Umar Ahmed

Umar Ahmed Thameem Ahmed

— CS Grad Student @ CU Boulder

Hey there, I'm a software engineer who loves building products that matter and writing code that lasts.

Values

Ownership

Craftsmanship

Velocity

Growth

These are my core engineering values and I strive to bring them into everything I build. I believe in owning what you create end to end, from architecture to deployment to the 3am on-call. Good code isn't just functional but is also readable, tested, and built to evolve gracefully over time. I care about the craft, whether that's clean abstractions, thoughtful APIs, or systems that scale without drama. I move fast, but I don't break things carelessly. Velocity without quality is just technical debt in disguise. I'm always learning new frameworks, new patterns, and new mental models for thinking about hard problems. And I love helping others grow too, through code reviews, pairing sessions, and sharing what I've picked up along the way. Collaborating with a team to build something far better than any of us could alone is what gives me energy. All while connecting my work to something larger, building tools that matter and systems that serve people meaningfully.

My passion for tech came from my uncle, a first-generation software engineer who moved to the US for work, and my mom, an assistant professor who taught computer science. It led me to study computer science and engineering. Fascinated by the idea of creating for a mass audience, I started building event websites at my undergraduate university. From there on I began my full-time career at Infibeam, working on e-commerce systems at scale. Later I transitioned to Nueromind Technologies and worked on some cool stuff in the AI space. Here is where I learnt to build products from the ground up. Both were invaluable experiences that shaped how I think about systems: one taught me to develop and manage at scale, the other to build from zero. My time at Nueromind Technologies also pushed me to pursue graduate studies. I'm currently at CU Boulder for my Master's in Computer Science, focusing on systems that power AI and ML applications. Throughout my academic and professional experience, I've developed skills across backend development, cloud infrastructure, and AI-powered products. My curiosity drives me to tackle hard problems, my ownership mindset keeps me accountable end to end, and my love for learning keeps me growing with every challenge.

Education

  • University of Colorado Boulder

    MS - Computer Science

    NowBoulder4.0/4.0

    Focusing on distributed systems, ML infrastructure & scalable backend architectures.

  • College of Engineering Guindy, Anna University

    BE - Computer Science & Engineering

    2018–2022Chennai8.75/10

    Built a strong foundation. Served as the Web Developer for Computer Science and Engineering Association and CEG Tech Forum.

Experience

  • University of Colorado Boulder

    Course Grader

    NowBoulder

    Designed rubrics, graded assignments and exams, and provided feedback to help students improve their understanding of course material.

    MATH 2130: Introduction to Linear Algebra • Zheng Xiao [Fall'25 && Spring'26]
  • Alferd Packer Grill

    Student Assistant

    2025Boulder

    Served students at the UMC, ensuring a positive dining experience while supporting team operations and maintaining service standards.

  • Phronetic AI (now Nueromind Technologies)

    SDE (ML)

    2024–2025Bangalore

    Architected the core infrastructure for AI-powered MVPs as a Founding Engineer. Built real-time ML pipelines, LLM-based services, and scalable backend systems using Python, Redis, AWS and MongoDB.

  • Infibeam Avenues

    SDE

    2022–2024Bangalore

    Built microservices for the JioMart e-commerce platform serving 11M+ monthly users using Ruby on Rails, MySQL, AngularJS, Redis, and Kubernetes. Was a part of: Catalog Management System (B2B + B2C), Seller Portal and Just-In-Time Inventory Management.

  • Totallr Technologies

    SDE Intern

    2021Chennai

    Worked on a Point-of-Sale application using Spring Boot and Angular.

  • VDart Digital

    Technocrat Intern

    2020Atlanta

    Designed and delivered mobile interfaces for clients using Flutter and Figma.

Projects

Hybrid Router Agent

Hybrid Router Agent (HyRA)

The What

A routing framework that intelligently directs queries to the best open-source model, using an 'LLM-as-a-Judge' feedback loop to refine accuracy over time.

The Why

To solve the inefficiency of static model selection by dynamically balancing cost and performance constraints.

The How

#vLLM #LangGraph #GCP #Langfuse #PostgreSQL #Flask #React #Python

Distributed Log Processing System

Distributed Log Processing System

The What

An end-to-end analytics pipeline combined with a full-stack observability dashboard for monitoring system health and metrics. (Something like Splunk)

The Why

To tackle the challenge of ingesting and analyzing massive volumes of log data (1 million events per minute) in real-time without data loss.

The How

#Flink #Kafka #ClickHouse #Redis #FastAPI #Next.js

Multimodal Text-Based Neural Image Inpainting using Attention GAN

Multimodal Text-Based Neural Image Inpainting using Attention GAN

The What

A text-guided generative system that synthesizes visually plausible and semantically coherent content in missing image regions based on a user's specific textual description.

The Why

Traditional inpainting often fails on large missing regions because it lacks context, leading to blurry results. Text guidance was introduced to give the model the semantic information needed to fill these gaps realistically and allow user control.

The How

Built using a Generative Adversarial Network with a Dual Multi-Modal Attention mechanism to align text and image features. It utilizes a 7-layer ResNet for visual feature extraction, GRU Word Embeddings for text processing, and projects them into a Gaussian Latent Space for fusion and generation.

Sequence to Sequence Models for Generating Video Captions

Sequence to Sequence Models for Generating Video Captions

The What

A deep learning model that effectively translates a variable sequence of video frames into a natural language sentence that accurately describes the events occurring in the scene.

The Why

To bridge the gap between computer vision and natural language processing, enabling applications like automated video indexing and accessibility tools for the visually impaired.

The How

Developed using a Stacked Encoder-Decoder LSTM architecture to handle variable-length inputs and outputs. Visual features are extracted frame-by-frame using a pre-trained ResNet-50 CNN, and the model is trained on the MSVD dataset using Word Embeddings and the Adam optimizer.

Abacus'21

Abacus'21

The What

A full-stack event management website handling user authentication, event registration, and payment processing modules for the symposium.

The Why

To facilitate a large-scale inter-college technical symposium by digitizing the attendee experience.

The How

#React #CSS #Node.js

Online Organic Marketplace

Online Organic Marketplace

The What

An e-commerce platform featuring distinct interfaces for different user types to manage stock and purchases.

The Why

To remove middlemen from the supply chain by directly connecting farmers with consumers.

The How

#HTML #CSS #JavaScript #jQuery #Bootstrap #Flask #MySQL

Attendance Manager

Attendance Manager

The What

A desktop application that tracks timetables, calculates attendance percentages, and automates the creation of leave forms.

The Why

To help students prevent unintentional absences by providing a clear view of their academic standing.

The How

#Java #Swing #AWT

MovieBase

MovieBase

The What

A movie discovery interface allowing users to browse and explore titles, powered by a JSON server backend.

The Why

To learn the Angular framework through the development of a media content browser.

The How

#Angular #CSS #JavaScript #Bootstrap

Flutter Mini Projects

Flutter Mini Projects

The What

A versatile suite of mobile applications including a Bitcoin ticker, a Firebase-integrated chat app, a weather tracker, and a BMI calculator.

The Why

To gain proficiency in cross-platform mobile development and UI design through rapid prototyping.

The How

#Flutter #Dart #Figma #Firebase

Corona Tracker

Corona Tracker

The What

A dynamic data visualization website using custom components to render country-wise COVID-19 statistics.

The Why

To master the React ecosystem by building a tool with real-world relevance during the pandemic.

The How

#React #CSS #JavaScript #Bootstrap