Software Engineer Greater Seattle Area

Seeking internships · new grad Dec 2027

Computer science student and research assistant at UW Bothell. I build reliable, well-tested software, from distributed systems research to full-stack web apps.

View projects →Get in touchRead my notes →
C-01FlingC-02QikC-03NBA Lineup AnalyticsC-04Optical Data Link
4 contacts · 2 friendly · 1 unknown
01Profile

About.

Hey, I'm Alen, a computer science and software engineering student at the University of Washington Bothell. I like problems where getting the details right actually matters, whether that's security, systems, or software people rely on every day.

Right now I'm a research assistant working on distributed graph processing in C++. On the side I build my own tools and apps, usually because I wanted something to exist or wanted to learn how it works.

Before UW I taught React workshops through Edmonds College's CS for Change club, including to people writing their first line of code. Outside of school I'm usually reading about aerospace or writing up what I learned in the notes section of this site.

02Research

Experience.

Research Assistant

University of Washington Bothell

Jun 2026 to PresentBothell, WA

Distributed graph processing on a Linux HDFS cluster.

  • Developed and debugged C++ applications in the Pregel+ distributed graph framework.
  • Automated cluster experiments with Bash and Python scripts.
  • Benchmarked graph workloads across 2 to 24 MPI workers on a 23-node Linux HDFS cluster to evaluate scaling behavior.
  • C++
  • Pregel+
  • MPI
  • Hadoop/HDFS
  • Linux
  • Python
  • Bash
edges in the largest workload
1.8B
nodes in the largest workload
65.6M
node Linux HDFS cluster
23
PageRank runtime 55% faster
8 workers97 min
24 workers44 min
03Selected work

Projects.

Each one is documented like an engineering sheet. Open Details for the full write-up; each project is also a contact on the radar above.

FLG-01Jun 2026 to Present

Fling

Screen-capture sharing platform: an Electron desktop client and a Next.js web app.

OAuth token exchange with hashing and revocation

  • Designed secure desktop-to-web authentication using Google OAuth, single-use token exchange, SHA-256 token hashing, revocation, and OS-backed encrypted credential storage.
  • Hardened upload and sharing workflows with file-signature validation, failed-upload cleanup, HTTP byte-range streaming, and expiring share links.
  • Backed by PostgreSQL and Amazon S3 and containerized with Docker.
QIK-02Jul 2025 to Present

Qik

Asynchronous HTTP client for the command line, written in Rust.

59 deterministic tests in CI

  • Supports HTTP/1.0 through HTTP/2, authentication, redirects, proxies, timeouts, and JSON, XML, form and multipart request bodies.
  • Implemented custom CA roots and mutual TLS for internal and self-signed endpoints.
  • Streams response bodies incrementally to avoid buffering large downloads in memory.
  • Wrote 59 deterministic unit and integration tests run in CI, including byte-for-byte validation of an 11 MiB streamed response.
NBA-03Sep 2026

NBA Lineup Analytics

Full-stack app for comparing the performance of 1 to 5 player lineups.

Transactional imports, auto-deploy on push

  • Built with Angular, Django REST APIs and PostgreSQL; Railway builds and deploys automatically from the main branch.
  • Python workflow bulk-loads JSON records into PostgreSQL inside a single transaction and aggregates possession data into lineup metrics.
  • Angular interface with filters for lineup size, possession thresholds, metric ranking and top-N results, plus loading, error and empty states.
  • Angular
  • TypeScript
  • Python
  • Django
  • PostgreSQL
  • Railway
OPT-04Jun 2025

Optical Data Link

Laser-to-photodiode data link with Reed-Solomon error correction, built with a teammate.

Zero lost symbols under 20 s of interference

  • Designed and integrated an optical communication system using Raspberry Pis, Arduino UNOs, a laser transmitter and a photodiode receiver.
  • Implemented synchronization, timed sensor sampling and RS(31,15) error correction.
  • Recovered every symbol error during 20 seconds of controlled optical interference.
  • Python
  • Arduino / C++
  • Raspberry Pi
04Training

Education.

Expected Dec 2027 · Bothell, WA

University of Washington Bothell

B.S. Computer Science and Software Engineering

★ Annual Dean's List 2025-2026

Currently taking · Autumn 2026

  • Operating Systems
  • Digital Forensics
  • Network Architecture & Management

Completed coursework

  • Data Structures, Algorithms & Math I-II
  • Software Engineering
  • Analysis & Design
  • Hardware & Computer Organization
  • Information Assurance & Cybersecurity
  • Intro to Game Development
  • Technical Writing

Jun 2025 · Lynnwood, WA

Edmonds College

Associate in Science-Transfer: Engineering, Physics & Atmospheric Sciences

Relevant coursework

  • Intro to Programming (Python)
  • Java Programming I-III
  • Physics I-III: Mechanics, E&M, Waves & Heat
  • Precalculus
  • Calculus & Analytic Geometry I-III
  • Intro to Statistics

Leadership

CS for Change club: taught React and web development workshops, including to non-technical beginners.

05Writing

Notes.

Write-ups, post-mortems, and things I learned the hard way.

  1. Hello, worldWhy I built this site from scratch and what you'll find here.1 min
All notes →
06Get in touch

Contact.

I'm looking for software engineering internships, and new-grad roles after I graduate in December 2027. If you're hiring or want to talk shop, email is the fastest way to reach me. Résumé available on request.

alen.salaka@outlook.com