Contact

• 📧 baalateja.k@gmail.com
• ☎️ +91-7019895010

Work Experience

AI Engineer Trainee

Wintech Services India PVT LTD, Hyderabad, India - (Jul 2025 - Present)

• Designing and building agentic AI chatbots for enterprise clients.
• Mainly Python, HFTransformers, Streamlit, LangChain/LangGraph, FastMCP, Redis, FastAPI, ChromaDB

Associate Software Engineer

SolarWinds, Bangalore, India – (Nov 2024 - Mar 2025)

• Worked full-time with the On-Prem Supportability team in maintaining and improving the Hybrid Cloud Observability (a.k.a. Orion/SWOSH) platform's products and toolchain, focusing on manual QA testing.
• Created PowerShell scripts to automate day-to-day internal configuration, provisoning, and deployment processes, saving time on workflows such as provisioning VMs and copying builds.
• Identified areas of enhancement in the software workflow and built software prototypes/PoCs in an attempt to improve internal tooling, namely an Ollama-based, from-scratch RAG system in Go that queries against Rest Responder API response data for semantic searching/chatting, and a high-performance, real-time, cross-platform GUI log viewer application in Rust that hooks into the HCO/Orion/SWOSH platform's many log files and polls for changes, displaying the latest contents regularly.

Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

ZAPTrack, Remote – (Aug 2024 - Oct 2024)

• Built systems and AI for robots in AgTech that aim to automate organic food production starting with organic weeding in orchards in the Bay Area with reinforcement models deployed on our robots and hardware.
• Focused on scaling organic farming through intelligent equipment and automation in farming processing for mid-size organic farmers.
• Successfully ideated, designed, and created the company's preliminary software stack + product suite offering for autonomous navigation, implementing interfaces to multimodal foundation models and computer vision pipelines using Roboflow, OpenCV, PyTorch, and the Raspberry Pi (Hailo) AI kit.

Software Engineer

Aeyecam, Bangalore, India – (June 2023 - March 2024)

• Worked full-time as a solo Software Engineer, building B2B and B2C products such as a MERN stack based SaaS to manage CCTV streams over the web, Python and Go based API microservices for authentication, and an Angular-NestJS application with a HLS-supporting video player to play CCTV streams.
• Taught myself how to use Docker and Docker Compose for containerization and container orchestration in order to deploy to production as well as to setup isolated development environments using Docker devcontainers for each project.
• Picked up TDD methodologies and wrote unit and integration tests using Jest and Mocha.
• Technologies used: Docker, Docker Compose, Docker Devcontainers, Bootstrap 5, JavaScript, TypeScript, React 18, MongoDB, Express, Angular 17, Node.js 20, Bun, Python (FastAPI) Go (Gorilla Muxer), NestJS, Jest, Mocha

Freelance Software Developer and Machine Learning Engineer

Freelancer.in, Remote – (Apr 2021 - Present)

• Certified Freelancer on Freelancer.in, one of India’s leading sites for freelancing opportunities. I’ve maintained a 4.5+ star rating and a 100% job completion rate.
• Worked on a contractual basis for a diverse array of jobs that I could contribute to with my skill set.
• Highlight jobs: Developed an NLP recommendation system for restaurant recommendations. Worked on implementing hyperelliptic curve cryptography methods (sign, encrypt, etc.) in Python using Galois Theory and Algebraic Number Theory.

Machine Learning Engineer

Tensor Digital Solutions Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore, India – (Jan 2020 - Jan 2021)

• Interned as a Machine Learning Engineer at a Bangalore-based AI startup to develop a system to identify fake Indian currency notes for the visually impaired using image processing techniques based on deep learning. The project was outsourced by a leading eye hospital in India.
• Technologies used: Tensorflow 2, TFLite, Keras, VGG16, MobileNet V2, OpenCV, Google Text To Speech (gTTS), Raspberry Pi

Full Stack Software Engineer

Garuda Nethra Surveillance Systems Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore, India – (Jan 2018 - July 2019)

• Worked part-time as a solo Full Stack Software Engineer and single-handedly built products such as an API and a management system from the ground up for a startup specializing in providing CCTV streaming services for preschools.
• Technologies used: Node.js (with Express), Angular.js, Fomantic-UI, MaterializeCSS, MongoDB, MySQL

Software Developer

Visa Inc., Bangalore, India – (Feb 2018 - July 2018)

• Interned as part of a team of students that developed a system to withdraw money from ATMs using NFC technology from phones. The idea was initially developed in a Fintech hackathon and later picked up by Visa.
• Technologies used: Java (Android), Node.js, and MySQL.

Full Stack Software Developer - Cisco Talent Outreach

Cisco Inc., Bangalore, India – (July 2017 - Feb 2018)

• Interned as a Full Stack Software Developer in a team of five high school students to build an open-source peer-to-peer book sharing website for students to easily exchange books with each other. We worked under the mentorship and guidance of Cisco via the Cisco Talent Outreach Program.
• Technologies used: Node.js, Express, Angular.js, MySQL, MaterializeCSS

Research and Teaching Experience

Undergraduate Capstone Thesis

Krea University, Sricity, Andhra Pradesh, India – (Nov 2022 - May 2023)

• Successfully submitted and defended my thesis titled “Interplay between neutrino oscillations and linear algebra” under Dr. Sushant Raut
• Investigated possible applications of the recently discovered Eigenvalue-Eigenvector identity (Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 59 (2022), 31-58 and Phys. Rev. D 101, 093001) to streamline computations of Neutrino oscillation probabilities.
• Employed Wolfram Mathematica in an attempt to derive novel symbolic series expansions of neutrino oscillation probabilities up to second order in the mass-hierarchy parameter $\alpha$ only.
• Implemented novel routines in the form of a Python package that leverages the Eigenvalue-Eigenvector identity to numerically compute oscillation probabilities. Wrote the core algorithms in Cython to maximize speed while still preserving the ergonomics of Python.

Summer Student in High Energy Physics (Theoretical Physics)

The Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc), Chennai, India – (June 2022 - Aug 2022)

• Worked as a summer student under the guidance of Professor T. R. Govindarajan on the topic “Massive Photon as a candidate for ultralight dark matter in an attempt to provide a solution to the cuspy halo problem that arises in N-body simulations of dark matter profiles of dwarf galaxies”
• Taught myself Statistical Mechanics of Bose-Einstein Condensates, Tensor Calculus and General Relativity, and Basic Cosmology in order to engage in literature review of previous work relevant to the research topic during my time at the institute.
• Performed Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) in Python of raw galactic rotation curve data in order to better understand the evidence for the existence of dark matter.

Summer Student in Gravitational Wave Studies

Chennai Mathematical Institute (CMI), Chennai, India – (June 2022 - Aug 2022)

• Worked as a summer student under the guidance of Professor K.G. Arun and Ms. Sayantani Datta on the topic “Parameter estimation of inspiralling compact binaries using 3.5 post-Newtonian gravitational wave phasing: The non spinning case”
• Studied GW signal processing in the presence of stationary noise and perturbation theory as applied to General Relativity (Linearized Gravity and the Post-Newtonian expansions) in order to estimate parameters of coalescing binaries.
• Replicated some of the results of Professor Arun’s research paper (Phys. Rev. D 71, 084008) on the topic using Wolfram Mathematica.

Teaching Assistant for PHYS201 - Mathematical Methods I

Krea University, Sricity, Andhra Pradesh, India – (Aug 2022 - Nov 2022)

• Teaching Assistant (TA) for the introductory Mathematical Methods course taught by Professor Sivakumar Srinivasan.
• Was in charge of typesetting problem sets and assignments using LaTeX, taking tutorial sessions every week to solve problem sets, discuss assignments, and clear student doubts.

Skills

Fields: Full-stack web development, hybrid/native mobile app development, UI/UX design, data science (analytics/visualization), scientific computing, machine/deep learning, natural language processing, computer vision, internet of things.

Languages: HTML, CSS, JavaScript (ES5 and ES6+), TypeScript, Python, Cython, MATLAB, Wolfram Language, Java, SQL, Bash, Visual Basic, Dart, C#, Lua, Go, Haskell, Rust, Fortran, C++, C

Frameworks and Libraries: Node.js, Angular.js, Angular, React, React Native, Next.js, Vue, Svelte, SvelteKit, NestJS, Jest, Mocha, Bootstrap, MaterializeCSS, Fomantic UI, Express, Flask, Django, FastAPI, Tornado, Numpy, Matplotlib, Scipy, Sympy, Scikit-Learn, PyTorch, Tensorflow, Tensorflow Probability, TFLite, Keras, JAX, OpenCV, Sagemath, Android Java/Kotlin, PhoneGap/Cordova, Flutter, SpaCy, Gensim, Tokio, Axum, Candle, FFMPEG, Bun, Gorilla

Databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis

Technologies: Wolfram Mathematica, MATLAB, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Anaconda, Docker, Docker Compose, Docker Devcontainers

Development tools: Git, Github, Linux (Ubuntu, Kali, Fedora, Arch), VSCode, Neovim, Apache, Jupyter Notebooks, Jetbrains IDEs, ESLint, Prettier, Biome, Ruff, Pylint, Black, Flake8

Projects, Activities, and Volunteer contributions

Participant in IIRS-ISRO START Summer Program

Krea University, Sricity, Andhra Pradesh, India – (May 2024)

• Selected by Krea University to participate in the IIRS-ISRO Space science and Technology Awareness Training (START) Summer Program, an introductory level online training in space science and technology for undergraduate and postgraduate students of science and technology.
• Attended a series of live lectures on a wide variety of topics ranging from astrobiology to propulsion systems.
• Gained an insight into frontier developments in the Indian space sector.

Student Organizer & Volunteer

Krea University, Sricity, Andhra Pradesh, India – (Nov 2023 - Dec 2023)

• Volunteered as a student organizer for Physics Phi-esta, a two-day outreach event and festival to popularize physics and science at Krea University.
• Participated in conducting physics demonstrations for audiences, with demos ranging from non-Newtonian fluid media to conservation of angular momentum.

Built Kreatable, a web + mobile data presentation application

Krea University, Sricity, Andhra Pradesh, India – (Aug 2023)

• Kreatable is a cross-platform web + mobile application built using Next.js and React Native that transforms spreadsheet data and other communications relevant to the Krea community into accessible and aesthetically pleasing visualizations suitable for end-user consumption.
• Initially started as a side project, the application consistently received over 500 weekly visitors and garnered a lot of positive feedback for its user-friendly display of the campus-wide mess menu.

Participant in IBM Quantum’s Qiskit Global Summer School 2023

IBM Quantum, Remote – (July 2023)

• Applied and selected for IBM Quantum’s 4th edition of the Qiskit Global Summer School: From Theory to Implementation.
• Attended a series of live lectures and lab sessions on the mathematical and algorithmic foundations behind Quantum Information and Computation, and how to realize these theoretical underpinnings using IBM’s Qiskit framework.
• Gained an insight on how Qubit manipulations and Unitary Gate Operations are implemented at the hardware level using laser pulses.
• Learnt about the different hardware realizations of a quantum computer (superconducting, photonic, trapped ions, quantum dots), the problem of noise in quantum computers, and how quantum noise can be mitigated with error correction.

Computer Science Tutor

Krea University, Sricity, Andhra Pradesh, India – (Mar 2023 - Apr 2023)

• Volunteered as an ICT Tutor for the SIAS Cyber Club at Krea University.
• Took regular tutoring sessions for freshmen enrolled in the Introduction to Computational Thinking core & skills course.
• Logged my hours & hosted synchronous sessions to solve exercises and worksheets provided to tutees in classes.

Krea’s Science Club’s Representative for Physics

Krea University, Sricity, Andhra Pradesh, India – (Dec 2022 - Dec 2023)

• Was elected The Science Club’s division representative for physics for the academic year 2022-2023 at Krea University.
• Helped organize an “Intro to Physics Major” talk where the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th years present their academic experiences to the 1st year freshers in an informal setting, helping the latter make a more informed decision about their major selection.
• Helped organize a university-wide science-themed treasure hunt in collaboration with representatives of the other divisions of science.
• Organized screenings for popular physics documentaries such as “Particle Fever” to increase public awareness of ongoing blue skies research in the physical sciences.

Krea’s Science Club Representative

Krea University, Sricity, Andhra Pradesh, India – (Dec 2021 - Dec 2022)

• Was elected The Science Club’s representative for the academic year 2021-2022 at Krea University.
• Gave a talk on astrophysics titled “An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics” to the university student body and faculty, with the goal of increasing public interest in the space sciences.
• Organized stargazing/planet hunting sessions for the student body in collaboration with the Physics Faculty and the Physics Lab’s Dobsonian telescope equipment.
• Organized a series of talks titled “Intro to x-major” where the 2nd and 3rd years present their academic experiences to the 1st year freshers in order to help the latter make a more informed decision about their major selection.
• Organized an MIT-style Integration Bee for the entire student body.
• Redesigned and programmatically generated the club’s current logo - a phase portrait of a chaotic Lorenz attractor - using Python and Numpy/SciPy/Matplotlib. Generated high resolution images & animated visualizations using Matplotlib.

Participant in the Centre for Strings, Gravitation, and Cosmology’s Mini School on Gravitation and Cosmology

IIT Madras, Chennai, India – (November 2022)

• Selected for the Centre for Strings, Gravitation, and Cosmology’s Mini School on Gravitation and Cosmology.
• Attended a set of introductory lectures in a classroom setting at IIT Madras on topics such as General Relativity, Cosmology, and Gravitational Waves.

Logo for The Science Club at Krea

Krea University, Sricity, Andhra Pradesh, India – (Aug 2022)

• Redesigned and programmatically generated The Science Club's current logo - a phase portrait of a chaotic Lorenz attractor - using Python and Numpy/SciPy/Matplotlib.
• Generated high resolution images & animated visualizations using Matplotlib.

Participant in IISER Tirupati’s Summer Course on Quantum Computing

Krea University, Sricity, Andhra Pradesh, India – (May 2022 - July 2022)

• Enrolled in IISER Tirupati’s summer course on Quantum Computing.
• Picked up the basics of quantum information theory, many-body quantum systems, and quantum computing.
• Learnt how to implement simple quantum circuits and algorithms using IBM’s Qiskit framework.

Co-founder and Organizer of OakCodefest - Bangalore’s first 24-hour overnight student hackathon

Oakridge International School, Bangalore, India – (Oct 2017 - Jan 2020)

• Successfully co-founded and organized my city’s first 24 hour overnight student hackathon with participants coming from all over India. Over 100 teams participated in each edition of the event.
• Part of the core team of 6 students that organized the first two editions of the event in 2018 and 2019. Acted as participant mentor and advisor to the core team of the third edition in 2020.
• Helped design and build the website, mailer, and other applications for the first two editions to make the organization process smoother.
• Collaborated and obtained sponsorship from IBM, Cisco, HGS, Digital Ocean, Y4PT, and many more.

Regular writer on Quora, Medium, and Dev.to

Nov 2017 - Present

• I answer questions related to science and technology on Quora, a Q&A site. Some of the topics I have answered on include theoretical physics, astronomy, cosmology, particle physics, black holes, machine learning, calculus and linear algebra. I have over 500 answers and over 1M total answer views.
• I blog to popularize science and topics of physics on Medium.
• I blog on dev.to on topics related to computer programming and software development as a way to document my learnings and provide guides & tutorials that might be helpful for other developers.

Modder and Scripter for the GTA series of video games

Mar 2012 - Apr 2018

• Undertook modding and scripting of video games, especially games of the GTA series: GTA San Andreas, GTA IV, and GTA V.
• Modified the working of the games programmatically using Visual Basic and the .NET framework.
• Published my mods for free on YouTube and on my own blog, apart from other websites. My YouTube videos have crossed a grand total of 1 million views and I receive regular downloads for my mods.

Education

BSc. (Hons.), Physics with a concentration in Mathematics

Krea University, Sricity, Andhra Pradesh, India – (Aug 2020 - July 2023)

CGPA: 8.2/10

Activities and societies: The Science Club, SIAS Cyber Club, Symmetry - The Math Club

Courses taken:

• Trimester 1:
  • KCCS101 - Writing and Oral Communication
  • KCCS132 - Ethics
  • KCCS103 - Creative Expressions
• Trimester 2:
  • KCCS123 - Philosophical Perspectives across Cultures
  • KCCS122 - Exploring the Social and the Historical
  • KCCS121 - Scientific Reasoning
  • KCCS102 - Mathematical Reasoning
• Trimester 3:
  • KCCS134 - Introduction to Computational Thinking
  • KCCS133 - Design Thinking
  • KCCS124 - Data Analytics
  • KCCS131 - Literature and the Arts
• Trimester 4:
  • PHYS201 - Mathematical Methods I
  • PHYS211 - Basic Electronics
  • PHYS216 - Computational Methods
  • MATH201 - Analysis I - Sequences, Series, and Numbers
  • MATH206 - Discrete Math
• Trimester 5:
  • PHYS202 - Mathematical Methods II
  • PHYS221 - Classical Physics: Energy & Force (Classical Mechanics)
  • PHYS224 - Classical Physics: Fields (Electromagnetism)
• Trimester 6:
  • PHYS231 - Quantum Physics
  • PHYS236 - Classical Physics: Energy and Entropy (Thermodynamics)
  • PHYS223 - Classical Physics: Spacetime (Special Relativity)
  • PHYS110 - Physics Exploration - An Experimental Approach
  • MATH226 - Differential Equations
• Trimester 7:
  • PHYS226 - Oscillations and Waves
  • PHYS227 - Classical Optics
  • PHYS327 - Modern Optics
  • PHYS311 - Advanced Electronics
  • PHYS331 - Advanced Quantum Physics
  • MATH211 - Linear Algebra
• Trimester 8:
  • PHYS341 - States of Matter (Solid State Physics)
  • PHYS345 - Subatomic Physics
  • PHYS350 - Introduction to General Relativity
  • PHYS390 - Undergraduate Capstone Thesis
• Trimester 9:
  • PHYS301 - Statistical Physics
  • PHYS303 - Mathematical Methods III
  • PHYS353 - Reading Course: Group Theory in Physics
  • PHYS360 - Quantum Information and Computation
  • PHYS390 - Capstone Thesis
  • KCCS190 - Engaging with the Environment

IB Diploma Programme

Oakridge International School, Bangalore, India – (July 2017 - July 2019)

Graduated with the IB Diploma.

Highlights:

• Extended Essay in Physics on the topic “Predictive data modeling of a variable binary star’s brightness over a period of time using astrostatistics”
• Physics IA on the topic “Statistical modelling of habitable zones of stars across the Harvard spectral classification”

ICSE 10th Certification

Ryan International School, Kundalahalli, Bangalore, India – (June 2005 - Apr 2017)

Graduated with an average percentage of 89.6%, scoring 95+ in mathematics (96/100) and computer applications (99/100).

Awards and Achievements

1st place - TISB VIVUM Codefest

Bangalore, India – (Aug 2018)

• Part of a team of students that developed an automated attendance system using deep learning and facial recognition technology.

1st place - Random Hacks of Kindness

Bangalore, India – (Aug 2018)

• Part of a team of students that developed a species classifier using image classification and deep neural network models.

2nd place - Stonehill Hackathon

Bangalore, India – (Feb 2018)

• Part of a team of students where we demonstrated the training and use of facial recognition algorithms using data analysis and machine learning.

1st place - Greenwood Synt Hacks ‘19

Bangalore, India – (Jan 2019)

• Part of a team of students where we developed a text summarization system that summarizes speech-to-text transcripts of YouTube videos using NLP techniques.

3rd place - Inventure Hack ‘20

Bangalore, India – (Jan 2020)

• Part of a team of students where we developed a text summarization system that creates summaries of transcripts of YouTube videos (obtained using APIs) and scraped google search articles using NLP APIs and SDKs.

Grade topper in IB SL Psychology

Oakridge International School, Bangalore, India – (2018 and 2019)

• Received distinction awards two years in a row for being the grade topper in IB SL Psychology.

Test scores

IIT JAM - Physics

Feb 2023

• The entrance exam for admissions to masters programs in some of the most elite institutions for science and engineering in India.
• All India Rank 408 out of ~12,000.

SAT

Oct 2019

• Overall: 1480
• Math: 790/800
• Evidence-Based Reading and Writing: 690/800

Find Me At

👾 github.com/bkataru

🗨️ x.com/baalatejakataru

🔗 linkedin.com/in/baalatejakataru

👨🏾‍💻 dev.to/bkataru

📋 stackexchange.com/users/baalateja-kataru

❓ quora.com/profile/Baalateja-Kataru

🔉 medium.com/@baalatejakataru