ASAysha Shafiq
~/PROJECTS

A closer look
at the projects.

Each project follows the constraint, the tradeoff, and what I learned once the system met reality.

NETWORK SYSTEMS · PROTOCOL ENGINEERING

Userspace TCP/IP Stack

I built a dependency-free TCP/IP stack in Rust, then drove it through Linux TUN/TAP to prove Ethernet, ARP, IPv4, ICMP, UDP, and TCP interoperability end to end.

Impact7.6 Gbps read · 4.6 Gbps write through Linux TAP · 1,024 concurrent TCP connections · 28 protocol + Linux interoperability checks

Creator · Systems EngineerRust · Ethernet II · ARP · IPv4 · ICMP · UDP · TCP · Linux TUN/TAP · DockerRead the story  ↗
DATABASE INTERNALS · DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

TinyKV Distributed Store

I built a durable C++ key-value store that combines an LSM engine, key-value separation, crash recovery, and Raft consensus behind a small API.

Impact33,800 replicated writes/s · 8 clients · 12× faster writes for 16 KiB values · 65× throughput gain from group commit

Creator · Database EngineerC++20 · LSM tree · WiscKey · Raft · WAL · SSTables · Bloom filters · POSIX I/O · CMakeRead the story  ↗
LLM SYSTEMS · MODEL ALIGNMENT

SmolLM Alignment Lab

I implemented a 135M-parameter decoder-only language model in PyTorch, matched the reference model, then added optimized decoding, LoRA fine-tuning, and DPO preference alignment.

Impact100% top-1 reference agreement · 8.50× faster decode throughput · 0.73% trainable parameters with LoRA

Creator · ML EngineerPython · PyTorch · SmolLM-135M · LoRA · DPO · SDPA · GQA · KV cache · pytestRead the story  ↗
FULL-STACK MARKETPLACE · REAL-TIME COMMERCE

Second Time Around

I built a multi-vendor marketplace for buying, auctioning, and donating pre-loved items, with seller dashboards and real-time commerce updates.

ImpactDirect sales + auctions + donations · Real-time bid and order notifications · Seller analytics and ratings

Full-Stack EngineerReact · TypeScript · Redux · Express · MongoDB · Socket.IO · Docker · NginxRead the story  ↗
DEVELOPER TOOLING · TERMINAL UI

Gemini CLI History Search

I rebuilt Ctrl+R reverse search in Google's Gemini CLI as a reusable hook, so shell history and prompt history share one incremental search.

ImpactUsed by 1M+ developers · 2 PRs merged upstream · Debounced, cached incremental search

Open-Source ContributorTypeScript · React · Ink · Node.js · snapshot testingRead the story  ↗
GPU DATABASE INTERNALS

NVIDIA Sirius DB

I added the libcudf string aggregation Sirius was missing, then fixed the GPU correctness bugs the benchmark suite exposed.

Impact1K+ GitHub stars · 2 PRs merged into the query engine · Full industry benchmark suite unblocked

Open-Source ContributorC++ · CUDA · cuDF · GPU databaseRead the story  ↗
PRODUCTION AI INFRASTRUCTURE · SECURITY

CS 220 AI Learning Infrastructure

CS 220 serves more than 900 students, and deadline days turn small inefficiencies into operational problems. I led a 12-person team and rebuilt the tutor, grader, and observability around the moments the course was under the most pressure.

Impact900+ students on autoscaling Azure infrastructure · 80% lower LLM inference cost · 12× faster grading · 12K+ submissions

Head Teaching Assistant · Engineering LeadPython · FastAPI · MySQL · Redis · Docker · Azure Container Apps · Traefik · Gradescope · OpenTelemetry · Prometheus · Metabase · GitLab CI/CDRead the story  ↗
SHIPPED HEALTH AI · GATES FOUNDATION

Awaaz-e-Sehat

Paper charting was consuming time an understaffed maternity hospital did not have. I shipped the React Native app end to end, frontend and backend, working with doctors to design a voice-first workflow for noisy, code-switched Urdu and Punjabi speech, then carried it through a seven-month deployment.

Impact7-month live hospital deployment · Speech error rate · 46% → 13% · Structured records · 96% field accuracy

Software EngineerReact Native · Python · PyTorch · Whisper · LoRA · Bun/Hono · FastAPI · Kafka · PostgreSQL · Cloud Run · PulumiRead the story  ↗
AI SECURITY RESEARCH · NSF-FUNDED

AI-Generated Code Reliability

I built a harness for AI coding agents to reimplement 10 Linux utilities, then built the compiler and fuzzing systems needed to measure whether the results were actually reliable. A Go-based tool traces C source into the linked binary, while the legacy fuzzer I rebuilt runs concurrently, resumes from checkpoints, and makes testing faster.

Impact10 utilities · 98% of upstream tests passed · Go-based tool · Go fuzzer · concurrent + resumable

Research Assistant · AI ResearcherClaude Code · C · Go · Linux · Clang/LLVM · DWARF · AFL++ · DockerRead the story  ↗
OPEN-SOURCE LIBRARY · CONCURRENCY

Textish

I liked how Charmbracelet’s Wish could turn a Go terminal app into an SSH experience, but I could not find that bridge for Python’s Textual ecosystem. So I created Textish and remain its active maintainer: import a Textual app, call serve, and let anyone open it with an ordinary SSH client.

Impact3,000+ PyPI downloads · One shared Python interpreter · Real SSH + PTY load harness

Maintainer · CreatorPython · AsyncSSH · asyncio · Textual · pytest · mypy · GitHub ActionsRead the story  ↗
OPERATING SYSTEMS · SCHEDULING

Linux Scheduler Performance: EEVDF vs. CFS

I benchmarked EEVDF against CFS on 40-CPU bare metal and used eBPF traces to explain why neither scheduler wins every workload.

ImpactEEVDF · 4–6× lower p99.9 wakeup latency · EEVDF · up to 65% higher Redis GET throughput · CFS · 13–59% lower HTTP latency

Performance Researcher · DeveloperC · Linux · eBPF · BPFtrace · perf · CloudLab · schbench · stress-ng · Redis · wrk · mpv · QEMURead the story  ↗
VIDEO SYSTEMS · GENERATIVE AI

VIDER Generative Video Reconstruction

I led a model-agnostic streaming framework that sends sparse keyframes and reconstructs the missing video with GPU compute near the viewer.

Impact97.69% avg. bandwidth savings · 0.83 avg. ViSiL similarity · 28-video evaluation

Team LeadPython · PyTorch · CUDA · FFmpeg · WAN 2.1Read the story  ↗
HUMAN-CENTERED AI · FIELD STUDY

WhatsApp Menstrual Health AI

I built and field-evaluated a WhatsApp health assistant that grounds its answers in expert-curated menstrual-health content instead of model memory.

ImpactACM CHI 2026 publication · 2-week field deployment · Expert-grounded RAG

Researcher · EngineerPython · LLM · RAG · WhatsApp API · AWS EC2 · DynamoDBRead the story  ↗
DATA SYSTEMS · ML

Food Crisis Forecasting with Urdu News

I led a Pakistan-focused food-crisis forecasting pipeline built on Urdu news and district weather data, reproducing and extending a Science Advances study.

Impact94% IPC prediction accuracy · 90× faster RF training · 162,653 Urdu articles

Team LeadPython · Polars · cuDF · cuML · Random Forest · OLS/Lasso · LogisticAT · GPT-4o · Claude 3.7 SonnetRead the story  ↗
EDUCATION AI · CHATOPS

Slack AI Course Bot

I built an asynchronous Python Slack assistant for CS 382, LUMS's network-centric computing course, grounding Gemini in the course's own materials so students get help without leaving Slack.

Impact4 Slack commands · Assignment-grounded Gemini · Thread-aware responses

Creator · DeveloperPython · Slack Bolt · Google Gemini · asyncio · uvRead the story  ↗
BROWSER EXTENSION

BookSwitch Browser Extension

I built and published a cross-browser TypeScript extension that puts the first nine sites on your bookmarks bar one keystroke away.

ImpactPublished on Chrome + Firefox stores · One codebase · two browsers · Alt+1–9 bookmark jumps

Creator · DeveloperTypeScript · Svelte 5 · WXT · BunRead the story  ↗
PRODUCTION ENGINEERING · SELECTED 1 OF 100

Meta Production Engineering Fellowship

Selected as 1 of 100 fellows for Meta's 12-week production-engineering curriculum with Major League Hacking, where I learned directly from Meta engineers and applied those lessons to real services. I kept a Flask/MySQL service stable on a memory-constrained VPS, shipped a second Go/SQLite service on its own host, and automated the release and monitoring path around both.

Impact1 of 100 fellows selected · 80% faster incident detection · Deploys cut from hours to minutes

Production Engineering FellowLinux · Docker · NGINX · Go · SQLite · DigitalOcean · AWS EC2 · Bash · GitHub Actions · Prometheus · GrafanaRead the story  ↗