~ $ whoami

Mustafa Alhelawe.

> Software Engineer — building distributed backend systems.

Currently at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, owning services in a trade-confirmation platform that processes millions of daily institutional transactions. On the side, I prototype AI-driven finance tools and reinforcement-learning agents.

$ view projectstry the terminal →

About

01.Aboutcat about.md

I'm a software engineer based in New Jersey. I currently build backend services on the trade-confirmation and allocation platform at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where my code handles millions of daily transactions across high-value institutional trades.

I gravitate toward distributed systems — anything that has to be fast, correct, and survive failure. Lately I've been spending evenings on personal projects: a Plaid-backed personal-finance app with shared-bill tracking, and a reinforcement-learning sandbox where I train PPO agents in custom Unity environments.

Outside the editor, I'm a Rutgers ECE grad who genuinely enjoys figuring out how things work — whether that's a trading protocol, a reward function, or a new framework I haven't tried yet.

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

~/skills/
  • ▸ Languages
    ScalaTypeScriptJavaScriptPythonC#JavaC/C++Bash
  • ▸ Backend
    Distributed SystemsMicroservicesREST APIsJSONCI/CD
  • ▸ Frontend
    ReactNext.jsNode.js
  • ▸ Database
    PostgreSQLSupabaseSQL
  • ▸ AI / ML
    PyTorchScikit-learnReinforcement LearningLLMs
  • ▸ Tools
    GitCursorUnityCypressGradleJenkinsLinuxSplunk

Experience

02.Experiencegit log --oneline

  1. Software Engineer @ Bank of America Merrill Lynch

    Jan 2023 — Present · Jersey City, NJ

    • Own backend services within a distributed trade confirmation and allocation system processing millions of daily transactions across high-value institutional trades.
    • Built and maintained allocation workflows supporting 10+ distinct trade flows — matching, booking, confirmation, amendment, and cancellation across the full trade lifecycle.
    • Built services to ingest and link orders from upstream systems including FIX-based messaging and file-based workflows, enabling real-time trade matching and confirmation.
    • Led migration of 300+ client configurations to a new JSON schema in AMPS SOW, improving query performance and reducing ongoing manual support.
    • Replaced biweekly release-dependent YAML/Ansible onboarding flows with a self-service platform, letting operations onboard clients independently — no engineering bottleneck.
    • Designed approval and diff-review workflows for configuration changes, raising reliability and cutting production risk.
    • Enhanced search and filtering for the operations UI used to navigate high-volume datasets.
    • Led coordination of global teams to ensure zero-downtime rollout of next-generation architecture across 15+ production servers.

  2. Cybersecurity Analyst Intern @ Capri Holdings Limited

    Jun 2022 — Aug 2022 · East Rutherford, NJ

    • Performed vendor risk assessments on corporate partners; reviewed security policies to ensure best practices were in place when confidential information was at risk.
    • Used SIEM platforms (LogRhythm) to assist Level 2 & 3 security event investigations — including detecting unauthorized communications with banned IPs in shut-down locations.
    • Reviewed inbound suspicious emails for indicators of compromise using CrowdStrike's sandbox tooling.

Projects

03.Projectsls ~/projects

Finance App

Personal finance & shared bills

Feb 2026 — Present

Full-stack personal finance app with bank-account linking, expense tracking, shared bills, and automated repayment tracking across users.

  • Designed the full-stack architecture for secure financial data access, user auth, and scalable workflows.
  • Integrated Plaid for spending breakdowns, recurring-expense views, contact-based tracking, and reporting.
  • Built server-side routes and API handlers for secure financial data retrieval and transaction syncing.
Next.jsTypeScriptSupabasePostgreSQLPlaid

AI Simulation Platform

Reinforcement learning in Unity

Jan 2025 — Present

Custom Unity ML-Agents environment for training autonomous agents with PPO, plus the surrounding training pipeline.

  • Built a modular simulation environment in Unity ML-Agents.
  • Designed reward systems, state observations, and training pipelines for iterative agent improvement.
  • Ran experiments, tuned hyperparameters, and analyzed performance metrics to improve learning stability.
UnityC#PythonML-AgentsPPOPyTorch
04.Terminal// try it — it actually works

Below is a real interactive shell with 19 commands. Type help to start, use ↑/↓ to recall history, and Tab to autocomplete.

try:

Contact

05.Contactecho $REACH_OUT

// currently open to interesting conversations

Let's build something.

Whether it's a new role, a side project, or a half-formed idea that sounds fun — my inbox is the fastest way to reach me.

mustafa.alhelawe@gmail.com