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Melvin Teo

Software Engineer

Check out my projects and experiences below!

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About Me

I'm a Software Engineer passionate about crafting productivity and organizational tools that simplify daily workflows. Recently, I've developed a growing interest in natural language processing and computational linguistics, exploring how language technologies can enhance user experience and understanding.

Through internships, hackathons, and personal projects, I've gained hands-on experience in Full-Stack Development while collaborating with designers, product managers, and engineers.

Outside of programming, you'll find me looking for my next travel destination, lifting weights at the gym, or playing volleyball with friends!

Technical Skills

Languages

TypeScript
TypeScript
JavaScript
JavaScript
Python
Python
Java
Java
Go
Go
C
C
C++
C++
SQL
SQL
HTML5
HTML5
CSS3
CSS3

Frameworks

React
React
Express
Express
Node.js
Node.js
FastAPI
FastAPI
Firebase
Firebase
Supabase
Supabase
MongoDB
MongoDB

Developer Tools

AWS
AWS
Git
Git
Docker
Docker
GitHub Actions
GitHub Actions

Libraries

NumPy
NumPy
Matplotlib
Matplotlib

Experience

Software Engineer

Amazon

Jun. 2026 - Present

    Spoddr

    Co-Founder

    Sept. 2025 - Apr. 2026

    • Co-founded a social fitness platform as a team of 6 (2 Software Engineers, 1 Hardware Engineer, 1 Product Manager, 1 Finance, 1 Marketing) from initial customer discovery and validation to full-stack MVP launch
    • Architected the core mobile-web client (Expo), SQL database schemas, FastAPI business logic, and BLE/Arduino hardware integration to automate rep/weight tracking and eliminate manual logging friction
    • Engineered the AWS cloud infrastructure (ECS, RDS, Cognito) and observability stack (CloudWatch)

    Undergraduate Student Researcher

    The University of British Columbia

    Sept. 2025 - Apr. 2026

    • Designed and trained a Sparse Autoencoder (SAE) to map and disentangle latent representations of a 70M-parameter transformer model, achieving an 93%+ reconstruction score (R²) on a 600K-token dataset
    • Built an ETL pipeline to aggregate, clean, and resolve conflicting schemas across disparate NLP data sources (Universal Dependencies, WordNet, VerbNet, Wiktionary) into a unified sparse matrix
    • Presented research abstract at both the Language Sciences and CS Student Research Conferences

    Software Engineer Intern

    Amazon Payments

    May - Aug. 2025

    • Engineered a CloudWatch MCP Server in TypeScript for internal teams to automate workflows with AI agents
    • Accelerated integration test generation by 90% by leveraging CloudWatch service logs, AI agents, and MCP servers
    • Automated CloudWatch metrics comparison with a hybrid shell script and agentic AI workflow with MCP servers

    Co-President, Software Development Director, Logistics Director

    nwPlus - Organizers of the largest hackathons in Western Canada (HackCamp, nwHacks, cmd-f)

    May 2022 - May 2025

    • Led 55-member team to organize 3 major hackathons, welcoming 1,150+ participants and 79 sponsors
    • Managed 6-engineer team shipping 8 projects supporting 1,700+ users
    • Spearheaded the largest beginner-friendly hackathon in Western Canada, attracting 100+ first-time hackers

    Software Engineer Intern

    Amazon Prime - Customer Engagement

    May - Aug. 2024

    • Reduced onboarding time for PMs by 98% by building a 100% self-service customer state management web app
    • Implemented dynamic React forms using JSON Form Schema to populate content from DynamoDB schema
    • Refactored Java API controllers to adopt new DynamoDB schema and support JSON serialization

    Software Engineer Intern

    Amazon Prime - Customer Retention

    May - Aug. 2023

    • Reduced Prime membership cancellation processing time by 33% by optimizing AWS service configurations
    • Refactored CloudWatch dashboards and alarms in TypeScript to improve observability of cancellation traffic
    • Simplified QA work in A/B testing by building a browser cookie override tool in Java, saving 15 mins/test

    Amazon Future Engineer Intern

    Amazon Prime - Customer Retention

    May - Aug. 2022

    • Retained 10,000+ annual Prime customers by developing targeted retention emails and personalized widgets
    • Cut costs by 43% and development time by 49% by automating feature deployment with Bash shell scripts
    • Performed manual QA testing and data validation using customer mocking tools

    Personal Projects

    Flashlearn

    Flashlearn

    AI-powered language learning app with smart flashcards, translations, and personalized example sentences.

    Next.jsNeonDBTailwind CSSTypeScriptFastAPI
    Fitflow

    Fitflow

    Full-stack fitness tracker with workout logging, progress visualization, and performance analytics.

    Next.jsSupabaseTailwind CSSTypeScript
    Holistic Health Tracker

    Holistic Health Tracker

    AI-powered health app tracking pharmaceutical and lifestyle treatments for complete care management.

    Next.jsSupabaseFirebaseTypeScriptOpenAI
    AI News Summarizer

    AI News Summarizer

    Smart news tool using NLP models to condense articles and analyze sentiment for quick insights.

    FastAPIHugging FaceNLTKTypeScriptNext.js
    HackerHare

    HackerHare

    Chrome extension that intentionally slows form filling to promote mindful data entry habits.

    Chrome Manifest V3HTMLCSS
    🏆 expawdition

    🏆 expawdition

    AI trip planner creating personalized itineraries. 1st place winner at SFU Stormhacks 2023.

    ReactExpressFirebaseNode.jsNext.js
    liftz

    liftz

    Comprehensive workout tracker with exercise library, history calendar, and plate calculator.

    ReactExpressMongoDBNode.jsNext.js
    phreview

    phreview

    Chrome extension enhancing language learning through customizable active recall quizzes.

    Manifest V3HTMLCSSJS