Available for new opportunities · Montreal, QC

Backend Engineer.
AI Builder.

Backend engineer specializing in scalable systems and AI tooling. MS Computer Science, McGill University.

View My Work → Connect on LinkedIn
Suraj Van Verma
80% doc lookup time cut at Plumfind
60% API latency reduced under load
McGill MS Computer Science
2019 writing code since

Selected Work

Things I've Built

Personal projects built with production-grade thinking. Everything links to source code.

⚡ ↗

Real-Time Log Processing System

Distributed event pipeline designed for high-throughput log ingestion and processing with sub-10ms latency at scale.

Designed for 500k+ events/sec · sub-10ms target latency
Python Kafka Redis Docker
🔍 ↗

AI Image Detector

Privacy-first tool to detect AI-generated vs real images using C2PA/JUMBF content provenance standards and EXIF/XMP metadata. Runs entirely in-browser — zero data retention.

Client-only · C2PA/JUMBF standards · No server
JavaScript C2PA EXIF/XMP Privacy
🔗 ↗

urltrim

Personal URL shortener with custom aliases, click analytics, rate limiting, and async job processing via message queue.

p95 latency ~22ms at ~300 req/s
Python FastAPI PostgreSQL Redis RabbitMQ
🤖 ↗

WhatsApp Voice-First AI Assistant

AI service with a RAG pipeline using FAISS for knowledge retrieval. Processes documents asynchronously and routes queries through GPT-4 for accurate, grounded responses.

RAG · FAISS · Async document processing
Python FastAPI GPT-4 FAISS Twilio
📄 ↗

resumo

AI-powered tool that tailors LaTeX resumes to specific job descriptions. Supports local models via Ollama and cloud via Claude API.

Ollama · Claude API · LaTeX parsing · JD matching
Python Ollama Claude API LaTeX
🚇 ↗

MetroPass

Privacy-centric transit payment app with contactless payments, RSA encryption, OAuth, and full GDPR/PIPEDA compliance.

RSA encryption · OAuth · GDPR/PIPEDA compliant
React Native Flask Firebase RSA
View all projects →

About

Who I Am

I'm a backend engineer and AI builder with a Master's in Computer Science from McGill University. My work lives at the intersection of distributed systems, AI tooling, and building things people actually use.

I care about systems that scale, products that ship, and code that's worth reading. When I pick up a problem, I think about it end-to-end — from architecture to deployment to what happens when it breaks at 2am.

I'm the founder of GradYard, a mentoring community I built to help students navigate grad school applications and research. I've also done research at McGill's Software Engineering Lab (SEL).

Outside of code, I make cinematic content, read obsessively about technology and startups, and think about how AI changes what it means to build software.

Let's talk → suraj.verma@mail.mcgill.ca
Currently
Open to founding engineer roles at early-stage startups
Education
MS Computer Science, McGill University
BTech CS Engineering, VelTech University
Location
Montréal, QC — open to remote
Founder
GradYard — mentoring community for grad school aspirants
Find me everywhere
@bythebug on GitHub & Instagram

Stack

What I Work With

Tools and technologies I reach for when building backend systems and AI-powered products.

Languages
Python TypeScript JavaScript Java SQL · C++
Frameworks
FastAPI React Django Spring Boot Flask · Node.js
Databases
PostgreSQL Redis MongoDB FAISS (Vector DB)
Async & Infra
RabbitMQ · SQS Apache Kafka arq Event-Driven Architecture
AI / ML
LLMs (GPT-4, Claude) RAG · FAISS Ollama (local models) Fine-Tuning · GenAI
Cloud & DevOps
AWS (Lambda, S3, SQS) CloudWatch Docker · Kubernetes CI/CD

Experience

Where I've Been

Jun 2025 — Mar 2026
Software Developer
Plumfind · Montreal, QC
Built backend microservices for a production GenAI platform automating knowledge worker workflows. FastAPI REST APIs and async data pipelines cut manual document lookup time by 80%. Redis caching + CloudWatch monitoring reduced average API latency by 60% under load. Async ingestion via AWS Lambda, S3, and SQS processed thousands of documents for downstream LLM services.
Aug 2023 — May 2025
Software Developer · Graduate Thesis
McGill University · Montreal, QC
Designed Spring Boot microservices for a distributed collaboration platform — Docker/Kubernetes deployment, JWT/OAuth2/RBAC auth. Real-time sync via WebSockets and CRDT conflict resolution achieved sub-150ms update latency. gRPC + Redis caching cut inter-service response time by 35% in load tests.
2023 — Present
Founder
GradYard
Built a mentoring community for students navigating graduate school applications and academic research.

Contact

Let's build something.

I'm open to founding engineer roles, early-stage startup conversations, interesting side projects, and just good technical discussions.

Email Me LinkedIn GitHub