Architecting Resilient
Distributed Systems & Intelligent AI Agents.
I'm Aaron Wu. I build backend systems that hold up under load, develop the AI agents that run on top of them, and turn ML algorithms into production code.
About Me
I'm a backend engineer focused on distributed systems and AI infrastructure. As an international student, adapting quickly and working within constraints is my baseline.
A steady diet of system design literature shapes how I work: get the underlying engineering right, and design for what happens when things fail.
Technical Skills
Backend & Systems Languages
Data & Message Infrastructure
AI & Search Engine Stack
Cloud, DevOps & Tooling
Professional Experience
Bring me in for resilient backend systems and enterprise AI infrastructure.
Platform Engineer Intern
Worked on an on-prem Kubernetes platform: reworked how load was distributed across services, set up request-metric autoscaling with Envoy Gateway and KEDA, and shaped the direction of the team's observability stack.
AI Solutions Engineering Intern
Evaluated a partner AI vendor from the buyer's side and turned their assurances into written governance commitments. Ran internal workshops on putting AI into everyday deployment and marketing work.
Systems Infrastructure Engineer Intern
Rebuilt a codebase-grounded coding agent with GraphRAG and LangChain, retrieving over a multi-language code graph in Neo4j. Shipped it to the org-wide agent platform.
Research Assistant (Federated Learning)
Ran empirical experiments on a randomized federated hyperparameter-learning algorithm, testing how it behaves on sparse, non-IID data.
Technical Lead
Led a student team building a real-time voice news assistant, and built the serverless RAG pipeline behind it on AWS Lambda and Pinecone.
R&D Intern
Built an ECG annotation platform end to end on AWS, so physicians could label diagnoses themselves instead of passing files around on-site.
Side Projects
A showcase of my systems engineering work—tackling high-concurrency bottlenecks, distributed rate limiting, and peak-load shaving.
Distributed AI API Gateway
Resilient AI Reverse Proxy & Rate Limiter
Engineered a high-performance distributed AI Gateway in Go to route and protect LLM endpoints. Features a robust 3-layer rate limiting defense (Global, IP, Identity) using Redis Lua scripts for atomic operations, and supports highly resilient Fail-Open/Fail-Closed failure modes.
FlashForm
High-Performance Seckill Backend
Architected a high-concurrency Seckill (flash sale) backend handling 1,000+ QPS with a 0.00% error rate. Utilizes Redis DECR for atomic quota enforcement to guarantee zero overselling, and RabbitMQ for asynchronous peak shaving to protect downstream PostgreSQL databases from thundering herds.
Real-Time Data Streaming Pipeline
Containerized Big Data Orchestration
Built an end-to-end real-time data streaming pipeline orchestrating containerized services via Docker Compose. Leverages Apache Kafka for robust message brokering, Apache Airflow for DAG orchestration, Apache Spark for distributed data processing, and Cassandra for NoSQL storage.
RiskFreeRX
AI-Powered Medication Risk Analysis
Developed an award-winning medication risk validation system (HackRU Winner). Extracted FDA data using Google Cloud Vision and LLM-powered NLP, delivering a secure API via AWS Lambda and Supabase.
Featured Articles
Writing about backend architecture, system design, career journeys, and observations on the tech industry.
AI Governance in Practice: What to Build and How to Answer the Hard Questions
Your AI feature is flawless, but the enterprise client demanded a 'Risk Assessment'? Here is how to overcome 'Black Box' anxiety and win their trust with a practical three-layer governance framework.
Beyond the Code: Stumbling, Learning, and Hacking the US Tech Market
A journey of leaving a top-20 CS program, navigating the US job market as an international student, and building a 'Survival Algorithm' to land infrastructure roles at AMD and Apple from 770 applications.
Ditch Empty Impact Metrics: The "Anti-Framework" Interview Lessons from AMD and Microsoft
After dozens of interviews and deep conversations with Big Tech managers, I realized a counter-intuitive truth: senior interviewers are immune to vague "business impact" metrics. What truly sets you apart is "unfiltered honesty" and "relentless technical curiosity."
What I'm Reading
A curated list of books that have fundamentally shaped my approach to systems architecture, peak productivity, and the psychology of human behavior.
Designing Data-Intensive Applications — Martin Kleppmann
The "holy grail" of distributed systems. It taught me how to reason about reliability, scalability, and maintainability in complex data-driven architectures.
System Design Interview: An Insider’s Guide — Alex Xu
A masterclass in breaking down massive, ambiguous problems into scalable, modular components. It shaped my framework for communicating complex technical decisions.
Getting Things Done (GTD) — David Allen
The operating system for my life. It taught me how to offload cognitive load into a trusted system, allowing my brain to focus on creative problem-solving rather than remembering tasks.
Make Time — Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky
The practical guide to daily focus. It taught me how to intentionally design my day around a single "Highlight" and protect my energy from the thundering herd of distractions.
The Psychology of Money — Morgan Housel
A profound exploration of behavior and ego. It taught me that technical problems are often human problems, and that long-term success comes from managing one's own psychology.
Owning Your Own Shadow — Robert A. Johnson
A deep dive into Jungian psychology. It taught me the importance of radical self-honesty and integrating all aspects of the self to become a more grounded and effective leader.
Let's Connect
I'm currently looking for new opportunities. Whether you have a question or just want to say hi, my inbox is always open!