RealLIST Engineers 2024: Meet 15 Pittsburgh technologists helping cement the city as a tech hub

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

At the forefront of a healthy tech hub are founders boldly applying new discoveries, and network-builders loudly leading the ecosystem charge. 

But it’s the engineers who make all these innovative things, well, work. Behind the scenes, they’re the problem solvers, the team members ensuring the products live up to their promise and the services don’t slide. 

So while Technical.ly’s other annual RealLISTs highlight Startups and Connectors, this series peels back the curtain. We do research, review our reporting, and ask readers and past honorees to tell us: Who are the people making your company work and also giving back to the community?

This is Pittsburgh’s fourth iteration of the list — you can check out editions from 2021, 2022 and 2023 — but first check out the impressive current crop. 

Scroll down to meet your 2024 RealLIST Engineers, listed in alphabetical order. 

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

Glenn Ayieko

CGI

A surprising variety of tech skills can be learned working on a help desk, from the ins and outs of hardware to troubleshooting how people use those devices. All that and more can come from roles like being an Apple Genius Bar technician, where Ayieko spent several years. Since 2023, he’s been a software development consultant at global IT provider CGI. 

Ayieko also works closely with programs like the Pens Tech Academy to help high schoolers explore tech through sports. 

Guy Blelloch

Carnegie Mellon University 

Blelloch teaches computer science at CMU where he leads research on the interactions between algorithms and programming languages. He’s published prolifically on the topic and won an award for his efforts: In June, the Association for Computing Machinery recognized Blelloch, his former advisee who now works as an assistant professor at the University of Maryland Laxman Dhulipala, and associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Julian Shun for their contributions to algorithm engineering. 

Cara Bloom

Netflix

After getting her master’s degree at Carnegie Mellon, Bloom decided to stay in the region. She worked with the CyLab Security and Privacy Institute on data collection by self-driving cars, then moved into an engineering role at the nonprofit MITRE and eventually joined Netflix as a privacy engineer.

In the midst of it, she’s given numerous talks that bring findings from her work to the wider community, hosting forth on topics like privacy, public surveillance and more. 

Tomer Borenstein

Blastpoint

Since its inception in 2016, AI data analysis company Blastpoint has remained a force in the Pittsburgh startup ecosystem. Borenstein, a cofounder (with prior RealLIST Engineer and Pittsburgh Startup Community Award recipient Alison Alvarez), still serves as chief technical officer. He has several major projects under his belt, as noted by all three of the people who nominated him for this list. 

“Tomer is the reason that we have our central AI engine,” one nominator wrote. Another called Borenstein a “rare hybrid of go to market and world-class AI/ML engineering.”

Rorry Brenner

Neya Systems, Perforated AI, Pittsburgh Nerd Night

Brenner works full-time as a robotics research scientist at autonomous vehicle company Neya Systems. But as his nominator pointed out, that’s not all. He patented a novel AI algorithm and founded the startup Perforated AI to commercialize it. 

Plus, Brenner defines what it means to bring the community together with Pittsburgh Nerd Nite.

Milo Davis

Pittsburgh Steelers

Davis works as an application developer for the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he’s been, on and off, since an internship with the team in 2020.

The mobile app he works on offers stats and team information to fans on a regular basis, but as the city prepares to host the 2026 NFL Draft, his job will ramp up. Davis and his fellow devs will be tasked with getting the tech up to speed to handle the anticipated influx of traffic from the massively popular event. 

Joe DiGioia

Freelance 

As a full-time freelancer, DiGioia covers full-stack development and graphic design for a swath of different types of projects. A ton of projects stand out: DiGioia has built a deep-learning flower classifier, a new type of number game and a movie detail fetcher, among other efforts. His background at Gartner probably helps, too, as the firm is still one of the top tech research and consulting businesses in the space.  

Amelia Dubendorf

Respair, Innovation and Design Engineering Acceleration

Fresh off a master’s from the University of Pittsburgh, where she also got her bachelor’s, Dubendorf continues to spend time furthering the success of that academic community. 

She’s a project coordinator at Pitt’s Innovation and Design Engineering Acceleration Lab, focusing on digital fabrication, mold creation and rapid prototyping. Her day job sees her working as a medical product design engineer at device company Respair.

Hailey Innocenzo

PNC

Innocenzo works as an infrastructure engineer at one of Pittsburgh’s biggest employers, PNC. But her impact in the ecosystem extends beyond just her day job. Innocenzo projects a strong sentiment toward supporting Pittsburgh as a community: She volunteers with PNC’s Grow Up Great grant program, providing education for youth from birth to 5 years old. 

Bhavya Jha

Nilfisk, CMU Human-Computer Interaction Institute

UX engineers build and design digital products to perfect the end-user experience. That’s Jha’s full-time job at Nilfisk, but her background in the topic goes a long way, too. At CMU, she studied human-computer interaction and still works with the school’s institute on the topic. As a UX engineer at WeAudit through the CMU institute, Jha is designing an AI tool to detect algorithmic bias.

Destiny Nwafor

HireMe

In 2022, Nwafor cofounded HireMe, an AI-based professional development platform. She has Big Tech experience, as a former software engineer at Microsoft, and demonstrates a passion for diversity and inclusion in tech. 

Nwafor works with Rewriting the Code: Black Wings to uplift Black college women in tech and the National Society of Black Engineers.

Mina Shnoudah

Latitude AI

A former Venture for America fellow, Shnoudah now works as a software engineer at Strip District-based Latitude AI. His roots in local AI go deeper than that, though. Before working at the autonomous driving company, he held the same title at now-defunct competitor Argo AI and spent a few years as a front-end developer for Clarivate.

Brenasia Ward-Caldwell

Microsoft

Ward-Caldwell spent several years at PNC before joining Microsoft as a security technical specialist in 2022. She’s a vocal advocate of tech life in Pittsburgh, as a creator of lifestyle content who also showcases what it’s like to work in the field. 

Ward-Caldwell also keeps busy as a board member for Wesley Family Services with experience speaking on panels about women in tech and cybersecurity.

Casey West

Google Cloud 

A self-proclaimed “UX-oriented, problem-solving Internet plumber,” West is currently a developer advocate at Google Cloud Engineering, working closely with the developer communities of Google Cloud customers. West has also taught a lab on building a Minecraft Server on Kubernetes and touts early contributions to the programming language Perl.

Joseph Yun

University of Pittsburgh 

Yun works at the University of Pittsburgh as an AI and innovation architect, with some major projects under his belt. In April, a team led by Yun worked with Amazon Web Services to fight health misinformation. Using generative AI, the team created a prototype that spreads correct information and provides health officials with more tools to keep patients informed.