Backend Engineer · Distributed Systems · MSCS @ Penn State

Hi, I'm Pratyush Kumar.
I build reliable backend systems and full-stack products that hold up under real-world use.

Formerly at Enphase Energy, where I worked on production cloud systems used by 5,500+ daily users. My recent work spans distributed systems, FastAPI services, role-based auth flows, and systems projects built for performance and correctness.

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5,500+

DAU

25%

fewer failures

throughput

Open to Summer 2026 SWE and research internships(backend · full-stack · platforms · distributed systems)

About

I build backend-heavy software that stays reliable when complexity increases.

I'm Pratyush, a software engineer focused on resilient backend systems, distributed services, and production-minded full-stack products. I like turning complex infrastructure into software that is easier to operate, easier to trust, and easier to extend.

My work spans cloud systems at Enphase, systems projects in C++, and full-stack product development with FastAPI, React, and modern tooling. I'm currently completing my MS in Computer Science at Penn State, where my work is centered around distributed systems and scalable backend design.

Build for reliability

I optimize for correctness, operability, and clean system boundaries.

Work across the stack

Strongest in backend systems, with enough frontend depth to ship complete products.

Like hard problems

Most energized by distributed systems, auth flows, performance, and real production constraints.

Off-hours: competitive badminton, coffee gear tinkering, and anime marathons.

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Snapshot

5,500+

daily users supported in production systems

25%

fewer integration failures at Enphase

throughput improvement in systems work

MSCS

current focus on distributed systems at Penn State

Recent highlights

Built a high-performance multi-threaded MapReduce framework in C++.
Integrated Supabase auth with FastAPI and React in a collaborative waste operations product.
Started MS in Computer Science at Penn State (University Park) — Fall 2025, GPA: 3.6/4.0
Completed 2.5+ years as a Software Engineer at Enphase Energy, working on production cloud systems.

Projects

Selected systems, products, and team collaborations I’ve built or contributed to.

Featured System

Distributed MapReduce Framework

C++ MapReduce engine deployed on EC2 with custom shuffle and performance tuning.

Identified and explained the reducer lock bottleneck behind major non-barrier slowdowns during AWS performance sweeps.

Built a distributed execution pipeline with mapper coordination, reducer services, and HDFS-backed output handling
Implemented custom TCP shuffle with Protobuf serialization, bounded buffers, and optional barrier-based backpressure
Ran AWS experiments across mapper counts, thread counts, and buffer sizes to isolate a reducer lock bottleneck

C++gRPCProtobufConcurrencyAWS EC2HDFS

View Featured Project

Waste Management Route Optimizer

Team-built waste operations platform with a FastAPI backend and a React + Vite frontend.

Owned the initial Supabase auth integration across frontend token flow, FastAPI verification, role upserts, and protected routes.

Contributed to a shared full-stack codebase that separates operational APIs in FastAPI from the TypeScript UI built with React and Vite
Implemented Supabase authentication and authorization integration with FastAPI, including bearer-token verification, user role upserts, and protected backend routes
Built frontend auth flow pieces for login, signup, session hydration, and role-aware routing so Supabase sessions worked cleanly across the app

FastAPIReactViteSupabaseTypeScriptPython

View Featured Project

More Projects

Distributed Key-Value Store (ABD)

Quorum-based key-value store comparing linearizable ABD against a blocking baseline.

Benchmarked crash scenarios across 1, 3, and 5 replicas with latency instrumentation for concurrent workloads.

Implemented ABD read and write flows with timestamped values, majority quorums, and write-back for linearizable reads
Built replica and client services in C++ with gRPC and Protobuf plus a threaded load generator for mixed workloads
Automated crash experiments across 1, 3, and 5 replicas on EC2 and recorded p50, p95, and p99 latency under failure

See How It Works

C++gRPCProtobufABD AlgorithmDistributed Systems

App-Aware Clipboard Manager

Privacy-first macOS clipboard manager designed around correctness instead of feature bloat.

Focused on deterministic clipboard capture, app attribution, and privacy controls rather than superficial UI features.

Built event-driven clipboard capture in PyQt6 with source-app attribution, dedupe logic, and protections against feedback loops
Added secret-safe defaults, token heuristics, per-app history, and optional SQLite persistence with WAL mode
Structured the app for testing with CI, coverage reporting, and deterministic UI actions while history updates in real time

See How It Works

PythonPyQt6SQLitepytestGitHub Actions

Risk-Based Vaccination Prioritization

ML-assisted triage system aimed at improving fairness and consistency in vaccine allocation.

Positioned machine learning as decision support for prioritization, fairness, and more consistent triage outcomes.

Built a prioritization workflow around a Random Forest model to rank vaccine eligibility with more consistency than manual review
Focused on transparent decision support and reduced subjective bias in high-demand allocation scenarios
Shipped the project as a working web application backed by Python-based data and application logic

See How It Works

PythonMachine LearningRandom ForestWeb App

Education & Experience

Where I've worked, studied, and what I shipped.

Education

Aug 2025 — May 2027

The Pennsylvania State University — MS in Computer Science

State College, PA

GPA: 3.6 / 4.0Focus: Distributed systems, backend engineering, and systems architecture

Graduate coursework and project work centered on distributed systems, cloud computing, and scalable backend design.
Built systems-heavy projects including a distributed MapReduce framework and a quorum-based key-value store.

Jul 2019 — May 2023

Vellore Institute of Technology — BTech in Computer Science and Engineering

Vellore, India

GPA: 3.5 / 4.0Focus: systems, networks, cryptography, and core computer science fundamentals

Built a capstone around selective region and partial face-image encryption.
Coursework included algorithms, operating systems, database systems, computer networks, and data structures.

Experience

Aug 2025 — Present

Penn State — Graduate Learning Assistant

State College, PA

Improved algorithmic proficiency for 60+ students by facilitating weekly lab sessions and real-time debugging support in C++ and MATLAB.

Led guided problem-solving sessions that helped students debug faster and build stronger systems-programming intuition.
Provided structured feedback during labs and office hours to improve student confidence and assignment quality.

Jan 2023 — Jul 2025

Enphase Energy — Software Engineer

Bangalore, India

Reduced production integration failures by 25% by improving microservice reliability and applying TDD for systems serving 5,500+ daily users.

Optimized API performance and SQL query efficiency by fixing bottlenecks surfaced through DataDog monitoring, reducing database load.
Decreased manual regression testing by 50% by integrating quality gates into Jenkins CI/CD and tightening engineering standards.
Reduced onboarding ramp-up time by 65% by automating legacy workflows and mentoring new engineers on production systems.
Contributed to global compliance features that helped support product expansion into European markets.

JavaRuby on RailsPostgreSQLJenkinsSonarQubeDataDogRSpec

Aug 2021 — Jan 2022

Acies Consulting — Full-Stack Developer Intern

Mumbai, India

Built workflow automation and data tooling that accelerated financial operations and improved backend interoperability.

Accelerated financial workflow setup from 3 days to 30 minutes by building interactive JavaScript and AJAX components for data operations.
Architected pluggable backend connectors so users could route workloads across MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Redis targets.
Automated stock-metric documentation with a Python and BeautifulSoup scraping pipeline for Yahoo Finance data.

DjangoJavaScriptAJAXPythonMySQLPostgreSQLRedisBeautifulSoup

Engineering Toolkit

The languages, frameworks, and delivery tools I use to build backend-heavy systems and full-stack products.

Backend-firstProduction-testedSystems-minded

Systems & Core Languages

The foundation I use for performance-sensitive systems, APIs, and application logic.

C++

Python

Java

TypeScript

JavaScript

SQL

Backend & Distributed Systems

The stack behind production services, concurrency-heavy systems, and networked applications.

gRPC

Protobuf

REST APIs

AWS (EC2)

Concurrency

Distributed Systems

Redis

PostgreSQL

MySQL

Frameworks & Product Engineering

The frameworks I reach for when shipping end-to-end products with real users and operational constraints.

Ruby on Rails

FastAPI

Django

React

Next.js

Vite

PyQt6

Supabase

Frontend & UI

Enough frontend depth to build interfaces that feel intentional, clear, and usable.

React

Next.js

Vite

Tailwind CSS

HTML

CSS

JavaScript

Delivery, Testing & Observability

The tooling I rely on to ship safely, monitor behavior, and improve reliability over time.

Git

Linux

Jenkins

RSpec

Selenium

DataDog

SonarQube

Unit & Integration Testing

Performance Optimization

Data & Persistence

Storage and data tools used across product platforms, automation, and internal workflows.

PostgreSQL

MySQL

Redis

MongoDB

BeautifulSoup

Strongest in backend engineering, distributed systems, and production-focused full-stack development.

Blog

Technical notes, project writeups, and engineering reflections.

Interview Prep

System Design Notes (Coming Soon)

Preparation jotnotes, key concepts, and common patterns for system design interviews.

Coming soon

Interview Prep

LeetCode Problem Solutions (Coming Soon)

A collection of solved coding problems from LeetCode with explanations and optimizations.

Coming soon

Personal

Journal (Coming Soon)

Personal reflections, learning experiences, and growth as a Masters student and a software engineer.

Coming soon

Pratyush Kumar

MSCS @ Penn StateBackend • Distributed Systems • Full Stack

Production SystemsFastAPIC++React

Contact

Let's talk about systems, products, and hard backend problems.

If you're building something real and need a steady engineering partner, I'd like to hear about it. I'm most interested in backend, distributed systems, infrastructure-heavy product work, and Summer 2026 SWE internship opportunities.

Backend and platform engineering

Distributed systems and systems projects

Production-focused full-stack products

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Open to Summer 2026 SWE internships · Backend · Full-Stack · Platform

Pratyush Kumar – Distributed systems engineer portfolio

Hi, I'm Pratyush Kumar.I build reliable backend systems and full-stack products that hold up under real-world use.

I build backend-heavy software that stays reliable when complexity increases.

Projects

Distributed MapReduce Framework

Waste Management Route Optimizer

Distributed Key-Value Store (ABD)

App-Aware Clipboard Manager

Risk-Based Vaccination Prioritization

Education & Experience

The Pennsylvania State University — MS in Computer Science

Vellore Institute of Technology — BTech in Computer Science and Engineering

Penn State — Graduate Learning Assistant

Enphase Energy — Software Engineer

Acies Consulting — Full-Stack Developer Intern

Engineering Toolkit

Systems & Core Languages

Backend & Distributed Systems

Frameworks & Product Engineering

Frontend & UI

Delivery, Testing & Observability

Data & Persistence

Blog

System Design Notes (Coming Soon)

LeetCode Problem Solutions (Coming Soon)

Journal (Coming Soon)

Pratyush Kumar

Let's talk about systems, products, and hard backend problems.

Hi, I'm Pratyush Kumar.
I build reliable backend systems and full-stack products that hold up under real-world use.