Inference engineering and the real-world deployment of LLMs, with Philip Kiely

Complex Systems with Patrick McKenzie (patio11) · Mar 12, 2026 · 1h 23m

Patrick McKenzie (patio11) and Philip Kiely, early employee at Baseten, discuss the inference stack: the critical layer of software and hardware that sits between a model’s weights and a user’s prompt. They cover inference engineering, how intermediate layers are evolving over a technical stack that is changing every six months, and how sophisticated organizations are actually consuming LLMs beyond just writing their questions into chatbot apps.

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Full transcript available here: www.complexsystemspodcast.com/inference-engineering-with-philip-kiely/

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Presenting Sponsors: Mercury, Meter, &…