Ashar Farooq

I'm a

About

I am Ashar Farooq, from Long Island, NY and from from Karachi, Pakistan. Having lived half of my life in the United States as a Muslim immigrant, I have realized the long old idea that education is something to fall back on. As a gratitude for my life, I have worked to explore as much as I can and create as many opportunities as I can. I love all things tech and am excited to engage with the intersection of computer science and impactful products/programs as a graduate of MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, currently pursuing an additional Master of Engineering degree at MIT in Computer Science.

Full-Stack/Infrastructure Software Engineer | MIT Grad Student

Full-Stack/Infrastructure Software Engineer at Dispel and Computer Science Graduate Student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Birthday: September 27, 2000
  • US States&Territories Visited: 26
  • Countries Traveled: 25
  • Hometown: Huntington Station, NY

Skills

HTML Proficient
Full Stack Development Proficient
JavaScript Proficient
LeadershipProficient
Communication Proficient
React Proficient
Git Proficient
Python Proficient
Node Proficient
Typescript Proficient

Resume

Note: Get A PDF Version of Resume HERE.

Summary

Ashar Farooq

Full-Stack/Infrastructure Engineer and Computer Science Graduate Student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Long Island, NY
  • asharfarooq@alum.mit.edu

Education

Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

2024 - 2025

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Engineering

2019 - 2023

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

High School Advanced Diploma

2015 - 2019

Walt Whitman High School, South Huntington, NY

Relevant Coursework

Courses

Introduction to Algorithms

Design and Analysis of Algorithms

Mathematics for Computer Science

Introduction to Machine Learning

Fundamentals of Programming

Computer Systems Engineering

Elements of Software Construction

Computation Structures

Software Studio

Other Activities

Research Assistant

Worked with MIT Sloan School to synthesize analysis on societal impact of AI and Big Data

Teaching Assistant(TA)

Guided students and conducted office hours in MIT’s introductory Python classes 6.100A, 6.100B, and 6.100L.

Physics Mentor

Guided students on problem sets in MIT’s introductory electricity and magnetism class 8.02

Product Assistant

Created an augmented reality application to recognize soda cans using Vuforia and Unity for Danfoss

Technology and Data Director

Managed all the technical platforms for the 2020 MIT Virtual Fall Career Fair Series

Mentor

Tutored mathematics and science to children affected by the COVID-19 pandemic via the CovEd organization

Tour Guide

Conducted campus tour guides for prospective MIT families for MIT Admissions

Advisor

Helped first-year MIT students and upperclassmen in the Computer Science, Economics, and Data Science course on all things academic and beyond

Traveler

Have taught Computer Science and Machine Learning in Spain and interned in South Africa as part of MIT study abroad program.

Experience

Associate Full-Stack/Infrastructure Software Engineer

February 2024 - Present

Dispel | New York Metropolian Area/Remote

  • Pioneered features related to the core Dispel remote access platform and backend cloud infrastructure, including logic updates for job queue requests to handle tens of thousands of updates in a divide-and-conquer approach
  • Closed more than 95 tickets to fix existing and new bugs in the product architecture of Dispel, helping Web & API, Quality Assurance (QA), Infrastructure, and DevOps teams with regression testing and integrations

Software Engineering Intern

June 2023 - August 2023

Uliza | Cape Town, South Africa

  • Using Python and Natural Language Processing techniques, designed and implemented 10 LSTM models, 14 CNN models, and other model combinations in order to detect local African languages from local audio files, resulting in a best testing accuracy of 99.7%
  • Collaborated with company leadership to produce efficient programs to turn hundreds of hours of human interviews in local vulnerable African languages, such as N|uu, into readable PDF, CSV, and XML formats along with implementing automated translated interview video subtitles for the preservation of near-extinct languages

Software Engineering Intern

June 2022 - August 2022

Flowcode | New York City/Hybrid

  • Worked as part of the Activation Engineering Team on a new variant of a feature product designed specifically for improving the conversation rate of college students claiming a Flowcode QR code
  • Using Next.js, React.js, and Front-End Web Development Libraries, developed a new feature for showcasing the nearest print stores for a customer in the checkout phase of a Flowcode QR code

Software Engineering Intern

February 2021 - August 2021

Memorang | Remote

  • Designed, prototyped, and implemented a Content Management System(CMS) for Memorang's administrative users on their web application
  • Using Next.js, React.js, and principles of Material Design, developed a new feature for displaying plans and bundles of different Memorang's services while engaging 1:1 with company engineers

Undergraduate Researcher

June 2021 - August 2021

MIT Digital Humanities Lab | Remote

  • Collaborated with lab mentors and members in order to synthesize methods for conducting textual gender analysis on historical corpora
  • Implemented a frontend and backend pipeline for a web application for conducting gender analysis using a toolkit
  • Implemented a Django/React-based full stack web application for the sonification of text
  • Coordinated regularly with team members on the development and testing stages of the web application

Research Intern

January 2021 - August 2021

Universidade Estadual de Campinas | Remote

  • In partnership with the most prominent research university in Brazil, produced teaching materials, exercises, and sample programs for more than 8 sets of classes in the topics of electronics, programming, Arduino, Tinkercad, algorithms, and computer science

Portfolio

Note: See GitHub for all project codebases and other recent projects. The projects below may not be up to date. Not all projects below have filters.

  • All
  • React
  • APIs
  • Next
  • Python
  • PHP
  • Flask
  • Node
  • Vue
  • Angular
  • Django
  • Arduino
  • Mobile

Major Life Happenings

Events


Born September 27th, 2000 at Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi, Pakistan
Studied at Programmer’s School
Moved To Long Island, New York on January 15th, 2009
Stayed in Cousin’s House for 6 Months
Stayed in a basement with 4 other older family members in Huntington Station, NY
Started 3rd grade at Birchwood Intermediate School
Passed the New York State English as a Second Language Achievement Test (NYSESLAT) in 4th grade
Started middle school at Stimson Middle School
Started high school at Walt Whitman High School
Became a United States Citizen
Started first job at Modell’s Sporting Goods
Voted for the first time in the 2018 Midterm Elections
Passed the New York State Permit Test
Accepted into 18 colleges and universities
Acquired the New York State Driving License
Delivered high school valedictorian speech
Graduated High School
Arrived at MIT
Left MIT due to COVID-19
Started research at MIT
Got Fully Vaccinated against COVID-19
Graduated MIT with B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering
Traveled back to Pakistan after 8 years for sister and brother weddings
Started first full-time software engineering job at Dispel