Lam Nguyen
Portrait of Lam Nguyen

Lam Nguyen

B.S. Computer Science at Cal Poly SLO · Expected May 2028

San Jose, California

About

I'm a computer science student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, transferred from De Anza College in 2026. I like building things end to end: in high school I taught myself BrightScript over a summer at Roku and ended up coding most of a TV app, then came back in 2024 to mentor around thirty incoming interns. I led programming for my FRC team, and I competed in cybersecurity with CyberPatriot, where our team placed Platinum at the state round with the highest overall score of the year.

Lately my work sits somewhere between AI and hardware. I build desktop tools around local and cloud multimodal LLMs — fine-tuning with LoRA and running open-weight models through llama.cpp and Ollama — and I prototype physical things like assistive transcription glasses and a piezoelectric floor tile, which means a lot of CAD, 3D printing, embedded C, and low-level assembly work.

Outside of code, I was a Life Scout working toward Eagle, and after I turned 18 I served as an assistant scoutmaster for the two years I attended community college. I also helped run MESA and represented the club at Inter Club Council, and I'm bilingual in English and Vietnamese.

Experience

Roku

San Jose, CA

Intern Mentor

Jan 2024 – Jul 2024 · 7 months
  • Mentored ~30 incoming software engineering interns throughout the 2024 internship program, handling technical onboarding, architectural code reviews, and project guidance.
  • Architected and deployed a full-stack React companion app with interactive BrightScript development guides and project documentation to streamline intern onboarding.

Software Programmer Intern

Jun 2023 – Aug 2023 · 3 months
  • Independently mastered BrightScript and SceneGraph to build ~80% of a production-ready Roku TV application for a company-wide technical showcase.

Vice President — Student Program

Aug 2022 – Aug 2023 · 1 yr 1 mo
  • Managed student internship groups throughout the school year and on-site during the summer.
  • Managed student paperwork, project progress, and fees.

AFA CyberPatriot

San Jose, CA

Windows Server Specialist

Aug 2023 – Jun 2024 · 11 months
  • Hardened Windows Server systems and configured Active Directory security policies.
  • Monitored incoming and outgoing requests, managed network users, and closed off malicious access.

Vice President

May 2023 – Jun 2024 · 1 yr 2 mo
  • Assisted in managing club activities and operations.
  • Trained people for cybersecurity competitions under the Air Force CyberPatriot organization.

Windows Specialist

Aug 2022 – Aug 2023 · 1 yr 1 mo
  • Secured Windows systems and repaired vulnerabilities.
  • Repaired instances of malware, registry issues, and persistent unwanted software.
  • Competed to a State Round Platinum finish — the highest overall team score of that year.

MESA (Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement)

San Jose, CA

Vice President

May 2023 – Jun 2024 · 1 yr 2 mo
  • Assisted in managing club projects and presentation materials.
  • Handled paperwork within the club.
  • Represented the club at Inter Club Council meetings.
  • Represented the club's UCMC cohort.

FRC Team 2643

San Jose, CA

Programming Team Lead

May 2023 – Jun 2024 · 1 yr 2 mo
  • Directed robot software architecture and structured the team codebase for the 2023–2024 FRC season.
  • Coached 10+ junior developers in Java, WPILib, and Git workflows.
  • Communicated with other subteams and the project manager to ensure completion of the robot.

Programmer

Aug 2022 – May 2023 · 10 months
  • Worked on robot subsystem code.
  • Familiarized myself with robot code syntax and logic.

Boy Scouts of America

San Jose, CA

Assistant Scoutmaster

Aug 2024 – Jun 2026 · 2 yrs
  • Served as assistant scoutmaster for two years while attending community college.

Senior Patrol Leader

Jan 2021 – Jan 2024 · 3 yrs 1 mo
  • Organized troop meetings.
  • Educated youth in life skills.
  • Developed leadership through communication with leaders and the troop.
  • Life Scout working toward Eagle.

Scribe

Jan 2020 – Jan 2021 · 1 yr 1 mo
  • Recorded meeting notes and minutes.
  • Delivered important information between leaders and scouts.

Education

California Polytechnic State University — San Luis Obispo — B.S. Computer ScienceTransferred from De Anza College
  • Relevant coursework: Databases, Systems Programming, Data Structures & Algorithms, Computer Architecture.
CurrentExpected May 2028
De Anza College — Computer Science & Engineering coursework
  • Coursework: Data Structures, x86 Assembly, MIPS Assembly, Linear Algebra, Differential Equations.
  • Activities: ACM Club and 3D Printing / CAD Club; collaborative hardware-software prototyping workshops.
2024 – 2026
Mission College — Computer Science
Jan 2023 – Apr 2023
Santa Teresa High School
Aug 2020 – Jun 2024

Projects

Desktop AI Vision AssistantLA HacksA floating-orb desktop overlay in PySide/Qt that continuously captures screen context and delivers real-time AI suggestions with sub-second latency. Wired screen capture into local and cloud multimodal LLMs, fine-tuned LLaMA 7B, and ran open-weight models (Gemma 2 27B, Qwen 2.5) through llama.cpp and Ollama.PythonOpenCVPySide/QtMultimodal LLMsllama.cppOllama
Assistive Transcription Glasses & PoRTSPersonal projectA wearable assistive-technology prototype for Deaf and hard-of-hearing users, with custom 3D-printed CAD enclosures and integrated circuitry. The Linux/Python companion app uses Bash scripting for system service automation, CAVA audio visualization, and automated timestamped note generation.PythonLinuxCAVABash3D CAD
Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Floor TileS4CA Showcase AwardA modular floor tile that converts foot traffic into electrical power. Owned the embedded hardware integration and CAD design, and earned two monetary S4CA Product Showcase Awards for the green-energy concept and proof of execution.C/C++EmbeddedCAD / 3D Printing
FRC Crescendo Autonomous RobotTeam 2643Swerve drive control supporting field- and robot-relative modes on WPILib's command-based architecture, plus Limelight/OpenCV target tracking and a PhotonVision prototype on an Orange Pi 5 for autonomous trajectory planning and vision-guided scoring.JavaWPILibPathPlannerOpenCVLimelightClubHubRoku internshipA production-ready Roku TV app built for a company-wide technical showcase. Self-taught BrightScript and SceneGraph over the summer and coded ~80% of the app.BrightScriptSceneGraphRoku
Low-Level Systems & Assembly ProgrammingAcademic projectAssembly and C modules implementing low-level bitwise operations, custom bitmasking procedures, register manipulation, and memory-mapped I/O hardware device drivers.x86 AssemblyMIPSCGDB

Awards & Honors

AP Scholar with Distinction
CyberPatriot State Round — Platinum (highest overall team score of the year)
S4CA Product Showcase Award (×2)
MESA Award

Skills

Languages & Frameworks

JavaPythonC/C++JavaScriptTypeScriptSQLx86 AssemblyMIPS AssemblyRBrightScriptReactAstroNode.jsHTML/CSS

Developer Tools & AI

GitLinux (Arch/CachyOS, Ubuntu, Fedora)Bash scriptingGDBllama.cppOllamaFine-tuning (LoRA)OpenCVpandasNumPyTidyverse

Hardware & Systems

Embedded systemsCAD / 3D printingWPILibWindows Server administrationActive Directory

Languages

EnglishVietnamese (Professional Working)

Contact

The fastest way to reach me is email — or find me on GitHub and LinkedIn.

Personal

Albums, games, and the stuff I make when I'm not writing code. This section is a work in progress — more to come.

Albums

The College DropoutThe College Dropout
The Forever StoryThe Forever Story
SUMMERTIDESUMMERTIDE

Games

Library of RuinaLibrary of Ruina
ArknightsArknights

Media

Fate/Stay NightFate/Stay Night
InterstellarInterstellar
Chainsaw ManChainsaw Man