PROFESSIONAL DOSSIER
A comprehensive investigation into one developer's career trajectory
CAREER CHRONICLES
Data Science Intern
June 2025 - Sept 2025Crum & Forster • Philadelphia, PA
- Migrated 30+ high-traffic DS microservices from Pony ORM to a custom SQL context manager, resolving schema inconsistencies and validating parity through reusable checklists.
- Built OCR pipeline for 5,000+ environmental supplemental applications with >95% classification accuracy using AWS Step Functions and LLM-based markdown extraction — reduced manual review time by 70%.
- Designed multi-environment deployment with smoke testing and zero-downtime rollouts; added monitoring for error rate, latency, and cost.
PythonAWSLLMsOCRGenAI
Software Development Engineer II
July 2022 - May 2023Walmart Global Tech • Bangalore, India
- Maintained 20+ mission-critical microservices for Walmart US e-commerce.
- Cut outages by 15% (~$15M savings) by implementing rate limiting across high-traffic services; evangelized to 90+ engineers.
- Reduced incident MTTR by 40% by integrating OpenTelemetry distributed tracing.
- Resolved 20+ P0/P1 incidents in follow-the-sun rotations.
JavaScriptMicroservicesOpenTelemetryGrafanaCI/CD
Software Development Intern
Jan 2022 - June 2022Walmart Global Tech • Bangalore, India
- Integrated PowerSport Category vehicles into catalogs, enabling targeted filtering and improving journeys — +10% conversions.
- Built & maintained Grafana + Splunk dashboards for 5 microservices, accelerating detection and boosting uptime.
- Led testing and deployment of two production services with QA & product for low-downtime launches.
JavaScriptGrafanaSplunkCI/CD
Marketing Intern
May 2021 - Aug 2021Ellipses Innovation • Bangalore, India
- Developed data-driven Instagram strategy via engagement and audience analysis.
- Increased follower growth 35% and generated first recurring sales (20+ orders/week).
- Ran competitor benchmarking to refine content mix, cadence, and timing.
AnalyticsSocial MediaMarket Research
ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS
Master of Science in Engineering
Dec 2025Computer and Information Science • AI Concentration
University of Pennsylvania • Philadelphia, PA • GPA: 3.88/4.0
Bachelor of Technology
May 2022Computer Science and Engineering
PES University • Bangalore, India
AI/ML & NLP PROJECTS
Where ideas come to life
DreamBook — AI Diary Platform
Built AI diary platform digitizing handwritten, audio, and text entries using Google Cloud Vision, Speech-to-Text, and Stable Diffusion (DreamBooth + LoRA) — producing consistent comic-style illustrations.
Segment Based Abnormality Detection in EEG Recordings (IEEE, Aug 2022)
Achieved 90.78% classification accuracy (surpassing SOTA) using Empirical Wavelet Transform, Recursive Feature Elimination, and Linear SVM.
BART-to-Edge Translation
Optimized mBART/M2M100 with LoRA and layer freezing, reducing GPU memory by 50% and training time by 30%; enabled sub-1B parameter real-time Zh↔En translation on edge devices.
Lexical Simplification
Contextual word substitution pipeline improving text accessibility — reduced reading complexity by ~20% and improved comprehension in testing via POS tagging and frequency-based filtering.
Deep Learning for Text Summarization
Implemented extractive and abstractive pipelines; abstractive models improved semantic coherence while reducing repetition by ~25%.
DATA SCIENCE & ANALYTICS PROJECTS
Optimizing ANN for Learned Cardinalities
Tuned MSCN-based learned cardinality estimator; selected Adam + MLSE for smoother convergence, lowering median Q-error and standardizing workflows.
World Development Indicators Analysis
Modeled macro growth with regression on World Bank WDI data; achieved RMSE 2.7% (developed) and 4.3% (developing), producing sector-driven insights.
YACS — Yet Another Centralized Scheduler
Built master–worker scheduler with Random, RR, and Least-Loaded policies; added map-reduce dependencies and back-pressure to reduce idle CPU time.
SYSTEMS & INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS
PennOS — Custom Operating System
UNIX-like OS with FAT filesystem, multi-level feedback queue scheduler, and preemptive user-space threading. Custom shell with built-ins and process control syscalls.
Mini-Compiler for JavaScript
Compiler for a JavaScript subset implementing lexical, syntax, and semantic analysis; generated optimized 3-address code with constant folding and DCE; scoped symbol table and type checking.
Elevator Control System
C-based simulation using an ordered doubly linked list for prioritized floor requests; direction-aware scheduling reduced average wait times.
CONTACT THE NEWSROOM
rakshar@seas.upenn.edu
raksharamesh0002@gmail.com
TECHNICAL ARSENAL
Programming
PythonTypeScriptNode.jsCGraphQLGitPostmanCI/CDJIRAConfluenceTableau
AI & Machine Learning
PyTorchNumPypandasscikit-learnEWTEMDRFELoRADreamBoothStable DiffusionBLEUBERTScore
Cloud & Infrastructure
AWS (CDK, Textract, Bedrock, BDA, Step Functions)Serverless FrameworkGoogle Cloud VisionSpeech-to-TextKubernetesIstio
Data Eng. & Observability
SQLPony ORMGrafanaSplunkPrometheusOpenTelemetryJaeger
Systems & Compilers
FAT filesystemMulti-level feedback queue scheduler
Product & Collaboration
Agile/ScrumMVP developmentUser researchA/B testing
LEADERSHIP DESK
Head Teaching Assistant / Product Manager
University of Pennsylvania • Aug 2024 – Present
- Directed product strategy for 5 cross-functional student teams (agile planning, feedback loops, stakeholder demos).
- Coordinated a team of 11 TAs; training, task allocation, daily operations; supported 100+ students & faculty.
- Managed course logistics: scheduling, grading workflows, resource planning; evaluated 20+ demos for market fit.
Chair — English Literacy Program
U&I Trust (Bangalore, India) • May 2022 – Jul 2023
- Directed program for 20+ underprivileged girls; designed lesson plans for conversational & written fluency.
- Led volunteer recruitment (+50% staff) and fundraising to fully cover annual costs.
Chair — ACM-W Student Chapter
PES University • Aug 2020 – Jul 2022
- Expanded membership 4×; secured sponsorships & VC funding for Women’s Day Ideathon (backed top 3 ideas).
- Organized 15+ workshops, hackathons, and speaker events promoting diversity in tech.
Event Lead / Organizer
PES University • Aug 2019 – Jul 2022
- Executed national technical & cultural fests (10,000+ attendees/year); managed logistics and budgets.
- Led sponsorships, vendor negotiations, and marketing; increased footfall ~20% YoY.
CLASSIFIED AD
Seeking: Complex problems at intersections of tech and humanity
Offering: Unlimited curiosity, and stubborn optimism
Interests: AI for accessibility • creative AI • large-scale system design