Hi! I am Colin Zhou.....

Local Time: 1/13/2025, 1:03:42 AM

*Me at Snoqualmie Falls, Washington State in April 2022

I am a software developer with experience in full stack web development and cloud services. Currently, I work at Nuclearn.ai (nuclear power startup) as a full stack engineer. Previously, I graduated from UIUC with a Masters in Computer Science, and obtained my bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Bellevue College.

When I'm not sitting at the computer, you can find me solving Rubik's Cubes of various sizes, practicing a difficult piano piece, doing 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles with my sister, or taking long walks around my neighborhood.

Education

  1. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

    University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

    Masters in Computer Science

    Activities: CS 411 Database Project Team Lead

    Relevant classes: User-Interface Design, Databases, Advanced Data Management, Human-Computer Interaction, Artificial Intelligence, Distributed Systems, ML + Data Systems

  1. Bellevue College

    Bellevue College

    B.S. in Computer Science

    Activities: CS Student Advisory Board Treasurer

    Relevant classes: Data Structures, Algorithms, Cloud Computing, Operating Systems, Software Engineering, Computer Architecture, Internet of Things, Computer Networks, Linear Algebra, Senior Capstone I, II, III, Discrete Math, Calculus III

  1. Cupertino High School

    Cupertino High School

    High School Diploma

    Activities: Speech and Debate Club Member, Sophomore English Tutor

    Relevant classes: AP Computer Science A,, AP Statistics,, AP Physics C: Mechanics,, AP Chemistry,, AP United States History, AP Calculus AB

Experience

Nuclearn logo

Software Engineer II

Nuclearn

12/2024 - presentPhoenix, Arizona, United States (Remote)

Working with React on the frontend and PostgreSQL, Docker, and FastAPI / SQLAlchemy on the backend

PolicyEngine logo

Open Source Software Engineer

PolicyEngine

03/2024 - presentIssaquah, Washington, United States (Remote)

Worked with 3 contributors on PolicyEngine’s web app project on GitHub (over 600 visits monthly).

Assisted in migrating the front end component library to the newest version of Ant Design. Streamlined 150 Jest unit tests by refactoring 5 metadata API calls to occur in the beginning of testing runs.

EcoLogical logo

Software Engineer Intern

EcoLogical

09/2023 - 12/2023Champaign, Illinois, United States (Remote)

Using Ant Design components to improve the front-end experience of the flagship web app.

Set up 10 mutations and queries to AWS Amplify backend for the user signup workflow.

IOIntelligence logo

Software Engineer Intern

IOIntelligence

07/2022 - 09/2022Bellevue, Washington, United States

Developed a 5 page application dashboard that displays networking analytics from company's wireless devices worldwide.

Used Chakra UI, React for frontend and Express.js and MySQL for the backend.

Molloy Moreno LLC logo

Software Engineer Intern

Molloy Moreno LLC

06/2021 - 09/2021Issaquah, Washington, United States

Developed a serverless web app for New York school teachers to track the academic progress of at-risk students.

Made final design choices for UI components.

Used React to implement UI components on the frontend and AWS for storing media on the backend.

Endevre Technologies logo

Head of Marketing / Designer

Endevre Technologies

06/2017 - 05/2018Cupertino, California. United States

Promoted company products through emails, and by giving presentations at events.

Secured sponsorships with multiple hackathon events at high schools throughout the Bay Area.

Designed company websites and page layouts for products.

Bellevue College logo

CS Student Advisory Board Member

Bellevue College

08/2021 - 06/2022Bellevue, Washington, United States

Met with 3 members of faculty to discuss how to grow Bellevue College CS (currently at 150 students).

Helped facilitate constructive communication between faculty and students with regards to curriculum.

Planned out $1000 budget for CS department use in 2023. Tracked all expenses using Microsoft Excel.

DemocracyLab logo

Open Source Web Developer

DemocracyLab

05/2021 - 08/2021Issaquah, Washington, United States

Used Figma to design 3 wireframes for the CodePDX project, which is a web app that develops applications to improve the lives of people living in Portland, Oregon.

Used React to redesign 5 components for the Accessibility Ratings Project, which aims to help users submit accessibility feedback to big tech companies regarding their app offerings.

Designed 3 wireframes for the iSeaTree mobile app project, which aims to help young kids explore the indigenous tree species of the Pacific Northwest.

My House logo

Hobbyist Designer / Web Developer

My House

08/2020 - presentIssaquah, Washington, United States

Created websites / designs using technologies like React, UI frameworks like Semantic UI, and Typescript.

Used the Google Chrome API to create a Google Chrome extension to block YouTube recommendations.

Developed a replica of the popular Microsoft Wordament game using Typescript, and React.

Quora logo

Freelance Writer

Quora

08/2017 - 03/2020Issaquah, Washington, United States

Writing about history, and other topics, with over 30 million answer views since 2017.

Managing own blog about futuristic technology, over 30k followers.

Admin and moderator of multiple blogs about finance and interesting information.

Projects

DistanceCalc

Project image

Using the React.js framework, I created a distance tracker that uses an external API to take two cities in the United States, and calculate their distance and the travel time in minutes. After each request, the data will be logged in an external form, which I took from Material UI. This was one of my first projects and helped me practice styling, HTML, and displaying data from API's, as well as using third party libraries.

HTML/CSSJavaScriptReact.jsMaterial UIReact RouterFirebase

StreetFoodLove

Project image

For my senior year capstone project in undergraduate, I worked with three others to create a Yelp-like app that will empower and enable food truck vendors to more easily attract customers and run their business. I worked with mostly Typescript and React.js on the front end for developing the UI and used Adobe XD for the initial mockups. On the backend, I helped with writing SQL queries and making sure the AWS services were linked up seamlessly with the frontend.

HTML/CSSTypeScriptReact.jsSemantic UIAWSReduxSQL

Project Elpis App

Project image

In my first internship, I helped create an educational web app that helps at risk high school students track their future career goals. I utilized various front end technologies like React.js along with backend tools like AWS for hosting. After the internship was completed, this app is now in beta testing in a high school of a couple hundred students in New York City.

HTML/CSSTypeScriptReact.jsSemantic UIAWSRedux

LLM God

A desktop application that allows you to query 4 LLM's at once for a single input. Supports Claude, Llama 3.1, ChatGPT, and Gemini. As someone who uses LLM's a lot in my day to day life, I wanted an easy and convenient way to ask multiple LLM's at once, and it resulted in this project.

HTMLCSSJavaScriptNode.jsElectron.js

React Backend-Benchmarks

Project image

A web application with a React frontend and three backends written in different languages that are all connected to a common MySQL database. Users will be able to send repetitive queries to any backend that they choose and see how fast the server responds after the completed operation.

TypeScriptReact.jsNode.jsMySQLPython / FlaskGolang

Job Screener Extension

Project image

I created a Google Chrome Extension leveraging the Google Sheets API that allows me to quickly identify the specific companies that I have already submitted job applications for. This was a response to a problem I had where after submitting 1000+ job applications, I would often apply mistakenly to companies twice. This extension highlights companies that I have applied to in orange, which helps me streamline my job search and become more efficient.

HTML/CSSJavaScriptGoogle Chrome APIGoogle Sheets API

iPhone Image-Classifier

Project image

A full stack web application that utilizes PyTorch and the NLTK natural language processing framework to classify and accept user prompts to search for images with a specific characteristic. Users will be able to query for a label in images on the frontend and retrieve results.

PyTorchPythonTypeScriptSqlite 3Next.jsTailwind CSS

Wordament / Wordle

Project image

I created my own version of the popular Microsoft game Wordament. Users are to swipe with a mouse to create words using the provided alphabet letters, and are awarded a specific amount of points depending on whether a guess results in a word.

HTML/CSSTypeScriptReact.jsExpressMySQL

YouTubeBlocker

Project image

A Google Chrome extension to block distractions on YouTube. Using this blocker, users will be able to cover up the recommended videos section, allowing for less distractions and greater concentration on tasks.

Google Chrome APICSS

Skills

HTML, CSS, TypeScript
React, Node.js, GraphQL
MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL
AWS, GCP, Firebase
Python, FastAPI, MapReduce
Git, Jira, VSCode
Figma, AdobeXD
LaTeX, Markdown, YAML
Linux, Windows
Prompt Engineering
NPM, Yarn
Docker

Archive

Morsecode Binary Tree

Decoding morse code using binary trees, written in Java. This was for a class project.

Java

Whitehouse.gov 2025

Whitehouse.gov website if Andrew Yang got elected as the US President in 2024.

HTMLCSSJSReact.jsFirebaseFEC / Google Civics API

Personal Website V1

This is the very first version of my personal website, using basic front end technologies.

HTMLCSSJS

Personal Website V2

The second version of my personal website, built with React, TypeScript, and Next.js.

ReactTypeScriptNext.jsCSS Modules

Wordament V1

This is the very first version of Wordament, using basic web technologies.

HTMLCSSJS

Doctors Orders

An Android app to help doctors and family track the medicine schedules of elderly patients.

JavaAndroid Studio

Country Database

A web app that allows for querying various data about all the countries of the world.

JSReactMySQLNode.js

Crypto Website

A mockup of a cryptocurrency website, which helped me practice CSS animations.

HTMLCSSJSFigma

Classwork

Distributed System (Fall 2023)

Work done for UIUC's Distributed Systems class, where I built my own distributed system from scratch.

PythonLinuxShell ScriptingHadoop

Web Programming (Winter 2022)

Work done for Bellevue College's Web Programming class.

HTML/CSSJSReact

Internet of Things (Winter 2022)

Code for Bellevue College's IOT class. The class used Arduino.

C++C

Operating Systems (Fall 2021)

Code that I wrote for Bellevue College's Operating Systems class using Linux OS and C.

C

Data Structures / Databases (Fall 2020)

Data Structures and databases work from Bellevue College

JavaC++

Programming Lang. (Winter 2021)

Learned regular expressions, and parsing.

JavaPython

Fundamentals of CS II (Winter 2020)

Work from my second ever CS class at Bellevue College

Java

Artificial Intelligence (Spring 2023)

Work from my artificial intelligence class at UIUC

Python

Cloud Computing (Spring 2022)

Work from my cloud computing class at Bellevue College, involving AWS services

C#

Artificial Intelligence (Spring 2023)

Work from my artificial intelligence class at UIUC, involving Python

Python

Spring 2021 Bellevue College Work

Work from my Fall 2021 quarter at Bellevue College, involving Java

Java

Designs

*These are several futuristic looking UI designs that I created for fun, in early 2020, along with some UI wireframes from my various internships.

BCollege Design 1
BCollege Design 2
Elpis UI Design 1
Elpis UI Design 2
Food App Design 1
Food App Design 2
UI Design 1
UI Design 2

Miscellaneous

  • I used to actively write answers on the website Quora. My answers have to date accumulated over 33 million total views. I wrote about various topics, not limited to life experiences, technology, history, etc. In addition, I also had my own Quora space / blog about futuristic technology, which had 30k followers. My profile can be found here.
  • I took private piano lessons for 10 years, starting in elementary school, and went to numerous competitions and performed annually at recitals. After an extended pause, I began to play regularly as a hobby in grad school, and started posting videos of my playing to my Instagram, which can be found here.
  • I first started getting interested in solving Rubik's Cubes in 5th grade. After getting my average time to around 20 seconds, I began to attend competitions around the Bay Area, until high school demanded more of my attention. My best time official time in competition was 12.92 seconds; my full profile can be found here.
  • This website was created using the Next.js framework and TypeScript along with Tailwind CSS.