My name is Nicu and I am a software engineer based in San Francisco Bay Area. I am currently researching and building small LLMs (<1B parameters) for local (non-cloud) computing. If you are a graduate student looking to collaborate let’s chat!
Experience
2024 — Now
2024 — Now
San Francisco, California, United States
Shared components and frontend core services engineering
• Refactored core frontend services responsible for prerendering html and static api generation during build-time allowing Bank LoB to pull content data within a separate platform during run-time while keeping content in sync
• Developed proof-of-concept for allowing public shared components to be re-usable within a separate, authenticated platform resulting in additional retargeting opportunities for our marketing team
• Trained and mentored other engineers on Angular's best practices and shipped enhancements to code generators to help onboard new engineers quicker
2021 — 2024
2021 — 2024
San Francisco Bay Area
Published shared libraries and components to reduce overall time to deploy new marketing and product landing pages.
• Reduced vendor lock-in by refactoring web platform services while prioritizing resiliency during migration
• Optimized marketing page load-time and SEO performance using static page pre-rendering and
webpack module federation
• Facilitated technical discussions across software engineering teams responsible for shipping
code across multiple lines of businesses to socialize best-practices, solve production issues, and uncover new product opportunities.
• Technologies: Nx, Angular, NPM, Artifactory, Webpack
• Team: Platform
2021 — 2021
2021 — 2021
Developed features which improve trust and safety for buyers and sellers.
• Decreased PayPal fraud case rate through improving usability and form validation
for buyers and sellers.
• Increased platform security by implementing custom react hooks and OAuth to prevent
unauthorized API client access.
• Improved developer productivity by leveraging git hooks and custom ESLint rules.
• Technologies: Ruby on Rails, React, Redux, Algolia, Git
• Team: Trust
2019 — 2020
2019 — 2020
San Francisco Bay Area
Collaborated alongside IDEO's cross-functional products team to help organizations build more innovative teams and cultures.
• Owned and built core features for flagship product, Shape, an open-innovation software used by thousands of organizations including Mitsui, IKEA, and IDEO
• Implemented scalable code while resolving performance bottlenecks for the entire application stack
• Increased landing page conversions while reducing in-app churn using Google Tag Manager
• Generated insights that inform the product roadmap using Redash and Google Analytics
• Leveraged code-sharing platforms such as Bit, NPM, and RubyGems to share logic between codebases
• Technologies: Ruby on Rails, React, MobX, Heroku, Firestore, Tag Manager, Google Analytics
• Team: Products
2016 — 2019
San Francisco Bay Area
Streamlined MLB Statcast data API operations by developing internal and public-facing endpoints and tooling.
• Developed API endpoints which served new player and scouting prospect data for MLB.com using AWS Elasticache and Spring Boot microservices.
• Improved cloud deployments and service uptime by migrating API services and tooling from internal datacenter to AWS.
• Improved data entry operations by improving internal database editor tool.
• Mitigated security risks by migrating authentication tools and internal APIs using
OAuth2, Okta, SSL, and 2FA.
• Technologies: Java, Javascript, React, MobX, Spring, SQL, AWS, LDAP, OAuth, Okta
• Team: Data
Education
San Francisco State University
Bachelor of Science (BS)
2011 — 2016