~ $ whoami

Mustafa Alhelawe.

> Full-stack Software Engineer

I work across the stack on financial software, and use my own projects to experiment with different technologies and ideas.

$ view projectstry the terminal →

About

01.Aboutcat about.md

I'm a full-stack engineer based in New Jersey. At Bank of America Merrill Lynch, I work on institutional trading systems, with responsibility across backend services, user workflows, and production releases.

I like to tinker and experiment with different technologies, from web and mobile development to games and machine learning. My own projects give me room to try ideas, learn unfamiliar tools, and work through problems outside my day job.

// education
Rutgers University–New Brunswick
B.S. Electrical and Computer Engineering · Class of 2022

~/skills/
  • ▸ Languages
    ScalaJavaScriptTypeScriptPythonC#JavaBashSQL
  • ▸ Backend
    Node.jsREST APIsSupabase Auth
  • ▸ Frontend
    ReactNext.js
  • ▸ Mobile
    React NativeExpo
  • ▸ Database
    PostgreSQLSupabaseAMPS
  • ▸ AI / ML
    PyTorchScikit-learnReinforcement LearningLLMs
  • ▸ Tools
    GitDockerLinuxJenkinsGradleCypressSplunkUnityClaudeCodex

Experience

02.Experiencegit log --oneline

My recent work. More detail in my full résumé →

  1. Software Engineer @ Bank of America Merrill Lynch

    Jan 2023 – Present · Jersey City, NJ

    I'm one of two U.S.-based engineers responsible for a global institutional trading platform that processes millions of trades a day. I own full-stack workflows across the trade lifecycle, from bringing in orders to matching, booking, and confirming trades, and carry that work through production releases.

    scope
    Millions of trades/day10+ trade flows15+ production servers300+ client configurations
    stack
    ScalaJavaScriptReactAMPSJenkinsSplunk

  2. Cybersecurity Analyst Intern @ Capri Holdings Limited

    Jun 2022 – Aug 2022 · East Rutherford, NJ

    I investigated security alerts, reviewed suspicious emails, and assessed how vendors protected confidential information. One investigation involved unauthorized traffic to banned IP addresses. I used LogRhythm for alert triage and CrowdStrike's sandbox to examine suspicious emails.

    scope
    Alert triageVendor risk reviewsEmail investigations
    stack
    LogRhythmCrowdStrike

Projects

03.Projectsls ~/projects

Web + mobile project

Splits

Keeping track of the bills we share.

I built Splits to handle the bills that come around every month: recognize recurring expenses, apply agreed split rules, and keep track of who owes what. The Next.js web app and React Native/Expo mobile app share the same calculation logic and backend.

  • Recurring bills
  • Shared calculations
  • Web & mobile
Try the demo
Next.jsTypeScriptReact NativeExpo+3

Echobound

A multiplayer game with a voice-controlled companion

Dec 2025 – Present

Echobound is an extraction roguelike I'm building with a small team. The idea is to let players speak to a companion during a run. The interesting part is turning a spoken request into an ability the game can execute and share with the other players.

  • Spoken requests are interpreted against the companion's available abilities before being dispatched as game commands.
  • Companion actions run through server-authoritative networking so their execution can be coordinated across players.
  • Steamworks supplies lobbies and player identity for multiplayer sessions.
Unity 6C#FishNetSteamworkswhisper.unity+2

Finance App

Exploring questions about personal spending

Feb 2026 – Present

I started this prototype to ask questions like 'how much did I spend on coffee in March?' It combines transaction syncing with experiments in translating those questions into data queries. Some of the ideas behind Splits started here.

Next.jsTypeScriptSupabasePostgreSQLPlaid

Reinforcement Learning Simulations

Learning through observations and rewards

Jan 2025 – Present

I started with agents learning to find food, then added obstacles and visual observations. I built the simulations in Unity and training pipelines in Python, changing what agents could observe and how they were rewarded as the tasks became more complex.

  • Progressed from food-seeking without vision to navigation around static and moving obstacles, then experiments with visual observations.
  • Reworked observations and reward functions through successive training runs, using C# environment logic and Python training pipelines.
  • Extended the simulations to a six-axis robotic arm to explore a more complex set of observations, actions, and rewards.
UnityC#PythonML-AgentsPPO+1
04.Terminal// another way to look around

Explore the site through 20 built-in commands. Type help to start, use ↑/↓ to recall history, and Tab to autocomplete.

try:

Contact

05.Contactecho $REACH_OUT

// open to new roles and project conversations

Get in touch.

Happy to talk about my work, a role you're hiring for, or a project you have in mind. Send me an email.

mustafa.alhelawe@gmail.com