Hi, I'm Kelvin.

BSc Computer Science @ UBC

> [email protected]
> linkedin
> github
> resume

About Me

Software Engineer

As a computer science graduate from the University of British Columbia (UBC), I am actively looking for ways to build on top of my technical skills and drive value back into the communities that I am a part of.

So far, this has taken shape in the form of various iterative projects that I've started including creating a web app that helps UBC students during course registration by sending an automated email when a seat frees up. I built it using React and Tailwind for the frontend, and the backend uses AWS services (serverless!) including Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, and Cognito.

If these projects have taught me anything, it's that I love building and contributing to products that people can use to make their lives easier, more efficient, or plainly just for fun.

Python

TypeScript

AWS CDK

Angular

React

Electron

Experience

Amazon

Java

Amazon
September 2024 - Present

Software Development Engineer I

Vancouver, BC, CAN

TBA. Currently developing for the Ordering organization.

My first full-time position after graduation! I'm very excited to see what's in store for me.

Sony Pictures Imageworks

Python

TypeScript

Angular

Electron

Flask

Docker

Apache

Sony Pictures Imageworks
July 2023 - Jan 2024

Software Developer Co-op

Vancouver, BC, CAN

Delivered a full-stack, cross-platform note management application using Angular, Flask, Oracle, and Electron that is highly integrated with the artists' workflow.
This app can be built and deployed as both a web or desktop application from a shared codebase and significantly contributes to the company's initiative for enhancing artist documentation discovery and accessibility.

This was honestly such a cool opportunity. Spider-verse is one of my favourite movies of all time, and the fact that I contributed to the studio that made it (along with getting many sneak peeks of upcoming movies) was like a dream come true. I picked up from where the previous co-op left off with their simple Electron note app prototype, and I transformed it into a full-stack application that artists can use to easily create, categorize, and search notes through a web browser or desktop application.
My favourite part of this project were the opportunities to collaborate with the API and App team's co-op students as well! It had its own challenges but resulted in many great things as a result. I integrated Elasticsearch and made my project highly compatible with the other apps developed within the studio.

Prometric

Angular

C#

.NET

Jenkins

MSSQL

Prometric
Jan 2022 - Aug 2022

Software Developer Co-op

Remote (Vancouver, BC, CAN)

Developed 35+ full-stack feature requirements across several internal company web applications. Scoped, designed, and implemented changes from scratch in collaboration with company stakeholders using C# and Angular.
Optimized several administrative processes, which led to the creation of new APIs and UI components, complex SQL queries, and robust batch jobs.

My first internship! I was responsible for building new features and improving the overall productivity of the company personnel that use these applications. This was my first taste of being a full-stack developer, and I had the honour to work with many talented people in my team.

Passion Projects

project

LetMeInUBC

I got tired of refreshing every hour to check if a course I wanted freed up. Created my own web scraper with a GUI to check for openings -- later turned it into a website to send me an email when the course became available.

Developed using AWS CDK. Serviced 300+ unique tracking requests. Retired in June 2024.

project

HSR Scanner

I wanted to min-max my characters in Honkai: Star Rail so I created an automated OCR-based scanner, along with a well-defined JSON output format, to export my inventory data.

Created with PyQt and Tesseract. Downloaded 80,000+ times. Used in fribbels/hsr-optimizer.

project

Postr

A Twitter-like desktop client for the decentralized nostr protocol because web clients were too slow. Faster than web clients and low on resource usage.

Built with Rust, Next.js, and Typescript using the Tauri framework.

project

Echo

My friend wanted to participate in the Global Game Jam. I was nervous about not having any experience with game development, but I realized that it was a great opportunity to learn something new.

The end-product exceeded my expectations, especially considering the 48-hour time constraint. It was challenging at times, but ended up being a lot of fun.

project

UBC Chan Center (Roblox)

Graduation ceremonies were cancelled due to COVID-19, so I had the great idea to make a scale model of the Chan Center in Roblox for my friends to attend.

Complete with working elevators and an adjustable lighting system.

Headshot

Kelvin Zhao

If you are interested in working with me or just want to chat, feel free to connect with me via email or LinkedIn!