Computer Science (Information Specialization @ UC Irvine (’27) · Backend & Distributed Systems · Pragmatic builder of fast, reliable services
I like turning messy real-world problems into clean, testable systems. My happy place is the intersection of high-performance backends, microservices, and developer-friendly tooling.
- Current focus: production-ready microservices, distributed rate limiting, observability with OpenTelemetry, and resilient AWS deployments.
- Interests: token-bucket algorithms, concurrency & sharding, networking protocols, and system design that scales.
- Goal: ship useful OSS, write clear docs, and keep latency low.
- Open to: Summer 2026 Software Engineering Intern roles.
Full write-ups live on my portfolio → brianyildirim.vercel.app
| Project | What it does | Tech | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rate Limiter Library (C++20) | A tiny, fast library implementing a sharded token-bucket with clean C++ and C interfaces and first-class CMake packaging. Designed for low-overhead, predictable throughput under contention. | C++20, atomics, CMake, unit tests, benchmarks | Portfolio: /projects/rate-limiter |
| Multi-Threaded TCP Key-Value Server | Persistent KV store with a custom text protocol, request parsing, and multi-client concurrency. Built for learning sockets, framing, and back-pressure. | Python, sockets, threading, persistence | Portfolio: /projects/tcp-server |
| Image Quality Gate | Microservice that auto-rejects blurry/low-quality images (e.g., before upload pipelines) using sharpness/blur detection metrics. | Python, NumPy, image processing, REST | Portfolio: /projects/image-quality-gate |
| Personal Portfolio | My site with projects, notes, and résumé. Lightweight, fast, and deploys cleanly. | Next.js, TypeScript, Tailwind, Vercel | Homepage, Résumé (PDF) |
Languages: C++20 · Python · TypeScript · JavaScript
Frontend: React · Next.js · TailwindCSS
Data: PostgreSQL · Redis (ElastiCache)
DevOps: Docker · Kubernetes · GitHub Actions
Security & Auth: Auth0 (JWKS caching, short-lived ATs, RT rotation)
Observability: OpenTelemetry (traces/metrics/logs), p95/p99-first mindset
Testing & Perf: unit + property-based tests · benchmarks · load testing
- Simplicity > cleverness. Fewer moving parts win—especially under pressure.
- Measure, then optimize. Benchmarks and traces drive changes; p95 budgets keep us honest.
- APIs as contracts. Clear interfaces, crisp failure modes, and strong docs.
- Automate the boring stuff. CI/CD, style checks, and reproducible builds by default.
- Write things down. READMEs and examples are part of the product.
- Rate Limiter internals: sharding strategy, fairness trade-offs, and atomic paths.
- TCP server protocol: request framing, concurrency model, and persistence format.
- Image quality heuristics: sharpness metrics, thresholds, and false-positive handling.
- Website: brianyildirim.vercel.app
- Résumé: brianyildirim.vercel.app/resume.pdf