Charlotte Kwon
developer · creator · artist
I am an early career engineer with a background in Computer Science and Business from USC, and I love people and love building for them. What motivates me most is watching something I made make a real person's day a little easier.
New York, NY
About
I'm a computer science and business graduate who likes building things that make complicated problems easier to understand and act on. My work sits somewhere between technology, data, product, and strategy, and I'm happiest when I'm translating between the technical side and the people actually using it.
Experience
Software Engineer
Patentopia, USC Information Sciences Institute
Jan 2026 to May 2026
Built a full sign up and email verification flow in PHP, using regex and live MX and DNS checks to keep fake .edu accounts out.
Dug through a legacy codebase and fixed the login, SSL, SQL, and patent search problems that were breaking things for real users, and got it dependable again.
Led the move off the retired PatentsView API onto the USPTO Open Data Portal. I documented the auth, rate limits, and schema, and validated everything with Swagger so the switch caused almost no downtime.
- PHP
- SQL
- REST APIs
- Swagger
- DNS and MX
Product Engineer
USC Annenberg Media, Digital Product Team
Feb 2026 to May 2026
Took the lead on redesigning the front page for web and app, used by more than 350 journalists, digging into traffic data, A/B tests, and reader surveys to find where people were losing interest.
Rebuilt the navigation and layout around how readers actually behave, and lifted traffic to new front page stories by 12 percent.
Ran the roadmap in Jira and turned messy stakeholder feedback into clear specs that kept engineering, design, and editorial moving together.
- Product
- A/B Testing
- Jira
- Agile
Leadership and Involvement
Social Events · KSEA (USC)
2024 to 2026
Ran social events across four Southern California chapters and grew our membership by 20 percent, mostly by making events people actually wanted to show up to.
Finance Team Lead · USC Athena Hacks
2024 to 2025
Reached out to more than 200 sponsors and raised $15K for 150 hackers, and cut our projected spending by 60 percent to help dig the org out of five years of debt.
First Section Violinist · USC Student Symphony Orchestra
2024 to 2026
Played first section violin through the ensemble seasons.
Projects
Featured project
Portfolio Pulse
Investment analytics and valuation platform
Portfolio Pulse is the project I am most proud of. It is a full investment analytics platform where you can build a portfolio, stress test it against real market history, run a company valuation with a complete DCF, and hold all of it to real investment policy and risk controls. I built it to take the intimidating parts of finance and turn them into something a curious person can actually open up and explore.
- Python
- Streamlit
- pandas
- DCF Valuation
- Risk Controls
- Excel / VBA
Stock Trading Web App
Real time trading platform
A real time trading app built on Java Servlets and Tomcat, with a MySQL database behind portfolios and logins. The front end uses AJAX and jQuery so searching stocks, placing orders, and watching your account update all feel instant.
- Java
- Servlets
- MySQL
- AJAX and jQuery
Social Playlist
Data driven social web app
A social web app built with Spring Boot and a REST API, with secure sessions. It includes a similarity scoring system that turns what people share into a simple read on how connected they really are.
- Spring Boot
- REST
- Java
CISCO Personal Data Account
Federated learning · Case Western Reserve
Java modules for a federated learning system that lets people get personalized healthcare without handing over their privacy. I used JDBC for data access and shipped a working prototype for secure patient data sharing, presenting progress every week to faculty and graduate researchers.
- Java
- JDBC
- Federated Learning
Skills
Languages
- C++
- Python
- Java
- PHP
- JavaScript
Frameworks and Backend
- Spring Boot
- Java Servlets
- Tomcat
- JDBC
- REST APIs
- AJAX / JSON
- jQuery
Tools and Cloud
- Docker
- AWS
- Git
- SQL
- Firebase / Expo
- Swagger
- Claude Code
Data and Design
- Excel
- Tableau
- AutoCAD
- Unity
- HTML / CSS
Art
A few of my digital and watercolor pieces. Making art is how I recharge, and it quietly shapes how I think about design in everything else I build.
Beyond the code
When I am not building something, you can usually find me behind a camera, deep in a chess game, or cheering way too loud at just about any sport. I also love making things with my hands and in 3D, from CAD models and prints to paintings.
- Photography
- Chess
- Sports
- Digital Art
- Watercolor
- CAD
- 3D Printing
- VR
Education
University of Southern California
B.S. Computer Science and Business Administration · Viterbi School of Engineering
May 2026
A few classes I loved
- Full Stack Web Development
- Algorithms
- Data Structures and OOD
- Software Engineering
- Computer and Network Security
- Data Analytics
- Discrete Mathematics
- Business Finance
- Operations Management
Let's build something for people.
I love meeting people and building things that help them. If you have a problem worth solving, or you just want to say hi, email is the fastest way to reach me.