I build product code and study how software fails.

Software engineering and cybersecurity. CS at the University of Maryland.

About

Hi, I'm Kevin. I'm an undergraduate Computer Science student at the University of Maryland, College Park, building toward a career at the intersection of software engineering and cybersecurity. I got into security because breaking things turned out to be a better way of understanding them than reading about them was, and that's still how I learn. Outside of coursework I spend most of my time building, usually something I said would take a weekend.

Education

University of Maryland — College Park, MD

Relevant coursework: Computer & Network Security, Computer Systems, Algorithms

Experience

Lawly — Software Engineering Intern

  • Authored 340+ commits on a Next.js / React / TypeScript marketplace (Fastify, Drizzle ORM, PostgreSQL, Stripe), shipping 47 REST endpoints and 33 additive schema migrations across payments, messaging, and access control.
  • Designed and shipped Stripe idempotency keying across four checkout flows, eliminating duplicate-charge risk on retry while still allowing legitimate repeat purchases.
  • Built end-to-end account erasure across schema, service layer, REST endpoints, and admin UI, and hardened privileged flows with actor-level audit logging, attempt lockout, and replay-resistant MFA and email verification codes.
  • Wrote 169 test files and 1,367 test cases, including integration suites running against a real PostgreSQL instance covering payment math, refund eligibility, and erasure cascades.

READ THE CASE STUDY

CodePath — Tech Fellow

  • Facilitated weekly breakout sessions for cybersecurity and technical interview prep courses, guiding students through hands-on labs, algorithmic problem solving, and debugging.
  • Supported student development across data structures, Big O analysis, Linux, networking, and threat detection using Socratic questioning and real-time feedback.

Campus Coders Crew — Developer

  • Built full-stack web apps for UMD student organizations using React, Node.js, and TailwindCSS, designing REST endpoints and coordinating deliverables with a cross-functional team on an Agile / Scrum cycle.

Projects

CARLOS EMR — Open Source Security Contributions

  • Patched a stored XSS vulnerability by adding context-sensitive OWASP output encoding across 5 unescaped JSP locations, closing off arbitrary script execution on the document-edit form.
  • Stripped PHI-correlating request bodies out of ticklerREST logging, swapping verbatim JSON for safe operational metadata so patient data no longer persists in application logs.
  • Submitted a fix for a CSRF bypass in the tickler note dialog by switching a jQuery AJAX mutation from GET to POST, restoring CSRFGuard token validation and keeping clinical notes and patient IDs out of URLs and Tomcat access logs; reproduced all three issues in Docker.

READ THE CASE STUDYSOURCE

AI-Powered Cyber Threat Reporter

  • Built a full-stack threat-intelligence tool that takes text, URLs, and file uploads and returns AI-generated severity ratings with structured remediation steps, powered by Gemini.
  • Secured the REST API with Supabase JWT auth, per-user rate limiting, and async PostgreSQL (asyncpg); wrote a batch log parser splitting files into parallel Gemini calls with rate-limit-aware throttling, deployed on Render via Docker with a React frontend on Vercel.

LIVE SITESOURCE

Certifications

  • Security+

    CompTIA

  • Network+

    CompTIA

  • A+

    CompTIA

Technical Skills

  • Languages

    Python · JavaScript · TypeScript · Java · C / C++ · SQL · Bash

  • Frameworks & Libraries

    React · Node.js · Next.js · FastAPI · Fastify · TailwindCSS

  • Security & Networking

    Wireshark · Metasploit · Splunk · Active Directory · MITRE ATT&CK · OWASP Top 10 · CSRF/XSS · HIPAA/PHI

  • Cloud & Tools

    AWS · Azure · Docker · Linux · PostgreSQL · Git

Training

CodePath AI 301

AI-assisted development in large unfamiliar codebases, shipping open-source contributions

CodePath CYB 102

Blue Team operations, network monitoring, and incident response with MITRE ATT&CK

CodePath TIP 102

Algorithmic challenges, object-oriented design, and technical problem-solving

Contact

kcortez1130@gmail.com