Trailhead 40.3337° N, 74.6007° W · Plainsboro, NJ

Vishal
Kanala

Computer Science and Data Science student at Rutgers. I work on backend systems and infrastructure, most recently at Capital One.

See the trail log ↓ GitHub ↗ LinkedIn ↗

Field notes

A little about me

Hi, I'm Vishal. I study Computer Science and Data Science at Rutgers, and I'm happiest working on the parts of software most people never see: the queues, schedulers, and pipelines that quietly keep everything else running.

I've spent the last two summers at Capital One, first in McLean and then in New York, building backend systems for data and AI. It's where I figured out that I love building the things other engineers end up depending on.

I also really like teaching. I TA Data Structures at Rutgers and led a section for Stanford's Code in Place, and watching an idea finally click for someone never gets old.

Away from a keyboard, I'm usually at the gym, out on a run, playing volleyball, or losing one too many blitz games (I'm working on it). I'm also an Eagle Scout, which probably explains why this site looks like a trail map.

Based in: Princeton, New Jersey
Studying: CS + Data Science, Rutgers '27
Into: Low-latency systems, distributed systems, infrastructure design
Off the clock: Lifting, running, volleyball, chess, motorcycles
Say hi: Pull up a log ↓

Trail log

Where I've worked

Capital One

Software Engineer Intern

Jun – Aug 2026New York, NY · 40.71° N, 74.01° W

1M+LLM requests a day

−35%queue wait time

+60%GPU utilization

Cut LLM inference queue wait by 35% across 1M+ daily requests by architecting a distributed scheduling service with priority-based queuing.
Built a multi-threaded orchestration layer in Fargate that processes inference requests concurrently, raising GPU utilization by 60%.
Shipped an OpenTelemetry and New Relic dashboard used by 750+ analysts and engineers to monitor GPU efficiency, reducing incident diagnosis time by 15%.

AWS FargateKafkaDynamoDBOpenTelemetryNew Relic

Capital One

Software Engineer Intern

Jun – Aug 2025McLean, VA · 38.93° N, 77.18° W

$1M+saved per year

50M+documents scanned

−90%false positives

Built a Bloom filter–based pipeline that finds unprotected customer data (account numbers, SSNs, card numbers) across 50M+ documents, with 15% higher throughput and 10% lower processing time.
Replaced a Redis cache, cutting annual AWS costs by over $1M with zero false negatives and 90% fewer false positives.
Wrote the JUnit suite and wired the service into Jenkins CI/CD for automated deployments.

ScalaSparkAWS S3GlueKMSJenkins

Ipser Lab

Full-Stack Software Engineer Intern

May – Dec 2024Remote

+20%user engagement

+15%dev efficiency

Designed and deployed a startup's web app on Java, PostgreSQL, and REST APIs, lifting user engagement by 20% (measured through SQL retention and session analysis).
Refactored React components and routing into a modular, responsive front end, improving development efficiency by 15%.

JavaPostgreSQLReactREST

Expeditions

Things I've built

GuardPost

Jul 2026

An AI guardrail platform that intercepts LLM prompts before sensitive data leaks out. A two-stage pipeline pairs regex matching with Claude Haiku classification to catch PII, credentials, financial records, and proprietary data.

Runs as a Manifest V3 Chrome extension and a PTY-based CLI, with an admin dashboard for custom rules, industry profiles, and audit logs.

Python · FastAPI · React · Node.js · Anthropic API

LearnTrack

Apr 2025

An AI study planner used by 150+ students. Gemini builds adaptive study plans from your goals, deadlines, and workload, and a built-in Pomodoro timer keeps you on pace.

A Flask backend handles async plan generation; Supabase keeps profiles and history in sync across devices.

Flutter · Flask · Gemini · MySQL · Supabase

Live site ↗GitHub ↗

DinInRU

Jan 2025

A restaurant review platform for Rutgers students with 100+ users. REST APIs for reviews, JWT auth, and a Google Maps view of 50 restaurants around campus.

MongoDB · Express · React · Node · Tailwind

Live site ↗GitHub ↗

Open Tab in Profile

Aug 2026

A Chrome extension that sends the current tab, or a whole shift-selected group of tabs, to another Chrome profile or an Incognito window with one click or a right-click.

Chrome won't let extensions launch other profiles, so a small local helper reads your profile list (avatars included) and opens the tabs there. It never touches the network.

JavaScript · Chrome Extensions (MV3) · Python · Native Messaging

GitHub ↗Chrome Web Store ↗

Merit badges

Leadership & involvement

96%

pass rate · 120+ students

Rutgers Computer Science

TA & tutor, Data Structures · Sep 2024 – now

I lead three weekly recitations, have tutored 100+ students one-on-one, and have answered questions for 1,000+ more on Piazza.

150+

countries · 20,000+ students

Stanford Code in Place

Section Leader · Apr 2025 – Jun 2026

I taught a weekly section of 15 students in Stanford's global intro-to-Python program, covering fundamentals and problem-solving strategies.

5,000+

students represented

Rutgers University Student Assembly

SAS Class Representative · Oct 2023 – now

Elected to represent my class in the School of Arts and Sciences. I helped pass a 24-hour library bill through student votes, and Rutgers Libraries is now putting it in place.

Base camp

Rutgers University
Honors College

B.S. Computer Science & Data Science
Minor in Quantitative Economics

Class of: December 2027
GPA: 3.9 / 4.0
Courses: Distributed Systems, Operating Systems, Machine Learning, Intro to AI, Algorithms, Linear Algebra
Honors: CS Departmental Honors, Rutgers Excellence Award, Dean's List every semester

Eagle Scout · Boy Scouts of America

Be prepared.

Scouting is where I learned to plan ahead, lead a team, and leave every campsite better than I found it. Earning Eagle, the highest rank in Scouting, meant years of merit badges, campouts, and a service project I led from start to finish.

See the Scouting album →

Pack list