I am Umberto Grando, a technologist and creator working with data, software, music, and gaming.
I combine analytical engineering with creative design to build practical tools, digital experiences, and audio projects.
I am always open to new projects, technical challenges, and creative collaborations.
I've worked at Porini since 2016, growing across three connected areas of technology. Porini is an international Microsoft partner that helps organizations design and deliver solutions for digital transformation.
As AI Tech Lead, I direct technical strategy and guide projects across three main operational areas.
Across ten years of work, I developed deep knowledge in three connected technology fields. These fields form the foundation of my engineering experience.
I worked on developing data platforms and reporting solutions that make information easier to access, understand, and act on.
Learn moreI worked on developing cloud solutions that bring data from edge devices into the cloud for centralized processing and analysis.
Learn moreI worked on developing generative AI solutions, exploring how modern models can support practical business scenarios.
Learn moreAcross all three fields—Data, IoT, and AI—my work at Porini has been built on deep integration with Microsoft Azure and the Microsoft ecosystem. Working across these interconnected disciplines provided me with well-rounded, end-to-end expertise: from cloud data warehousing and real-time edge telemetry to enterprise Power BI analytics, and production Azure AI solutions.
Over ten years of work, I built strong and lasting relationships with customers.
I managed small teams across multiple projects to deliver solutions on time.
I focused on project objectives while keeping a relaxed and positive atmosphere.
I worked at Porini for 10 years in data engineering and artificial intelligence. For the past 4 years, I worked as an AI Tech Lead. I directed technical strategy and developed enterprise generative AI projects. I also worked as a Data Scientist, Data Analyst, IoT Specialist, and Teacher across many engineering teams.
I taught for more than 500 hours to students and colleagues. I instructed courses on Power BI, SQL, SSAS, and Azure. I created engaging and interactive learning materials with practical examples. My courses explain complex technical concepts in a direct and effective way.
I delivered more than 50 technical projects over 10 years. My work ranges from traditional business analytics to cutting-edge AI in healthcare and real-time big data collection. I use proven tools and methods to complete complex software and data requirements.
Modern AI tools remove syntax barriers. I view programming languages as tools to solve specific technical problems. Python is my main language for data and AI development. However, I adapt to any language, framework, or ecosystem to deliver results efficiently.
Comprehensive stack spanning AI agents, cloud infrastructure, BI, scripting, sound synthesis, and creative tools.
Outside of work, I spend time on gaming, programming, and music. These activities provide relaxation and strengthen my analytical and creative skills.
Gaming tests my strategic thinking and decision speed. Programming allows me to build personal tools and test software ideas. Music gives me a creative medium to compose tracks and experiment with sound design.
These pursuits complement my engineering work by keeping my technical curiosity active.
Gaming has always been an important piece of my life and it is really exciting seeing it getting bigger every year. Lately you'll find me playing mainly on Steam, Xbox, and my Asus Rog.
I write software mostly in Python, but I also use other languages. AI agents changed how I build software. My programming experience helps me guide the tools and verify the code.
I love listening to every music genre. From ambient to hip-hop, from psychedelic rock to dungeonsynth, I love to explore every music genre available. When I'm not listening to music (or playing) you'll find me producing on my eurorack.
I'm always updated on the latest technological trend and hardware. I love experimenting with different technologies and when I can I prefer going open-source. I work on Windows, MacOS, and Linux.
With the release of Stable Diffusion to the public I've started experimenting with generative art. As of now I've released 60+ custom models and hundreds of pictures.
I enjoy documenting what I learn through articles and practical guides, sharing my experiments and making technical topics easier for others to explore.
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I spend at least one hour every day studying the latest news, trends, and tools in the Generative AI space. I also like to experiment with SLM locally as soon as they release.
I always loved watching sports since I was just a kid. Football is my main passion, but in the last few years I've started watching American Football, and I am having a blast learning the complexity of that sport.
In my free time, I build side projects to learn new skills and keep my mind active. I get ideas from my personal interests, technology trends, and new tools. I create software applications, write music, and test new programming languages and frameworks. These projects keep me curious and bring fresh knowledge to my daily work. I believe in continuous learning, so I never stop exploring new fields.
I value transparency in how I build tools and write content. I mark each project with a badge: Manually Created AI Assisted Agentic to show how AI was used. I respect your time, so all my blog articles are written manually by me, using AI tools only for English translation support.
A coding agent in your terminal
Codetrap is a Claptrap-themed terminal coding agent inspired by Claude Code. I built it in Go as a fast, focused environment where an AI agent can inspect a codebase, edit files, run commands, search the web and work through larger tasks with specialized subagents.
It connects to OpenAI-compatible providers such as OpenRouter, Ollama, LM Studio and Azure OpenAI, while also supporting OpenAI Codex and GitHub Copilot subscriptions. Its terminal interface includes multiple themes, plan and ask modes, configurable tools and a persistent goal mode for longer-running work.
A musical exploration website
Odissey is my very own personal music journey, a website I crafted to keep track of all the music I listen to and discover new gems. It's like having a virtual music librarian at your fingertips. It taps into the vast resources of Spotify, LastFM, Musicbrainz, and Tidal to fetch most of the information for the frontend. It also delves into the depths of music-related websites like RateYourMusic, AlbumOfTheYear and Allmusic using web scraping to retrieve additional information such as reviews, artist summaries and albums summaries. The website runs on my server machine, powered by the Python Bottle web framework, making it a fully-fledged and easily accessible music companion.
Sharing what I learn
In February 2022, I embarked on a journey to share my knowledge and experience with the world through my blog on Medium. I started it as a way to share tips and examples of the things I work on in my daily job and to keep myself motivated to learn new things. I never thought it would reach so many readers and get so much attention. As I wrote more and more articles, I've had over 50+ articles and more than 100k visualizations on the platform.
Today, my blog is not just a way for me to share my knowledge and experiences but also an outlet for me to express myself and connect with others who share the same interests. I'm humbled and grateful for the response and I look forward to continue sharing my insights with the community.
Go to Medium ↗
My first album
In 2022, I set out to explore my passion for music production by releasing my first ambient album on major music platforms. Though my journey with electronic music began in 2019, it was only through experimenting with various genres that I found my calling with the ambient genre. I took a deep dive into understanding its origins and meanings, and learning the tools of the trade like Ableton and DaVinci Resolve. Along the way, I discovered new artists and albums that have inspired me and used music as a tool for self-reflection.
The result of my journey is my album "Stasi", a collection of tracks that I am humbly proud of, as it represents not just my artistic growth but also my personal journey.
Listen ↗
My generative art journey
With the release of Stable Diffusion I've started learning and experimenting with the process of art generation using diffusion models
In a few months, I've released over 60 custom models and hundred of pictures on my Deviant Art account with over 10k followers.
Discover ↗Taskobra is a Python package I've built to help people schedule Windows jobs programmatically using the Task Scheduler. This is a simple package that can be downloaded on my Github
I've also coded the bot on my Discord server. With this bot I have access to text generation using a custom model, image generation using Stable Diffusion v1.5 and a lot of meme functionalities.
GameCli is an incredibly useful tool for any gaming enthusiast. It's a Python console application that simplifies the process of discovering, tracking and finding new games. With just a few commands, it retrieves a wealth of information such as prices, reviews, number of players, playtime and much more by tapping into multiple APIs and scouring the web.
I usually find myself writing Javascript snippets to improve my experience on the web (mainly using the browser extension named Tampermonkey). These help me with things like removing ads, changing the layout of a website, adding new functionalities and much more.