Saif Alesawy

Education

University of Michigan — Ann Arbor, MI

B.S.E. in Computer Science & Biomedical Engineering Dual Degree | GPA: 3.92 — April 2025

Relevant Coursework: Data Structures & Algorithms, Web Systems, Intro to Machine Learning, Discrete Math, Operating Systems

Work Experience

Software Engineer - Retail Advanced Trading

Coinbase — New York City, NY | May 2025 - Present

Built a reverse dependency graph to scope CI test runs to only PR-affected files across Coinbase's highest-traffic repositories (mobile and web, ~1,200+ merged PRs/week), cutting test times by 47% (12 min -> 6 min) and linting by 87% (8 min -> 1 min)
Technical DRI for Coinbase's first crypto options product on Simple Trade; authored the end-to-end architecture and own engineering from design through Sept 2026 launch across 5 product surfaces, 4 teams, and 20+ interdependent workstreams
Built a C++ order book engine bridged to React Native via JSI, processing 1,000+ market-data updates/sec onto a dedicated worker thread to keep the trading UI smooth during volatile market conditions

Instructional Aide (TA)

University of Michigan - College of Engineering and School of Information — Ann Arbor, MI | January 2024 - May 2025
SI 699: Information Visualization, EECS 548: Big Data Analytics, BIOMEDE 417: Electrical Biophysics, SI 618: Data Manipulation and Analysis

Led comprehensive weekly office hours and design reviews for 4 graduate-level advanced technical courses (60+ students each), providing technical support in visualization systems (D3.js, WebGL), big data analytics (distributed computing, ML), bioelectrical systems modeling (neural circuits, electrophysiology), and data manipulation (ETL pipelines, statistical analysis)
Developed and thoroughly graded extensive course materials and programming assignments covering full-stack visualization techniques, ML algorithms, bioelectrical simulations, and data processing, using Python, Java, C++, and JavaScript
Systematically implemented extensive interactive demonstrations and custom visualization tools through student-focused tutorials to teach complex concepts in data visualization, machine learning, computational biology, and data analysis

Full-Stack Software Engineer (Remote)

SoloMid Corporation (TSM) — Los Angeles, CA | May 2022 - May 2024

Ideated and developed Dyno Forms, a feature that accounts for more than one million weekly page visits (25% of total); built using React, Mongo, Redis, NATS, CockroachDB, deployed to Kubernetes
Built high-performance Discord gateway service in C++ with boost::asio sharding and shared memory LFU caches, replacing Node.js implementation to achieve 85% lower p99 latency, 70% reduced memory footprint, and 4x higher throughput per core while handling 1M+ messages per hour across multiple shards
Revamped web ad delivery system, boosting ad impressions by 430% and revenue by 78% within the first three months

Projects

Interaction Executor

SoloMid Corporation

Led the development of a Nest JS-based microservice that enabled HTTP and WS-based (using NATS) request execution, designed for instantaneous response to thousands of messages for scalable, high-performance, and reliable architecture.
Orchestrated the deployment of the microservice on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) within AWS, leveraging CloudFormation. Implemented monitoring and logging using Prometheus and Grafana for real-time insights.
Currently processes over ~400,000 requests daily with a ~99.99% uptime, verified through continuous health checks.

Cosmocook - Google x MHacks AI Hackathon (1st Place)

Developed an AR cooking assistant using Gemini 1.5 Pro API, Microsoft HoloLens 2, Unity, and a Flask REST API backend, providing step-by-step cooking guidance and recipe suggestions based on available ingredients.
Implemented features such as ingredient detection, recipe contextualization, and a multithreaded video retrieval buffer for a seamless user experience, collaborating with a team of four to secure first place among 300 participants and 70+ teams.

Extracurriculars

Technical Team Lead

Collaborative Lab for Advancing Work in Space (CLAWS) — Ann Arbor, MI | September 2022 - Present

Led a 35+ member team and built a mission control website that monitors astronauts, controls rovers, and real-time communication using NASA's telemetry stream and astronaut suit data through websocket messaging, deploying it on EC2.
Designed and implemented a fault-tolerant, distributed messaging system using an EventBus architecture and WebSocket API, streamlining communication between C# (Unity and MRTK 2) and Node.js microservices (Typescript).

Skills

Languages & Systems - C++, Rust, Python, Golang, Linux (epoll, io_uring), CPU Architecture, SIMD Optimization
Performance Tools - gdb, perf, Valgrind, FlameGraphs, strace, ltrace, Memory/Thread Profiling, Cache Analysis
Low-Level Programming - Memory Management, Zero-Copy Networking, Lock-Free Data Structures, Thread Pinning, IPC
Networking & Infrastructure - TCP/IP, UDP, boost::asio, Protocol Buffers, gRPC, NATS, Network Protocol Design