/ Recent content on Vishwa Shah Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us © 2020 Sat, 08 Aug 2020 18:01:08 -0400 /blog/medium/across-the-pond/ Wed, 28 Aug 2019 00:13:52 +0000 /blog/medium/across-the-pond/ This summer was filled with unknowns. London, a city I knew no one in, on a continent in which I’d never left an airport. Palantir , where I’d intern as a forward deployed software engineer — I knew it’d be something different, but not exactly how. These unknowns led to quite a bit of discovery. I was able to reflect on my place in the world and interface with people of all kinds of backgrounds and attitudes on life, careers, and politics. /blog/medium/graduating-me-not-yet/ Mon, 29 Apr 2019 00:07:56 +0000 /blog/medium/graduating-me-not-yet/ Last August I realized I would graduate in May — earlier than expected. I wasn’t mentally prepared; I didn’t know what I wanted to pursue career-wise. So I figured, another internship? I learned a ton this winter while at Lyft. My work was primarily related to data pipelines, and with the mentorship from Dan Fan and Ikramul Haq (and great feedback culture!) I strengthened my ability to evaluate technical design decisions, communicate across teams, and build solid services. /blog/medium/hack-your-life/ Tue, 26 Mar 2019 15:47:23 +0000 /blog/medium/hack-your-life/ How to actually accomplish your New Year’s resolutions and keep the cycle of self-improvement churning. Every morning as I leave for work, I grab my keys off the same place on the counter, stuff my feet into my boots, and lock the door. Then I walk down two flights of stairs, and ask myself — did I lock the door? For the first 3 weeks or so, I’d go back up and check. /blog/medium/how-to-build-a-basic-slackbot-a-beginners-guide/ Sun, 06 Jan 2019 20:29:51 +0000 /blog/medium/how-to-build-a-basic-slackbot-a-beginners-guide/ Let’s try and automate something [in python] Photo by Rock’n Roll Monkey on Unsplash Update: code and tutorial updated on June 28 to reflect Slack API changes Slackbots: Why use them? Before we get into the tutorial part of this post, let’s take a look at why this can be a worthy project and tool. Slack is an increasingly popular tool for team-wide communication. It’s grown to include plugins for other widely used project management tools, like JIRA, Google Drive, and the likes. /portfolio/group-photos/ Wed, 31 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000 /portfolio/group-photos/ /blog/medium/interning-at-redfin/ Fri, 05 Oct 2018 15:01:03 +0000 /blog/medium/interning-at-redfin/ Engaging homeowners without really knowing what it’s like to be one Nine months ago, I got on a call with my future manager to talk about the scope of the team and understand if it’d be a good fit. Owner Engagement focuses on making Redfin resourceful for homeowners in an effort to retain their interest and ultimately convert owners to sellers. Having in the past worked on engineering infrastructure, I was excited to diversify and work on the product side of a company — I wanted the fulfillment of knowing users were directly impacted by my work. /blog/medium/getting-started-with-investing/ Tue, 11 Sep 2018 23:19:23 +0000 /blog/medium/getting-started-with-investing/ growing that internship money You’ve been watching those direct deposits come in — maybe spending lots of it on rent, recreation, and the likes. Maybe tuition or housing this Fall. If you have the bandwidth to save some of it, however, your bank balance has been rising. How do you make the most of it? Invest. What Does It Mean to Invest? According to investopedia.com (a great resource!): Investing is the act of committing money or capital to an endeavor (a business, project, real estate, etc. /blog/medium/anekantvad-defined-me/ Fri, 03 Aug 2018 13:01:01 +0000 /blog/medium/anekantvad-defined-me/ Taking the time to understand the “third” core tenet of Jainism At #YJA18, Nikita T. Mitchell gave a wonderful keynote. Your faith is rooted in compassion. Shine that light. While sharing her story, she asked us to reflect on and share a defining moment for our faith. For me, I thought back to the couple distinctive turning points in how I approached Jainism and where I concentrated my efforts: my journey in understanding Anekantvad. /blog/medium/forming-a-new-fund/ Tue, 12 Jun 2018 16:59:34 +0000 /blog/medium/forming-a-new-fund/ supporting individual growth and exploration Inception As with most ideas, there were some building block experiences to this idea. The Basis Back in January, I watched a friend’s Snapchat story in awe as he posted videos from CES 2018 (a major consumer electronics conference). Later that day, as I took my usual mental break and went to the Student Center to chat with some bros, CES came up in conversation. /portfolio/vpfbot/ Wed, 06 Jun 2018 01:03:29 -0700 /portfolio/vpfbot/ Streamlined some of my processes as Vice President of Finance for Alpha Kappa Psi by building a custom slackbot that reads from the extensive Google Sheets maintaining our financial information and logging for sponsorship efforts to deliver periodic updates on the status of the organization Scheduled Messages constructing a weekly update message based on a Google Sheet CSPON Updates: [a week ago] - [yesterday] Sales Closed - HELL YEA! Congrats! /portfolio/charles/ Wed, 06 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000 /portfolio/charles/ Conducted sentiment analysis on Twitter and Reddit on a per topic basis using Python libraries Processed and visualized resulting data using D3.js, and deployed the application using Flask /portfolio/rasmadness/ Wed, 30 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000 /portfolio/rasmadness/ Conceptualized and developed a web app to serve as a prediction platform for national dance competitions Generated a Ruby on Rails JSON API backend and implemented a Bootstrapped Javascript frontend /blog/medium/debugging-a-series-of-miscalculations-in-osquery/ Fri, 18 Aug 2017 18:59:37 +0000 /blog/medium/debugging-a-series-of-miscalculations-in-osquery/ Heads up, we’ve moved! If you’d like to continue keeping up with the latest technical content from Square please visit us at our new home https://developer.squareup.com/blog What is osquery ? osquery is an an open source tool by Facebook that provides a SQL interface for system information. Over the course of the summer I’ve been working on integrating osquery results into our internal asset tracker for automation/validation purposes. It’s been incredibly useful for monitoring various stats, and the SQL interface makes it easy to use. /portfolio/jain-alexa/ Wed, 26 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000 /portfolio/jain-alexa/ Developed a custom Alexa skill in Python and deployed using Flask Catered to the suggestions of a religious institution to offer relevant spiritual quotes Scraped tweets from a Twitter account using the Tweepy API /portfolio/streetlens/ Fri, 02 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000 /portfolio/streetlens/ Constructed a HoloLens app enabling street view previews of Google Maps directions Conceived an algorithm to retrieve data at a consistent time interval using the Google Maps and Street View APIs Collaborated with 3 others under a 36-hour time constraint while learning C# and Visual Studio /blog/medium/cmu-precollege-a-valuable-experience/ Fri, 28 Aug 2015 00:55:12 +0000 /blog/medium/cmu-precollege-a-valuable-experience/ Both a work of art I created in Printmaking class as well as a commentary on my motto for life. I’m writing this 3 weeks after the end of the program, because I’ve been extremely busy since it ended. And I need to write this for my CAS reflection anyway. Taking art and design classes was a relatively new experience; I didn’t have this kind of opportunity before, and I never really considered it a priority. /blog/medium/a-new-worldview/ Fri, 12 Jun 2015 23:56:44 +0000 /blog/medium/a-new-worldview/ DominiCANT Believe It’s Over *The title of this should've been a Nhu Worldview, because of the puns made on this trip, but for it to make sense to others, I opted to keep it like it is. I just returned from a trip to the Dominican Republic. I've changed as a person through the experience, gaining a new perspective on the world and its people. I went with the Ryan Nece Foundation (@powerofgiving ) as a part of the Student Service Program, and I am so thankful that I got this opportunity. /ccoptimizer/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 /ccoptimizer/ /itineraries/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 /itineraries/ NYC -> Acadia Acadia Highlights Trails Along the Way Cliffs along Ocean Path Trail or drive along the coast with parking lots and scenic stops Highlights: Otter Cliffs and Thunder Hole Sand Beach Nice and cold water, north side of Ocean Path starts here Note: Northmost part of the trail is less exciting Cadillac Mountain Highest peak, hike or drive up Sunrise is beautiful, sometimes the first in the US to see it *Permit required during summer to drive up*https://recreation. /ongoing-projects/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 /ongoing-projects/ I’m always doing (and learning!) a few different things. Here’s a peek into what I’m up to, +past+future projects. Current expand my musical skills (learning to play guitar, picking up piano again) go out of my way to shoot more documentary/photojournalistic content Maybe Next? These things take time and focus, and I can only effectively build up a few things at a time. So here are other things I’ve been thinking about - let me know if you have tips/ideas/want to do something together! /reading-list/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 /reading-list/ Thanks to so many friends, co-workers, and mentors for recommending some stellar books. I’d fallen out of the habit of reading in college but never forgot to write titles down, so the real backlog is far FAR longer than this… Memorable Reads The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World, Patrik Svensson (2022) The Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes the World, Anthony Brandt, David Eagleman (2022) This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto, Suketu Mehta (2021) The Midnight Library, Matt Haig (2021) Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood, Trevor Noah (2021) Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life, Hector Garcia & Francesc Miralles (Aug ‘20) Stop Reading The News, Rolf Dobelli (Jul ‘20) thoughts I reduced my news consumption out of exhaustion a couple years ago, but I didn't think about it constructively enough. /resume/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 /resume/ Education Georgia Institute of Technology Aug 2016 – Dec 2019 | Atlanta, GA B.S. Computer Science, concentrations: Intelligence + Information Internetworks Affiliations: Alpha Kappa Psi (Business Fraternity), Ramblin’ Raas (Nationally Competitive Dance Team) Relevant Coursework: Software / Design Theory / Maths Artificial Intelligence Objects & Design (CS 1331) Data Structures & Algorithms (CS 1332) Software Design (CS 2340) Computer Organization & Programming (CS 2110) Computer Systems and Networks (CS 2200) Computer Networking (CS 3251) Databases (CS 4400) Multivariable Calculus (MATH 2550) Linear Algebra (MATH 1554) Discrete Mathematics (CS 2051) Applied Combinatorics (MATH 3012) Probability and Statistics (MATH 3215) Design & Analysis of Algorithms (CS 3510) Automata & Complexity (CS 4510) Introduction to AI (CS 3600) Robotics & Perception (CS 3630) Computer Vision (CS 4776) Machine Learning (CS 4641) Computing & Ethics (CS 4001) Social Computing (CS 4803) Computational Linguistics (CS 4803/LING 4813) Intro to Linguistics (LING 2100) Experience Palantir Software Engineer June 2020 - Present | New York, NY