Portrait de Yordan Zaykov

Yordan Zaykov

Sr Principal Research Engineering Manager

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I build the bridge between AI research and real-world products. At Microsoft Research, I lead applied engineering teams across MSR EMEA – shaping GPU governance, AI platform direction, and the operating model that helps researchers ship. I’ve productized large-scale ML systems end-to-end, evolving a knowledge discovery research project into Microsoft Viva Topics (a paid enterprise product used by millions) and scaling a probabilistic player ranking model across flagship franchises including Halo and Gears of War. I gravitate toward messy cross-functional problems: aligning researchers, product orgs, compliance, and engineering – so that strong ideas become durable, adopted capabilities, not just papers or prototypes.

I hold degrees in Computer Science (Cambridge) and Technology Entrepreneurship (Sofia), and I’ve loved teaching programming at university – after years competing in Olympiads in informatics. Outside of work, I stay active with a variety of sports, and I’ll never turn down a challenge in table tennis or table football.