Yash Potdar

 

About Me ✌🏽

Welcome to my website! I’m Yash, a Software Engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area. I’m currently a Software Engineer at Rivian and am concurrently pursuing a Masters in Computer Science with a Specialization in Interactive Intelligence at Georgia Institute of Technology.

Previously, I studied at UC San Diego, where I graduated with highest honors (summa cum laude) while pursuing a double major in Data Science and Cognitive Science: Machine Learning.

I’m originally from the SF Bay Area 🌉. I enjoy traveling, experiencing new cultures through food, and playing/following sports (go Niners and Warriors)!

One of my passions is teaching and mentorship. During my time at UCSD, I served as an Instructional Assistant for several undergraduate data science courses and led workshops for students interested in data science. Check out my workshops!

I’m a highly motivated individual interested in the fields of data science and AI, looking to make a positive impact by solving challenging problems. I’m always looking to learn something new and connect with others! Feel free to connect on LinkedIn!

Work Experience 🧑🏽‍💻

Rivian ⚡ 🚙
Palo Alto, CA

Software Engineer II, Vehicle Merchandising
June 2023 – present

• Designed and implemented an automation pipeline allowing the Merchandising organization to make sales changes efficiently and at-scale, allowing for a more seamless customer purchase and configuration experience.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product managers to define key milestones, identify service gaps, and coordinate with downstream teams and engineers for effective resolution.

Software Engineer Intern, Core Services
June 2022 – September 2022

• Architected and deployed a production-level service facilitating the settlement of vehicle transactions at scale.
• Improved the customer experience by streamlining internal communication pertaining to vehicle deliveries.
• Wrote documentation and wrote a tutorial to hand off my project to future developers, explain my design decisions, and identify areas of extension for other teams.

Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute 📊 🧑🏽‍🏫
La Jolla, San Diego, CA

Data Science Instructional Assistant (IA)
September 2020 – March 2023

• Led 9 weekly discussion sections for a class of 120 undergraduate students, where I walked through challenging questions from the weekly programming assignment in order to solidify course concepts.
• Held weekly office hours to clarify Python and statistics concepts from lectures and guide students through programming assignments.
• Designed and created programming assignments and a final project to assess students’ understanding of course concepts.
• Served as an Instructional Assistant for DSC 10 5 times and for DSC 80 2 times.

HUGS (Startup) 🏡
San Diego, CA

Developer
May 2021 - June 2022
||
Software Engineering Intern, R&D
March 2021 - May 2021

• Created wireframe prototypes and design language documents for the product, which is a housing portal that aims to bridge the gap between international students and landlords.
• Served as one of the initial Engineers and designed features for the housing platform.

LogicMonitor ☁️ 🤖
Santa Barbara, CA

Data Science Intern, R&D
June 2021 - August 2021

• Researched and developed an early-stage feature on LogicMonitor’s platform for root cause analysis of alerts.
• Wrote a Confluence tutorial in order to explain to future developers the usage of the application, how I developed it, and areas of improvement so developers can continue working on the product.

University Organizations 🎓

Triton Consulting Group (TCG) 🕴️

VP Human Capital Management (HCM)
June 2022 - March 2023

• Planned social events, recruitment events, club retreats, study group sessions, and more to build a sense of community within TCG.
• Implemented strategies to foster a culture of inclusivity and increase retention within the organization.

Project Manager
October 2020 - June 2022

• Led the first iteration of a data analytics project for predicting churn using Machine Learning and analyzing ROI for a healthcare firm, which became a recurring client for TCG.
• Led a team of 5 Associates and worked directly with the CFO in order to successfully deliver a key project within scope, timeline, and budget.
• Conducted primary and secondary research and created a long-term marketing plan for UCSD’s Price Center.

Data Science Student Society (DS3) 📊

Data Science Workshops

Professional Development Workshops Lead
June 2021 - September 2022

• Led the development of 2 workshops dedicated to career development for undergraduate members of the Data Science Student Society.
• Delivered workshops to prepare students for internship recruitment, such as resume reviews, networking sessions, or Leetcode workshops.

Kaggle Workshop Committee Member
June 2020 - June 2021

• Delivered 6 workshops on industry-relevant data science topics such as Pandas, Scikit-learn (sklearn) modeling, pipelines, and anomaly detection.
• Created content with the other Workshop Committee members in order to engage students interested in data science and enhance their learning.

ACM Cyber 🥷🏼 💻

Director of Finance & Logistics
July 2020 - June 2021

• Coordinated club events, which include workshops, networking events, seminars, and socials.
• Interfaced with other ACM Cyber Board members to seamlessly hold virtual events, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Cultivated relationships with industry contacts for sponsors and mentors for organization members.
• Managed sponsorships and fundraising to ensure organization operations run smoothly.
• Secured funding to cover the expenditures from competition registration, event organization, and travel.

Projects 🧑🏽‍🍳

• Deep Learning for Pulmonary Edema Classification using Image Segmentation 🫁 🫀
  • Trained multiple convolutional neural network (CNN) architectures in order to diagnose pulmonary edema from chest X-rays.
  • Utilized transfer learning with a lung and heart image segmentation network in order to understand the impact of segmentation.
  • Worked closely with a radiologist from UC San Diego Health for two quarters during this Data Science Senior Capstone project.
  • Poster, Website, Paper
• Facebook Redesign 🧓🏽 #️⃣
  • Conducted a UX case study for a Facebook redesign aimed to increase accessibility for the 65+ community and reduce sentiments of isolation and depression among this demographic.
  • Interviewed members of the 65+ community in order to understand their core needs, pain points, and values.
  • Designed high-fidelity and wireframe prototypes of the app redesign.
  • Website
• Generating Sherlock Holmes Passages with Recurrent Neural Networks 🕵️‍♂️ 🗒️
  • Explored the potential of recurrent neural networks (RNNs) to generate literature using a sample corpus.
  • Tested and evaluated several RNN architectures with tuned hyperparameters.
  • Paper, Notebook
• NYPD Police Complaint Classification Model 🚔
  • Developed a DecisionTreeClassifier to predict whether civilian cases against officers in the New York Police Department were substantiated.
  • Evaluated the parity of the classifier using the True Positive Parity measure to assess whether the model had systematic biases.
  • Utilized scikit-learn transformers and pipelines to engineer features and develop the algorithm.
  • Notebooks: Permutation Test, Classification ML Model
• MLB Pitch Classification ⚾
  • Utilized supervised ML algorithms (Decision Trees and K-Nearest Neighbors) to solve the multi-label classification problem of classifying pitches as Changeups, Curveballs, Fastballs, or Sliders.
  • Website

Teaching discussion! 🧑🏽‍🏫