K V Shanmukha Sai

Hi, my name is

K V Shanmukha Sai.

Architecting robust backend solutions.

Software engineer specializing in scalable microservices, high-performance APIs and agentic AI systems, and one half of The Hot Path on YouTube.

Software engineer specializing in scalable microservices, high-performance APIs and agentic AI systems.

Currently — Software Engineer, National Center for Ontological Research

K V Shanmukha Sai at the University at Buffalo

01 — About

A laid-back, results-driven engineer.

I have a Master’s in Computer Science from SUNY Buffalo. I design scalable microservices, optimize high-performance REST APIs, and build intelligent systems with agentic frameworks. I like owning complex problems and mentoring teammates, and I bring React skills when the front end needs it.

Outside tech: stock markets, current politics, social issues, and photography.

Frameworks

  • Node.js
  • Express.js
  • NestJS
  • Next.js
  • FastAPI

Languages

  • JavaScript
  • TypeScript
  • Java
  • Python

Databases

  • MySQL
  • MongoDB
  • Redis
  • Elasticsearch
  • PostgreSQL

Infra & tools

  • Kafka
  • Docker
  • AKS
  • Azure Service Bus
  • GitHub Actions

02 — Experience

Where I’ve worked

  1. Mar 2026 — Present

    Software Engineer

    National Center for Ontological Research

    Core developer of Ontos Cosmos, an applied-AI platform that turns any input — streaming data, audio, PDF, Excel, RDF/Turtle — into governed, fully traceable structured knowledge; generated 1,000+ knowledge graphs across 9,400+ entities, cutting expert modeling work from ~1 month to ~15 minutes.

    • Agentic AI
    • Knowledge Graphs
    • RAG
    • FastAPI
  2. May 2025 — Mar 2026

    AI Backend Engineer

    ProseWrite

    Built the transcription service behind a product used by 5,000+ users across author and academic communities — converting audio and video to text at 95% accuracy with speaker attribution and sub-2-minute turnaround, plus LLM post-processing for transcript cleanup and summaries.

    • LLMs
    • Speech-to-Text
    • Azure
    • Electron
  3. Jul 2022 — Jul 2024

    Software Development Engineer I & II

    Bajaj Finserv Health

    Built the personalization rule engine that decided what content and health messaging each user saw across the homepage and wellness pages, serving 300+ enterprise clients, and made patient-record search ~60% faster across 10M+ records with CQRS and Elasticsearch.

    • Node.js
    • Kafka
    • Elasticsearch
    • Kubernetes
  4. Jan 2022 — Jun 2022

    Software Development Engineer Intern

    Bajaj Finserv Health

    Cut content-update dependency from 15 days to 2 by delivering a CMS portal with React and a headless CMS.

    • Strapi
    • Headless CMS
  5. Mar 2021 — May 2021

    Full-stack Intern

    Sedaux Technology

    Designed and shipped a MERN website for the client The Investico in 10 days, deployed on AWS.

    • MERN
    • AWS
  6. Dec 2020 — Mar 2021

    Software Development Intern

    HumourBaba

    Built the cart-management backend for mobile covers and merchandise with Node.js and MongoDB.

    • MongoDB
    • REST APIs

03 — Videos

On YouTube

I co-create The Hot Path: system design, explained in depth. These are my latest videos.

  • Run AI Offline — On Your Own Laptop | Agentic AI 101 #12

  • MCP, Explained — I Let AI Apply to Jobs For Me

Shorts

quick ones, under a minute

  • Langfuse: trace every LLM call to find the step that broke

  • Stop eyeballing prompts — test them side by side with promptfoo

  • Transcribe audio locally for free with faster-whisper — no API, no upload

  • Fine-tune an LLM on a FREE Colab GPU with Unsloth

  • Stop hand-tuning prompts — let DSPy optimize them for you

04 — Projects

Things I’ve built

  • RapidMock

    An API mocking and management platform: mock, validate and forward requests, with JWT auth, versioning, request logging and per-project analytics.

    Node.js · Express.js · JWT

  • Shop-Sphere

    A microservice e-commerce backend on Node.js with MongoDB, Elasticsearch, Kafka and Redis, plus LLM tooling that automates unit tests and API docs.

    Kafka · Elasticsearch · Redis

  • UrbanTree+

    PySpark ETL pipelines that cluster 130K+ urban tree records into geospatial planting recommendations using K-Means, regression and MapReduce.

    PySpark · ETL · K-Means

  • ChatFlow

    A distributed C++ TCP chat system with offline message buffering, user blocking, broadcast messaging and real-time routing using select().

    C++ · TCP sockets · Distributed systems

  • Anomaly Detection with PCA & Autoencoders

    Predicts machine anomalies from engine and sensor data using Principal Component Analysis and autoencoders. Published as a chapter in a Springer book.

    PCA · Autoencoders · Machine learning

  • Framework for Disease Detection

    A platform that helps people find doctors and symptom information, and predicts diseases with 95% accuracy.

    Python · Flask · NLP · ML

  • Phishing Website Detection

    Compared 9 machine learning algorithms for detecting phishing websites. Published on SSRN.

    Machine learning · Flask · Python

  • Idea Invest Implement

    A web portal where sponsors explore startup ideas and back ventures, built to scale past 10,000 products.

    PHP · MySQL · JavaScript

  • Digital Election System

    An online voting platform with face-recognition identity checks, which raised participation by over 30%.

    Node.js · Blockchain · Azure Face · MongoDB

  • Lip Biometry on Handheld OS

    Research comparing lip-biometric algorithms and their compatibility with mobile operating systems. Published in IRJET.

    Lip biometry · Research

06 — Education

Learning pathways