Computer Science and Mathematics graduate from the Pennsylvania State University
I like to build tools that solve real problems, and I’m passionate about the infrastructure that makes them scale.
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Work Experience
Software Engineer
Loop
New York, NY
July 2026 - Present
Special Projects Developer
Penn State Thon™
University Park, PA
May 2025 - May 2026
Software Development Engineering Intern
Vitro
Pittsburgh, PA
May 2024 - August 2024
Software Development Engineering Intern
Vitro
Pittsburgh, PA
May 2023 - August 2023
Director of Technology
HackPSU
University Park, PA
January 2023 - May 2026
Teaching Assistant
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA
December 2022 - May 2026
Featured Writing
A Robot Arm That Follows Your Cursor
I put an interactive industrial robot arm on my homepage. Here is the short version of why, and the parts that turned out to be more interesting than I expected.
three.jswebglrobotics
Homelab: Current Architecture
An updated snapshot of my homelab — four hosts, ~50 containers, Authentik-gated apps, a Tailscale mesh, and the full cost breakdown at ~$35/mo.
homelabdockerinfrastructure
My Multi-Server Homelab: The Full Architecture
A visual deep dive into my homelab setup spanning three VPSes, a Tailscale mesh, Mullvad VPN tunneling, and 30+ containers working together.
homelabdockerinfrastructure
The Cron Job That Ran Three Times: Building Distributed Locks on Cloud Run
When we deployed our HackPSU NestJS app to Cloud Run, every instance started firing the same cron jobs simultaneously. Hackers got triple cancellation emails and our sender reputation tanked. Here's how we built a distributed locking system with Firebase RTDB to fix it.
nestjsdistributed-systemsfirebase
Weekend Project: Turning Wikipedia Into a Giant Network Graph
What started as curiosity about Wikipedia rabbit holes turned into parsing 6.8 million articles and building a Neo4j graph database. Here's how I mapped the structure of human knowledge in a weekend.
graph-algorithmsdata-visualizationpython
Adding Passkey Authentication to HackPSU: When Passwords Just Aren't Cutting It
How we implemented WebAuthn passkey authentication for HackPSU using Next.js and Firebase, creating a seamless biometric login experience that actually works in production.
webauthnauthenticationnext.js
Reading Log
Selected Projects
Warewolf
An inventory management system for Penn State THON that tracks thousands of items across multiple event locations.
POST (Point of Sale Terminal)
A point of sale terminal for THON that allows user to handle transactions, manage invoices and returns
Connect
Feel free to contact me at kanishksachdev@gmail.com