Simon Zhao

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About

I am a first year Computer Science student at UCSC. I have been programming for 2 years now and I have held a few internship positions at startups. Most of my work was related to web development and RESTful API design.

I enjoy working in teams and some of my favorite experiences of programming were from hackathons. My team and I, a group of 4, once designed and deployed a personal spending data aggregation web application, which won 2nd place out of 415 participants.

I am now looking for an internship opportunity next summer (2023) to gain more in-person exposure in technology and the industry. I also want to use that opportunity to grow technically and personally so I could succeed in my future endeavors.

Experience

Front-end Engineer Intern

Ziplyne

Designed 35+ company webpage replicas of Coupa and Ivalua using ReactJS
Incorporated drag and drop functionality to increase page element flexibility
Worked with Product Manager and made adjustments to replicas for better usage in company’s demo pages

Fullstack Engineer Intern

LivestockCity

Added 20+ new pages with Django including user ratings, user services, and user messaging to website
Communicated ideas and refactored code for website improvement
Designed 60+ RESTful API routes using Django for mobile app developers to access website data
Engaged in mobile application development with React Native using API I created
Resolved API connection issue that another development team was stuck on for 2 weeks

Assistant Teacher

Aim High

Commended by site directors for quality work despite absence from training week
Prepared 60 5th and 7th graders for the upcoming school year
Formulated and organized daily lesson plans with my lead teacher
Adapted to my lead teacher’s absences and led 40% of the total teaching days on my own
Instructed and engaged young students web design fundamentals with 20+ hours of content

Projects

Cashbuddy

Snow Hacks Hackathon, Feb. 2022

| Django | Python | HTML/CSS/JS | Heroku |

Collaborated in a team of 4 to create a full-stack web application that tracks and aggregates spending across user generated categories
Created and deployed project within 60 hours
Awarded 2nd place among 415 other participants in a hackathon named SnowHacks

Study Stream

Mar. 2022 - Sep. 2022

| MERN | Google Cloud | Digital Ocean | Spotify API |

Developed a full-stack web app that allows users to share flashcards and music with other users, which gives each study set a unique feel based on music choice
Implemented Spotify API and allowed playlist editing and recommended users songs based on the songs in their playlist
Ensured website compatibility of all devices with responsive design