Puloma Katiyar

Software developer | San Francisco Bay Area | puloma@pulomakatiyar.com

Hi there! I'm currently a Software Engineer at HP. I graduated from UC Irvine in 2023 with a B.S. in Computer Science, with an interest in big data and machine learning. I have experience as a software engineering intern, research assistant, and as a leader in multiple CS student organizations. I'm also an advocate for increasing representation of women/minorities and people of color in the tech field.

Experience

Software Engineer

HP - Vancouver, WA

Worked on a large codebase to develop security firmware for detection of counterfeit ink cartridges. Significantly improved debugging by creating more informative device status report with previously untracked data. Increased unit test coverage by 40% for multiple components by implementing new Google Test framework. Fixed multiple regression bugs to correct telemetry data being overwritten during device to cloud communication.

August 2023 - Present

Software Engineering Intern

Meta (Facebook) - Menlo Park, CA

Developed new ads product that optimizes for deep funnel events. Worked on end-to-end solution from custom data pipelines for model training to online serving in the complex ads delivery system. Automated performance analysis of product ads campaigns to improve scalability with increasing number of advertisers.

June 2022 - September 2022

Software Engineering (STEP) Intern

Google - Mountain View, CA

Quickly learned Google's complex search serving framework. Developed code in Java to fetch data for an upcoming feature to provide a more immersive experience on the hotels search page. Added “About this Result” to Google's main hotels search page. Implemented in Java and HTML, ran experiment validation, and launched feature.

June 2021 - September 2021

Undergraduate Research Assistant

UC Riverside Big Data Lab - Riverside, CA

Developed a full-stack web application to generate spatial datasets with user-configured parameters. Built back-end generator using Python and user interface using JavaScript, HTML, JQuery, Bootstrap, and CSS. Optimized generator algorithm to bring response time to less than 1 second for all queries, regardless of dataset size. Published paper in ACM SIGSPATIAL 2020 conference: “SpiderWeb: A Spatial Data Generator on the Web” (official ACM link here).

January 2020 - November 2020

Captain, intern, volunteer

Chabot Space and Science Center - Oakland, CA

Directed approximately 30 volunteers during each floor shift. Led and mentored the Astronomy Team and Media Team. Encouraged volunteer participation in teams, expanding Media Team from 7 members to 20 members. Adapted science demonstrations to increase interaction between volunteers and visitors. Educated visitors through science experiments, showed cosmological objects through telescopes in the night, built radio telescope, and launched science blog.

May 2016 - September 2019

Software Projects

Fake Reviews Detector

UC Irvine Project in AI

Designed long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network to identify bot-generated reviews for products. Implemented logistic regression classifier and SVM to compare against the results of the LSTM.

December 2022

Search Engine

UC Irvine Information Retrieval

Implemented text search engine in Python, including a crawler, indexer, and searcher.

December 2021

Trouble in Turtle Town

UC Riverside CutieHack 2019 - Won 1st place

Mobile game for Android built in under 12 hours in a team of 4. Utilizes device's gyroscope to control character movement. Developed game logic in Java and tested to improve game flow.

November 2019

MeloBox

Girls Who Code Summer Immersion Program

Music information application built in a team of 4 using JavaScript, Bootstrap, HTML, and CSS. Used external API calls using Javascript.

August 2018

Organizations

President

Association of Computing Machinery at UC Riverside - Riverside, CA

Led ACM general and officer meetings, and oversaw all ACM activities and administrative tasks. Assisted and advised other officers with organizing workshops, panels, and social events.

March 2021 - September 2021

Secretary

Association of Computing Machinery at UC Riverside - Riverside, CA

Launched tech blog to publish educational resources, spotlight members, and share advice in an effort to better connect with members during the COVID-19 pandemic.

February 2020 - March 2021

Membership Chair

Women in Computing at UC Riverside - Riverside, CA

Promoted WINC membership to increase minority representation in tech, maintained membership records, built mentor-mentee program, and planned socials for all members.

February 2020 - March 2021

Interests

Apart from studying computer science, I enjoy connecting with nature. I love seeking out wildflowers in the spring and I spend summers hiking and camping with my family (see some pictures below!). I'm also a novice indoor gardener with a growing (pun intended) family of plants. When indoors, I play/read/watch anything fantasy or sci-fi related.

I've always had a passion for astronomy, and learning about new discoveries and advancements in space exploration. I'm also curious about the ways computer science can be applied to study the datasets produced by astronomy research and telescope readings.

I don't use my old blog anymore, but if you'd like to check out archived articles, click here! If you're interested in my more recent takes on tech, education, and leadership, check out my Medium page here.