Northeastern University · M.S. Computer Science

Designing for people.
Building with code.

Former product and UX designer transitioning into software engineering, with interests in backend systems, cloud computing, distributed systems, and AI.

I bring a human-centered product perspective to technical problem solving and want to understand—and build—the full product experience from the interface to the backend.

Adalyn Lou portrait

About Me

A product-minded path into engineering, grounded in curiosity about how systems work behind the interface.

I began my career in product and UX design, where I learned to understand users, communicate across disciplines, and turn complex problems into intuitive experiences. My early work in conversation design and AI products made me increasingly curious about what happens behind the interface—how data flows, how services scale, and how the backend makes intelligent experiences possible.

That curiosity led me to pursue an M.S. in Computer Science at Northeastern University. Today I am strengthening my technical foundation through algorithms, distributed systems, cloud computing, backend development, and AI-agent projects while preparing for Summer 2027 software engineering opportunities.

Human-centered foundation5+ years across product, UX, HCI, accessibility, and cross-functional collaboration.
Technical growthJava, Python, JavaScript, Spring Boot, AWS, Docker, Terraform, REST APIs, and AI tooling.
Career directionSoftware engineering roles where product thinking and strong systems fundamentals reinforce each other.

Portfolio

A collection of professional materials, career stories, and work that reflects my transition into software engineering.

Professional Introduction

My elevator pitch introduces my transition from UX/product design into software engineering and the combination of user empathy, product thinking, and technical problem solving that I bring to a team.

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LinkedIn

My professional profile highlights my design experience, current computer science education, technical projects, and transition into software engineering.

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Professional Resume

A software-engineering-focused resume featuring my M.S. in Computer Science, technical projects in distributed systems and AI, and prior product/UX experience.

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Tell Me About Yourself

My interview introduction explains how curiosity about the technology behind AI and digital products led me from design into computer science and software engineering.

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Job Search Strategy Plan

My current job-search plan documents SMART career goals, target companies, skills and strengths, networking priorities, and specific actions for Summer 2027 recruiting.

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Summer 2027 Software Engineering

I am seeking a software engineering internship where I can deepen my backend and systems skills while contributing the product judgment and collaborative perspective developed through my design career.

Read My Why

Why Software Engineering?

The motivation behind my transition from product design into engineering.

I want the ability to build the products I once only designed.

Working in UX and conversation design taught me how much thoughtful technology can shape a person’s experience. It also made me curious about the systems underneath those experiences. I chose computer science because I wanted to move beyond defining how a product should work and gain the technical ability to build it. My goal is to become an engineer who understands both people and systems—someone who can reason about the user, the product, and the backend together.

Accomplishment Stories

Examples of technical problem solving, product thinking, and cross-functional collaboration.

Distributed Systems

Building a replicated key-value store

Situation / Task: I needed to design a system that could demonstrate real tradeoffs among consistency, availability, and latency.

Action: I implemented leader-follower and Dynamo-style quorum replication in Java/Spring Boot, deployed a 10-node AWS EC2 cluster with Terraform, and built a multithreaded load-testing harness.

Result: The project quantified p50/p95/p99 behavior across quorum configurations and validated correctness with automated tests.

AI Engineering

Designing a grounded interview-prep agent

Situation / Task: I wanted an AI interview-prep product that relied on grounded source material rather than generic model knowledge.

Action: I built a fan-out/fan-in RAG pipeline and a three-role interviewer, coach, and grader agent chain, including fault-tolerant parsing and retry behavior.

Result: The system created structured, resume-specific practice flows while making the AI pipeline more robust to malformed outputs.

Product + Collaboration

Connecting user needs with implementation

Situation / Task: In product-design roles, I often worked across engineering, product, content, and design on complex customer experiences.

Action: I translated user needs into flows, prototypes, design systems, and implementation-ready specifications while partnering closely with technical teams.

Result: Those experiences built the communication and product judgment I now bring into software engineering projects.