role: full-stack engineer

full-stack, most of the time. the other times are called debugging.

Vidhaan Kothari · CS + Business student at UMass Amherst

about

A bit about me

The short version, before the project section makes the long version obvious.

CS + Business student at UMass Amherst, building across the stack, from real-time backend systems to the interfaces people actually touch. I've shipped a messaging system with sub-50ms latency, architected a production booking platform end-to-end (database, security, automated pipelines, and the UI on top), and built a Monte Carlo risk-simulation engine that won a hackathon's top track. I like understanding a system fully, front to back, not just the part I'm most comfortable in.

stack

Tools of the trade

Languages

Python

Kotlin

Swift

Java

TypeScript

SQL

C++

Dart

HTML/CSS

Frameworks / Libraries

React

Node.js

Next.js

Android SDK

Express

FastAPI

Flask

Django

Spring

PyTorch

Pandas

Cloud / Database

AWS

GCP

MongoDB

MySQL/PostgreSQL

Redis

Tools

Git

Docker

CI/CD

Prometheus

Grafana

MLflow

Jenkins

Jira

Linux

JUnit

Espresso

Jest

Splunk

Agile

projects

Things I've built

Some things that mostly worked. In roughly that order.

flagshipprivate client project

BB Lux Inc.

Transportation booking platform · freelance full-stack engineering, 2026

production system · 1,000+ historical rides · 8 drivers

Architected and shipped a production SaaS-style booking platform for a private transportation company, replacing manual WhatsApp-based operations with a fully automated, secure, real-time booking pipeline.

Normalized PostgreSQL schema with Row Level Security: anon role restricted to insert-only, zero public read access
Secure server-side booking pipeline: input sanitization → validation → parameterized insert → transactional email → webhook sync to Google Sheets
Layered security: SQL injection prevention, XSS/CSRF mitigation, CSP/HSTS headers, rate limiting, honeypot bot detection
Real-time multi-channel sync: every booking simultaneously hits the database, sends a transactional email, and updates a live spreadsheet for the business owner
Production deployment on Vercel with custom domain, environment-scoped secrets

Next.js 14 (App Router)TypeScriptPostgreSQL (Supabase)Resend APIGoogle Maps Places APIMake.comVercelTailwind CSSFramer Motion

Chronexis

won top hackathon track award

A predictive project-risk simulation engine. Runs 800 Monte Carlo simulations against a venture's parameters (team, deadline, runway) to forecast delivery timelines, failure probabilities, and resource bottlenecks, producing risk heatmaps and automated executive recommendations.

TypeScriptNode.jsMongoDBMonte Carlo Simulation

View code

SwipeSwap

A swipe-based peer-to-peer marketplace app. Models implicit user feedback to learn personalized item rankings, using content-based similarity scoring and vector embeddings to dynamically adapt recommendations as preferences evolve.

PythonFastAPIPostgreSQLscikit-learn

source private

Finter

// finter: event ticketing platform
const architecture = {
  payments: 'Stripe, idempotent webhooks',
  data: 'PostgreSQL, ACID-compliant models',
  concurrency: 'row-level locking under load',
  delivery: 'queued, retry-on-failure',
};
 
// backend guarantees
→ transactional integrity under traffic spikes
→ automated ticket delivery with retry logic
→ scalable queuing for peak purchase loads

A ticketing platform handling event creation, tiered pricing, real-time attendee tracking, and Stripe-based payments.

ReactNode.jsAWSStripePostgreSQL

View code

experience

Where I've worked

ChitChat Workplace
May 2025 – Aug 2025
Software Engineering Intern · Boston, MA
- Built a real-time 1:1 messaging system using WebSockets and event-driven architecture with under 50ms end-to-end latency
- Designed a scalable AWS backend (EC2, API Gateway, DynamoDB) for high-concurrency traffic
- Implemented JWT-based authentication and authorization for secure message delivery
- Optimized DynamoDB indexing, reducing API response times by 20% under peak load
Smartwatch Interface Research
May 2025 – Aug 2025
Undergraduate Research Assistant · Amherst, MA
As part of a human-centered AI research lab at UMass Amherst, I built a pipeline that bridges raw sensor data and visual communication. It takes live smartwatch data and uses large language models, including Claude and GPT-4, to automatically generate structured SVG visualizations. The hard part wasn't the generation itself. It was making outputs consistent and interpretable across wildly different data inputs. That meant building constraint-aware layout logic, then designing a full evaluation framework across 10 quantitative metrics covering interpretability, visual fidelity, and consistency. I ran the whole iteration cycle myself, from prompt design to validation to latency optimization, until the system was reliable enough for production use.
IExchange · Brainworx Infovision
May 2023 – Aug 2023
Backend Developer Intern · Remote
- Refactored high-traffic SQL queries via indexing and normalization, improving dashboard load times by 15%
- Built Python automation to classify and route support emails, cutting average response time by 20%
- Diagnosed and resolved database deadlocks, reducing system downtime by 10%

University of Massachusetts Amherst

May 2027 (in progress)

B.S. Computer Science, Minor in Business

AlgorithmsData StructuresWeb ProgrammingOOPComputer SystemsAdvanced Database SystemsSoftware DesignProbability & StatisticsLinear Algebra