M.Sc. in Computer Engineering
Alma Mater Studiorum — Università di Bologna
Final grade 98. Student representative of the Computer Engineering faculty.
/// About
Denis Billi
I am a senior software engineer based in Rimini, Italy. I work at SCM Group on software for CNC machinery — HMI systems, CAD/CAM, ISO post-processors and the machining logic behind 3, 4 and 5-axis machines — and on bringing applied AI into that world without breaking the constraints it lives under.
the short version
- Senior software engineer with 20+ years of experience, based in Rimini, Italy.
- Builds software for CNC machinery: HMI systems, CAD/CAM, ISO post-processors and 3, 4 and 5-axis machining logic.
- Works on applied industrial AI: LLM-based assistants, machine-learning prototypes and troubleshooting automation for CNC environments.
- Inventor or co-inventor on three software patents in machine control and machine safety.
- Independent researcher on AI-generated image detection and multi-modal video retrieval.
- Teaches C++, C# and Python in the "Mechatronics for Business" course at La Città dei Maestri.
- Writes a newsletter on what happens when AI meets real organisations, at denisbilli.substack.com.
what i actually do
My work sits where industrial software, machine automation and applied AI meet. The systems I care about are the ones that have to stay understandable, maintainable and reliable over a long life: software that talks to machines, supports the operator in front of them, assists an engineering workflow, and survives real production constraints.
In practice that means long-lived C++, C# and Python codebases; machine-oriented logic and computational geometry; diagnostics and automation; and interfaces that someone uses for eight hours a day with gloves on. Most of it happens inside private enterprise repositories and under NDA, which is why the public trail is only part of the picture.
More recently the same constraints have been applied to AI: LLM-based assistants for troubleshooting, machine-learning prototypes for pattern analysis and diagnostics, and agent-based workflows for engineering tasks. The interesting question is never whether a model can produce an answer. It is what happens when it produces a wrong one inside a system that moves metal.
how i work
I tend to work on software where shortcuts become expensive. That shapes the defaults: hardware limits, safety, latency, cost, backward compatibility and product lifecycles measured in decades rather than sprints.
Correctness before cleverness
A clever solution nobody can maintain is a liability with a delivery date.
Explainability over blind optimisation
If a system cannot say why it did something, it cannot be trusted near a machine.
Measurable improvements over theoretical elegance
A 10% cut in idle toolpath is worth more than an elegant abstraction.
Simple tools until complexity is justified
Complexity should be paid for by a problem, not by a preference.
Production behaviour over demo behaviour
The demo is the easy half. The other half runs for ten years.
Maintainability as a first-class constraint
Industrial software outlives the team that wrote it.
I am sceptical of black-box solutions dropped into operational systems without evaluation, observability or failure boundaries. Not because the models are bad — because a system you cannot inspect is a system you cannot own.
education
Master's thesis project, Computer Science
Mittuniversitetet (Mid Sweden University)
Grade 30/30.
outside the office
I have photographed the Meeting per l'amicizia fra i popoli in Rimini every August since 2012, and I co-founded BMB.photo, a wedding photography studio in Bologna. It is the same habit as the engineering work, pointed at something else: watch carefully, decide what matters, leave the rest out.
Photographer
Fondazione Meeting per l'amicizia fra i popoli
Volunteer
Fondazione Banco Alimentare Onlus