’s work experience includes engineering management roles and she is knowledgeable about mobile app and front-end development, design systems, developer experience and agile project management. She is the director of software engineering at Comcast subsidiary NBCUniversal.

She is also an active tech community organizer as the founder and program chair for the Philly Mobile Development Conference. Prabhu won Best Tech Manager in Philadelphia by the Timmy Awards in 2017. Her nominator said she is “definitely the real deal.” 

Yadira Sakornpan

Wharton Research Data Services

Sakornpan is a senior application developer for Wharton Research Data Services where she’s been working for almost a decade. Sakornpan works on extract, transform, load processes with data from financial vendors. 

Her nominator said she also has played a big role in “developing a PostgreSQL system [a database system in the SQL language] for performing large, long-running, multi-gigabyte queries.” 

Jaylen Sanders

Comcast

Sanders has been at Comcast for the last five years, working his way up from software engineer to technical lead. He is also involved with Bengineers, a network of Black engineers at Comcast. 

“[Sanders] always impresses me with his willingness to share his expertise and enthusiasm with people at all stages of their careers,” his nominator said. 

He recently spoke at Technical.ly’s Developers Conference during Philly Tech Week, leading a session called “Now that we are in Web 3, what should we build now?” 

Willem Schrieks

Comcast Business

Schrieks started his career journey in graphic design and web design, completing two internships with workforce development org Hopeworks. 

He moved into user experience and product design roles before landing a role on the Comcast Business team this summer as a senior user experience designer.

“His commitment to creating beautiful, functional and impactful products has been evident in every role he has undertaken,” Schrieks’s nominator said. For example, he was a product designer at employee stipend software company Compt, where he improved the platform and worked on a new product line to help users access benefits and compensation. 

Matthew Star

Fathom

Star was previously the cofounder and head of operations of data modeling startup Narrator, where he now serves as an advisor in addition to being a senior software engineer at AI-based note taking company Fathom.

He also started the monthly Philly Data and AI Happy Hour and the Tech Leadership Collective of Philadelphia. This programming builds “local community around engineering and engineering leadership,” Star’s nominator wrote. 

Greg Taylor

Certara

Taylor is a software engineering manager for biosimulation company Cetara. Before this, he had the same role at clinical data software vendor Pinnacle 21, which was acquired by Certara in 2021. 

Outside of his day job, Taylor is also a long-time organizer of The Philly JUG, aka Philly’s Java Users Group. He helped to sustain the group through the pandemic. 

“He was one of the first presenters to give an in-person presentation in 2022, and has carried the torch forward to the new era today,” his nominator said. 

Samantha Wittchen

Circa Systems

Wittchen’s professional history is a mix of technical jobs, artistic pursuits and sustainability work, but right now she is the chief product officer for the sustainability tech platform Circa Systems. 

She was recently named Rad Girl Innovator of the Year by the Philadelphia Citizen. Wittchen’s nominator described her as a “triple threat” that can do product development, code and design. Outside of Circa Systems, she works with sustainability organization Circular Philadelphia as director of programs and operations. 

Wittchen works “in a collaborative, effective and passionate way that takes a concept such as the circular economy and actually applies it to real world uses that serve both businesses and consumers,” her nominator said.