01 Software engineer · Chicago
I’m Shashank, a backend engineer working across Java, distributed systems, and open source. I care about the invisible details that make software fast, observable, and dependable.
Move your cursor over the monitor
My favorite engineering problems live where performance, security, and developer experience meet.
02 Play the on-call game
A tiny no-backend game: triage incidents under pressure, keep health high, and build a response streak.
Choose the safest response before production health drops.
03 Selected work
From policy tooling to distributed infrastructure and products people use every day.
Open Policy Agent · Java ecosystem
Contributed to the Java SDK ecosystem for Open Policy Agent, the CNCF-graduated engine used for authorization, compliance, and policy enforcement.
One thing at a time.
Browser extension
A focused new-tab experience built to make planning feel quieter, clearer, and more intentional.
Browser extension
A dark-mode companion for ZenCalendar Tab, designed for deep focus and gentler late-night work.
Performance engineering
Designed a fault-tolerant pipeline handling 10K+ logs per minute at sub-100ms latency, with retries, dead-letter queues, and real-time indexing.
04 About
I’m a software engineer with 2+ years of experience building backend systems and untangling the tricky problems that only show up under real-world pressure.
Most recently, I secured authentication flows serving 3,000+ students at the University of Illinois Springfield. Before that, I built Java microservices, migrated AWS SDK infrastructure, and helped legacy systems speak fluently with modern ones.
When I’m not tracing a concurrency bug, I’m usually building a small product, contributing to open source, or wondering how a tool could feel ten percent more thoughtful.
"languages": ["Java", "SQL", "Python", "JavaScript"],
"backend": ["Spring Boot", "REST", "Microservices"],
"data": ["Kafka", "Redis", "Elasticsearch", "MySQL"],
"cloud": ["AWS", "Docker", "GitHub Actions"],
"observability": ["Prometheus", "Grafana", "Micrometer"]
05 Contact