A computer engineer who likes learning systems by building them.
I'm interested in the boundary between software and the real world: databases, operating systems, embedded hardware, distributed systems, and more recently, AI tools. My projects tend to start with a question like “how does this actually work?” and become an excuse to build a small, useful version of it.
Librarian
A local-first assistant for my personal EPUB collection. It ingests books, creates local embeddings, retrieves relevant passages, and grounds answers in citations.When people talk about AI, it's always so vague. This project is helping me cut through the BS and learn the nuts and bolts of how RAG systems work. Turns out, there is no magic. It's basically just classic backend and data engineering with a bit of AI sprinkled in there.
ShiDB
A from-scratch database project in Java, from disk management and concurrency to implementing a custom version of SQL.The goal is understanding the internals well enough to make informed tradeoffs in larger systems. It's so fun. It's literally every topic and trick I learned in college all rolled into a single piece of software. Currently, I just finished implementing table scans. The next step is implementing the very basics of the SQL query language.
| Project | What it is |
|---|---|
| 📚 Librarian | A local RAG system for searching, questioning, and receiving recommendations from my local EPUB library. |
| 🗃️ ShiDB | A small Java-based database from scratch. From disk writes, log management, concurrency, table scans, and implementing the SQL query language (didn't finish that part yet), I wanted to learn how databases actually work under the hood. |
| ⌨️ Keyboard2019 | PCB, CAD, and C work for a left-handed Cherry MX keyboard—because data entry with a right-handed number pad and a mouse (as a right-handed person) is woefully inefficient. |
| 🥫 12th Can | A Laravel web application created for the 12th Can Food Pantry back in college. |
I studied Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University in College Station. My repositories include coursework, experiments, and projects that document the path from fundamentals—data structures, databases, networking, operating systems, and microcomputers—to the systems I'm building now.
When I'm not drowning at work, I actually really enjoy learning more about how various systems and technologies work, hence why the topics in this GitHub are so spread out and varied.
If you are here because one of these projects is useful or interesting, feel free to open an issue or start a discussion.