Karim Smires

Software Engineer ✦ Backend, AI tooling, and cross-platform dev tools

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Guild

Denver, CO (Remote)

Associate Software Engineer, Coverage SquadAug 2026 - Present

Software Engineering Intern, Benefits Administration (converted to full-time)Jun 2026 - Aug 2026

  • Designed and shipped a production backend-for-frontend service from an empty repository: Python 3.13 on AWS (Lambda, API Gateway, CDK/SAM), a three-repo Auth0 M2M auth chain, canary CI/CD, Datadog observability, and Tier 0 compliance. 532 tests at 98.6% coverage; ~3K production requests served with zero 5XX errors across 3 consumers. Built the XOB Determination UI in Coverage Lookup on top of it
  • Shipped 6 MCP tools to Guild's production AI gateway by extracting a protocol-neutral service layer, so support staff investigate member eligibility in natural language instead of hand-querying S3, Snowflake, and DynamoDB. Logged 1,146 calls from 31 users (100% success) in the first two weeks across 30 employer accounts, then led a follow-up epic fixing 11 request-handling defects and hardening the surface to 24 tools
  • Built Wells, a Slack AI investigation agent (TypeScript, Bolt, ECS Fargate), taking it from an empty repository to use on a live production escalation in 2 days. Piloted by a second business function within a week and listed in Guild's company-wide agent index; extended with a chained deep-investigation mode and a 55-case evaluation harness (319 tests)
  • Root-caused a live member escalation to a systemic split-recipient identity defect. The resulting platform sweep reconciled 762K recipient records, surfaced 1,031 orphaned authorizations, and unblocked 5 affected members before any of them escalated; closed as a repeatable playbook
  • Removed a critical remote-code-execution vulnerability from a production container image, caught a PII log egress in pre-merge review of my own branch, and root-caused a silent serialization defect behind 92K production errors that three observability layers had missed
  • Eliminated an IAM role leak that had made the squad Guild's largest staging IAM consumer: fixed the CDK root cause, reclaimed 373 orphaned roles with a dry-run-first nightly GitHub Action, and published the fix org-wide (a second squad adopted it the same day)
  • Merged 70 PRs (+69K lines, 11 repos), closed 77 Jira tickets and 5 self-owned epics, triaged 4 production incidents, delivered a second production service (catalog-builder-api) on loan to another org, mentored a fellow intern, and wrote 5 Confluence guides including the squad's AI tooling operating guide

Charge Anywhere

Piscataway, NJ

Software Engineering InternJun 2024 - Aug 2024

  • Developed a full-stack e-commerce platform (Node.js, Python, C#) with JSON-driven menu management, secure payment gateways supporting credit card and cryptocurrency (XLM, ETH) transactions, responsive JavaScript UIs, and an integrated AI chatbot assistant

Rutgers University

Piscataway, NJ

Student Worker: Tutor & GraderOct 2023 - Present

  • Tutored 100+ students in introductory computer engineering and STEM courses; graded for multiple engineering courses in collaboration with professors and TAs

M.S., Machine Learning

Sept 2025 - May 2027 (expected)

Rutgers University, School of Engineering, Piscataway, NJ

GPA 3.50 · Part-time

B.S., Electrical & Computer Engineering

Sept 2021 - May 2025

Rutgers University, School of Engineering, Piscataway, NJ

GPA 3.66 · Summa Cum Laude · Dean's List (5x)

GENV: The Global Environment Manager

Mar 2026 - Present

Go · v4.7.4 · GitHub · Project page

  • Lead developer of a cross-platform environment manager (v4.7.4) that reproduces software environments on macOS, Windows, Linux, and WSL2 from one git-friendly spec over existing package managers; shipped via Homebrew, AUR, and Scoop

PeaProxy

Sep 2026 - Present

Go · v3.1.1 · GitHub · Project page

  • Built a local multi-provider AI gateway (v3.1.1) with OpenAI- and Claude-compatible endpoints over API-key, local, and OAuth providers, a live model catalog, 429/401 failover, OS-keychain secrets, a CLI, and a browser UI

CWC Health App

Aug 2026 - Present

Flutter/Dart · v1.0.0 · GitHub

  • Built a privacy-first Android/iOS pilot app (v1.0.0) for CSPNJ Community Wellness Centers: OpenStreetMap nearby services, on-device health records, one-tap crisis contacts, no accounts or analytics; CI gates every PR

CE Certificate Automator

Jun 2026 - Present

Python, Tauri · v0.2.10 · GitHub

  • Desktop app for Rutgers GSAPP that matches Zoom attendance to Qualtrics CE surveys and generates per-person PDF certificates

Co-Designing a Privacy-Preserving Mobile Health-Navigation Platform for Community-Based Health and Wellness

2026

IEEE HMSS 2026 · Submitted · CWC Health App

  • Paper submitted to IEEE HMSS 2026 on the co-design of the CWC Health App, a privacy-preserving health-navigation platform for CSPNJ Community Wellness Centers

DrinkSync: A Sustainable Hydration Tracking System

Feb 2026

IEEE · Co-author · Paper · Code

  • Co-authored a published IEEE paper on a low-cost IoT smart coaster (code); built Raspberry Pi sip detection (HX711, MPU6050) streaming over Bluetooth RFCOMM to a Kotlin Android app with goals and streaks

Languages

  • Python
  • TypeScript/JavaScript
  • Go
  • Java
  • Kotlin
  • C/C++
  • C#
  • Swift
  • Rust
  • SQL
  • MATLAB
  • Verilog

Cloud & Infrastructure

  • AWS (Lambda; API Gateway; CDK; SAM; Aurora; DynamoDB; S3; IAM; Route53; CloudWatch)
  • Docker
  • GitHub Actions
  • Datadog
  • Auth0
  • Snowflake
  • MCP servers

AI / ML

  • PyTorch
  • TensorFlow
  • Hugging Face
  • OpenCV
  • CUDA
  • Pandas
  • NumPy
  • LLMs
  • NLP
  • computer vision
  • reinforcement learning