Open to opportunities

Rui Li

@ruili1

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MS Computer Engineering student with embedded systems and full‑stack expertise.

United States

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What I'm looking for

I seek hands‑on engineering roles combining embedded/FPGA and backend/cloud work, in collaborative teams that value testing, performance optimization, and measurable impact.

I am a computer engineering student specializing in embedded systems, FPGA design, and full‑stack development, with hands‑on experience building real‑time data acquisition pipelines, microservices backends, and edge deployment workflows. I delivered Verilog FPGA drivers and FSMs for high‑throughput signal capture at Tesla, and led YOLO‑based vision and scalable backend work for a supermarket self‑checkout final project.

I combine low‑level firmware and hardware design (C/C++, Verilog, ESP32) with backend and cloud technologies (Django, Node.js, Docker, Google Cloud) to produce reliable, testable systems. I collaborate across teams using Git and CI/CD, emphasize maintainability through testing and containerization, and focus on measurable performance improvements such as reduced latency and high model accuracy.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Final Year Project Lead

University of Edinburgh

Oct 2024 - May 2025 (7 months)

Led development of a YOLO-based object detection system for barcodeless supermarket checkout achieving 95% Top-1 accuracy and reduced API latency by 40% under 200+ parallel sessions via microservices and Redis caching.

Computer Vision YOLO Django REST APIs Docker Google Cloud MongoDB Redis Microservices

Electrical Engineer Intern

Tesla

Jul 2023 - Aug 2023 (1 month)

Designed Verilog-based signal processing pipelines and FSMs on FPGA to interface with ADC0809, enabling real-time data acquisition and streaming >10,000 samples/sec while reducing signal latency.

Verilog FPGA ADC Interfacing Git Docker CI CD Signal Processing

Embedded Systems Developer

South China University of Technology

Jul 2022 - Aug 2022 (1 month)

Developed ESP32-S3 firmware and web UI for an automatic canteen billing system processing 300+ daily transactions, implemented RESTful PHP/MySQL APIs with JWT auth and CI/CD for OTA firmware updates.

C C++ESP32 PHP MySQL REST APIs JWT HTML CSS JavaScript CI CD

Software Engineer (Student Research)

South China University of Technology

Jan 2022 - Feb 2022 (1 month)

Built a full-stack campus property management mobile system using C++ and Kotlin supporting 1,000+ accounts, achieved 90% unit test coverage and reduced post-deployment bugs by 40%.

C++Kotlin SQLite Jetpack Compose Test Mobile Development OOP Concurrency

Education

Degrees, certifications, and relevant coursework

Columbia University in the City of New York

Master of Science, Computer Engineering

Pursuing an MS in Computer Engineering with coursework in modeling and performance evaluation and formal verification of hardware and software systems; expected completion Dec 2026.

South China University of Technology

Bachelor of Engineering, Integrated Circuit Design and System Integration

Completed a BE in Integrated Circuit Design and System Integration with project work on an automatic billing system and a campus property management system.

The University of Edinburgh

Bachelor of Engineering, Electronics and Electrical Engineering

Completed a BE in Electronics and Electrical Engineering, including a final-year project on an intelligent recognition system for barcodeless supermarket self-checkout.