Partha Tarafdar Chicago, IL MS AI Candidate · DePaul ’27 MS AI · DePaul ’27

I build AI systems
and ship them.

Software engineer working on retrieval, evaluation, and the production infrastructure that turns models into systems people can actually use.

Selected work

Janus

Live · leagueoflegends.polaris-ai.org

A grounded question-answering engine for League of Legends. Ask it about champions, items, matchups, or the current meta. It answers from real data, cites what it used, and says when it doesn’t know instead of guessing.

I implemented the retrieval stack directly rather than relying on a RAG framework, making its routing, retrieval behavior, and evaluation explicit and independently measurable. Three retrieval strategies sit behind a single router, each matched to the type of data it handles: a version-pinned corpus for game mechanics, typed SQL tables for exact numbers, and a live API for statistics that change daily.

The generator is only allowed to speak from what retrieval found.

Python · FastAPI · Postgres + pgvector · React · Docker · Caddy · MCP

Retrieval hit@1
66.7% → 74.5%
Mean faithfulness score
5.00 / 5
Curated eval questions
40
Embedding models benchmarked
5
Retrieval strategies
3

Corpus-composition filtering improved retrieval hit@1 from 66.7% to 74.5%. Five embedding models were benchmarked separately against the same golden set. Faithfulness was scored by an LLM judge from a different model family than the generator over the double-reviewed 40-question evaluation set. Retrieval defaults change only with measured evidence.

CareerLaunch

Live · careerlaunchonline.com

A job-application tracker built for the part of a job search nobody enjoys: knowing where every application stands. It tracks statuses, keeps résumé versions straight, and shows weekly and monthly trends, all without a spreadsheet.

Built and launched solo, from product design and authentication through the frontend, backend, hosting, and deployment.

React (Vite) · Flask REST API · PostgreSQL · Firebase Auth (Google SSO)

Role
Solo
Shipped
2025
Auth
Google SSO

Designed, deployed, and continue to operate CareerLaunch independently under Polaris AI Technologies LLC.

Distributed Weather Station

Coursework · source on GitHub

A fault-tolerant ingestion pipeline for Wisconsin weather-station data: gRPC services in front of an Apache Cassandra cluster, with PySpark handling parsing and filtering before anything reaches storage.

The key challenge was maintaining correct ingestion when Cassandra nodes dropped out, rather than assuming a healthy cluster.

Python · Apache Cassandra · PySpark · gRPC · HDFS

Storage
Cassandra
Transport
gRPC
Processing
PySpark

Built for UW–Madison’s Big Data Systems coursework.

Also built

Chat Mobile App

Cross-platform chat with registration, guest mode, and JWTs held in secure device storage.

React Native · Expo · JWT · Secure Store

News Reader

Tag-based article filtering with animated transitions between list and detail views.

React Native · JavaScript

Experience

Jun 2025 – Present

Full-Stack Developer & Founder

Polaris AI Technologies LLC · Chicago, IL

Build and ship production software end to end, from product decisions and application code through deployment and infrastructure. Projects include CareerLaunch and, most recently, Janus.

Summers 2023 & 2024

Website Administrator

Badminton Warehouse · Schaumburg, IL

Maintained and extended a Shopify storefront in Liquid, HTML/CSS and JavaScript, and wrote Python automation for bulk product updates that cut manual update time by over 60%. SEO work moved most target categories into the top three Google results.

May – Aug 2022

Software Developer Intern

US Cellular · Schaumburg, IL

Automated monthly operations reporting with a Flask and SQLAlchemy API, cutting runtime by 33%, and built a React dashboard used by 40+ stakeholders, replacing email-based report distribution.

Education

Expected 2027

MS, Artificial Intelligence

DePaul University · GPA 3.6

May 2025

BS, Computer Science

University of Wisconsin–Madison · Dean’s List 2020, 2021

Algorithms · Artificial Intelligence · Big Data Systems · Software Engineering · Data Science · Human-Computer Interaction · Statistics

About

I’m Partha, a Chicago-based software engineer pursuing an MS in Artificial Intelligence at DePaul after a CS degree from UW–Madison. I like building systems end to end, from retrieval and evaluation through application development, deployment, and infrastructure.

Lately that’s meant Janus, a grounded League of Legends assistant, and CareerLaunch, a job-application tracker I built and launched independently. Away from the keyboard I’m usually playing pickleball or pickup basketball.

Based in
Chicago, IL
Currently
MS AI ’27
Off the keyboard
Pickleball

Happy to talk about retrieval, evaluation, or shipping AI systems. The email below is the fastest way to reach me.