Yosef Mekonnen
I build backend systems that power practical AI products.
Computer Science major at UPEI,
with a minor in Mathematics.
Currently
Building BuildLens AI
Fall 2026 Co-op
Charlottetown, PEI
About
I like solving problems that teach me something.
Most of what I've learned came from building projects, getting stuck, and figuring out why something wasn't working.
Every mistake has helped me become a better developer, and that's still how I learn today.
What matters to me
- Building projects instead of just following tutorials
- Writing code I can understand six months later
- Improving a little with every project
Outside programming
I've practiced Taekwondo for years, and it's taught me discipline, patience, and the importance of showing up consistently.
Tools I Use
The tools behind my projects.
I choose tools based on the problem I'm trying to solve.
Languages
Frameworks
React · Next.js · FastAPI
Tools
Git · GitHub · Cursor · VS Code · Docker · PostgreSQL
Learning
Machine Learning
Cloud Computing
Linux
System Design
Projects
Projects I've built.
These are projects I've designed, built, and deployed while learning software engineering. Each one helped me solve a different problem and taught me something new.
Personal Finance Dashboard
Personal spending data is often scattered across accounts, making it hard to see where money actually goes. This dashboard pulls transactions into one place, groups them by category, and uses the OpenAI API to turn the numbers into plain-language insights.
Tech highlights
- Express/Node.js API
- OpenAI-powered insights
- Transaction categorization
- React dashboard UI
Free-tier backend — may take up to a minute to wake up if idle.
Real-Time Energy Dashboard
Energy usage data updates constantly, but it's hard to monitor or make sense of without a live view. This dashboard processes incoming readings in real time and visualizes consumption trends so unusual patterns are easy to spot.
Tech highlights
- FastAPI backend
- Real-time data pipeline
- Recharts visualizations
- Separate frontend/backend deploys
Free-tier backend — may take up to a minute to wake up if idle.
FastAPI Docs Q&A — Hybrid RAG
Technical docs mix exact terms with conceptual explanations, so search alone tends to miss one or the other. AI answers can also cite sources that don't really back up their claims. This system combines dense and keyword search with an independent fact-check on every citation, verified against a hand-written eval.
Tech highlights
- Hybrid dense + BM25 search
- Reciprocal Rank Fusion
- Citation fact-checking
- Evaluated on 18-question eval set
- Streamlit interface
Free-tier app — may show a "waking up" screen for about a minute if idle.
DevProof
GitHub profiles and resumes are easy to skim but hard to verify. DevProof pulls real evidence — commits, file structure, source code — and has an LLM score it against a fixed rubric instead of eyeballing it, for both individual repos and whole engineering teams.
Tech highlights
- GitHub OAuth sign-in
- LLM-graded reports on a fixed rubric
- Resume-vs-GitHub verification
- Org-wide contributor leaderboard
- FastAPI + Postgres backend
Sign in with GitHub to try it — free-tier backend may take a minute to wake up if idle.
Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe — Daily Puzzle
Wanted to combine a genuinely deeper strategy game with a Wordle-style shared daily format, and needed a real AI opponent rather than random moves — so I wrote a minimax engine with alpha-beta pruning and a deterministic, backend-free daily seed.
Tech highlights
- Minimax AI with alpha-beta pruning
- Deterministic daily puzzle (Wordle-style)
- Vitest suite covering engine, AI, and puzzle generator
- Shareable emoji result summary
- No backend — static Vite build
Beyond Software
Beyond software.
The experiences outside programming that have shaped how I learn, solve problems, and approach challenges.
Martial Arts
20202nd Dan Black Belt
World Taekwondo
Years of training taught me discipline, consistency, and the importance of showing up every day, even when progress is slow.
View CertificateEngineering
2022Engineering Fair
STEMpower
Built and presented an engineering project while collaborating with other students and sharing ideas with other teams.
View Certificate