# Swetha V. > Backend Software Engineer | Search & Data Unification | HealthTech | ConTech Location: Redwood City, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/swethav I build backend systems that turn messy, real-world healthcare data into reliable workflows. At Collective Health, I own integration-heavy services spanning provider search, cost transparency, and clinical benefits data - connecting 7+ external systems to a platform serving 800k+ members. I've gone from intern to promoted engineer by taking end-to-end ownership of high-stakes projects: production deployments, incident response, cross-team coordination, and mentoring engineers newer to the codebase. I started in architecture, but switched to software because I was frustrated by how slow technology adoption can be in industries like construction. Moving to Silicon Valley for my master's in Information Systems let me dive deep into algorithms and backend engineering. Working in health tech reinforced the same lesson: when data is messy and workflows are complex, the reliability of the backend is what makes everything else possible. That's what draws me to AI-native products — the model is only as good as the data and services behind it. Academics have always mattered to me: Dean's List in grad school, graduated with distinction in undergrad, and ranked third in Tamil Nadu, India, among 1.1 million students. ## Work Experience ### Software Engineer II (Backend) @ Collective Health Jan 2024 – Present | San Francisco, CA - Owned and operated backend services integrating 7+ external systems with inconsistent APIs, auth mechanisms, and data quality, powering a health plan platform serving 800k+ members. - Designed provider search and ranking systems with geospatial filtering, attribute normalization, and sponsor-specific constraints, balancing relevance with latency and correctness. - Built clinical benefits and cost transparency pipelines integrating external pricing services; normalized unreliable third-party data and designed graceful degradation to preserve core member flows under partial vendor failures. - Architected a CMS content migration (Hygraph) including an in-memory locale cache with startup validation — decoupling content from deployments and preventing silent production failures. - Acted as tech lead during senior engineer absence on a primary care network launch: reviewed code, filled implementation gaps, coordinated with external vendors, and drove production deployment on deadline. - Drove adoption of a post-production validation framework, endorsed by leadership as the team standard; owned change-board-approved production releases. - Led incident response for a production outage — isolated root cause to expired vendor credentials, escalated with structured context, and proactively built team knowledge to prevent recurrence. - Mentored contractors and junior engineers through backend service knowledge-transfer sessions and first-PR pairing; deliberately reduced single points of failure on the team. - Presented to engineering leadership on integrating AI tooling into backend development workflows in a healthcare context; achieved 40–50% faster development cycles and drove team-wide adoption. - Enabled multi-tenant feature rollouts using feature flags, supporting sponsor-specific logic, safe experimentation, and fast production rollback. ### Software Engineer I (Backend) @ Collective Health Jan 2023 – Jan 2024 | San Francisco, CA - Built secure, versioned REST API endpoints to dynamically block or suppress inaccurate provider data at field or entity level; reduced support escalations by 60%. - Implemented response-level caching across paginated API results to eliminate redundant upstream calls, improving response times and reducing vendor API load by ~40%. - Delivered Spanish localization support in backend APIs to support non-English users at the data response layer. - Automated onboarding flows for new clients via config-driven templates, reducing operational overhead. - Strengthened production reliability by adding integration tests, mocking vendor responses, and leading root cause analysis for bugs. - Designed and implemented provider metrics integration, including filter and sort functionalities, using modular, extensible backend architecture to improve query performance and search relevance across provider datasets. - Introduced a hash-based caching layer to deduplicate third-party client requests, reducing redundant API calls by ~66%, cutting vendor costs, and lowering average response latency by 30%. - Enhanced specialty search logic with fuzzy matching (Levenshtein distance) and token-based keyword search, increasing search accuracy and reducing false positives. - Led performance testing for high-traffic member APIs using K6, identifying throughput bottlenecks and tuning system parameters to support sustained loads >10K RPM with improved stability and observability. ### Software Engineer Fellow (Backend) @ Formation Jan 2022 – Jan 2023 | San Francisco Bay Area - Selected from a competitive applicant pool for a rigorous, mentor-led fellowship focused on deepening system design, algorithms, and production-level engineering skills. - Strengthened foundations in theoretical computer science through project-based learning, pair programming, and weekly mentor-led discussions on data structures, algorithms, and software architecture. - Shipped production-ready features and resolved critical bug tickets on the Recur platform, enhancing UI responsiveness and overall system stability. - Participated in structured code reviews and cross-team collaboration with senior engineers, adhering to clean code practices and CI/CD workflows. - Recognized with the Rising Tide award for technical mentorship and peer support; guided Junior Fellows through debugging, design reviews, and problem-solving best practices. ### Software Engineer Intern - Backend @ Collective Health Jan 2022 – Jan 2022 | San Mateo, California, United States - Implemented end-to-end migration of a microservice from DropWizard to Spring Boot, refactoring APIs for improved scalability, maintainability, and performance. - Developed and maintained comprehensive unit and component test suites using JUnit and Mockito, ensuring high code coverage and robustness of critical API endpoints and business logic. - Automated deployment pipelines and managed service rollouts on staging environments, enabling seamless integration and faster release cycles. - Authored and standardized a Spring Boot archetype setup guide, reducing new service onboarding time by 2 weeks and improving team developer velocity. - Delivered technical presentations and demos of migrated services to executive leadership (CTO) and cross-functional teams, validating alignment with business goals and technical standards. ### Software Engineer Fellow (Backend) - Early Talent Access @ Lyft Jan 2022 – Jan 2022 | San Francisco Bay Area - Designed and implemented extensible modules within an existing Python codebase, contributing to scalable system architecture. - Employed Test-Driven Development (TDD) to ensure high test coverage and maintainable code, using unittest and mocking frameworks. - Wrote unit and integration tests for core logic, increasing code reliability and catching regressions early in the dev cycle. ### Data Science Practicum @ Buildertrend Jan 2022 – Jan 2022 | San Francisco Bay Area - Engineered scalable data pipelines to extract and preprocess structured customer datasets using Python, significantly improving data processing efficiency by 213%. - Developed and evaluated predictive models (e.g., Random Forest, Linear Regression) to forecast high-growth market segments, achieving an R² score of 0.83 on test datasets. - Designed time-series forecasting pipelines using ARIMA and SARIMA models to predict customer behavior and retention trends with seasonal accuracy. - Defined and computed key business metrics (e.g., Customer Index, Retention Rate) to drive actionable insights for stakeholders. - Served as Project Manager, orchestrating cross-functional collaboration between academic advisors, sponsor teams, and engineering peers to ensure timely delivery and alignment with business goals. ### Junior Architect - Urban Design @ de Earth Jan 2019 – Jan 2020 | Kozhikode, Kerala, India - Played a key role in the Thalassery Heritage Project, a government-led urban tourism initiative spanning 64 sites. Delivered the physical design and material specifications for two flagship destinations, working cross-functionally with regulatory teams to produce detailed project reports. - Developed models and templates to standardize design elements across multiple heritage sites, enabling efficient updates and revisions. - Leveraged BIM (Building Information Modeling) tools to create detailed 3D architectural models, facilitating better visualization and coordination with engineering teams. - Led data collection and site documentation using digital tools to support spatial analysis and inform design decisions. - Conducted stakeholder consultations and translated requirements into technical design briefs. - Managed material specs, contract coordination, and on-site quality assurance to ensure design compliance. - Mentored interns in digital documentation and site surveying techniques. ### Architect Trainee @ de Earth Jan 2018 – Jan 2018 | Kozhikode, Kerala, India - Supported Project Architect on 3 residential and 1 commercial projects by producing detailed working drawing sets, 3D models, and renders using CAD and BIM software. - Created technical documentation and presentations for client meetings, ensuring alignment between design intent and execution. - Designed and developed detailed construction drawings for 4 bus stops; conducted site surveys, material research, and generated multiple design options using digital drafting tools. Approved by City Council for implementation. - Delivered internal design talks on sustainable design principles and masonry techniques, enhancing team knowledge of materials and construction methods. - Maintained a blog documenting architectural heritage sites, leveraging digital photography and content management tools. ### Architectural Intern @ Sacred Groves Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | Auroville - Contributed to the Sacred Groves ecological housing project by supporting end-to-end phases—design, prototyping, and on-site implementation—with a focus on sustainable architecture. - Applied hands-on experience in natural building systems including cob, adobe, earthbag, wattle & daub, bamboo structures, and rubble trench foundations, emphasizing low-carbon construction practices. - Utilized AutoCAD to produce detailed construction drawings for dry-compost toilet blocks and waste management infrastructure, ensuring alignment with sustainable building codes. - Took initiative as Task Coordinator for a 6-person team during wattle & daub wall construction, aligning efforts across material prep, quality checks, and timelines. - Collaborated with senior architects to plan and conduct Natural Building Workshops, helping standardize learning materials and safety protocols. - Authored the Sacred Groves Handbook – Edition 1, a technical and community-facing guide to construction methods and project philosophy. - Managed logistics and hospitality for a 60-person off-grid community, coordinating resources and improving internal communication workflows. ### Architecture Student Delegate @ University of Westminster Jan 2017 – Jan 2017 | London Area, United Kingdom - Selected from India to participate in Fabfest2017, a global architecture prototyping event featuring students from 15+ countries. - Engineered a full-scale pavilion using Rhinoceros (Rhino3D), applying rapid prototyping, reverse engineering, and 3D printing techniques aligned with the theme "Pop-up City." - Integrated parametric design workflows and API scripting in Rhino to improve structural feasibility and reduce assembly time. - Coordinated fabrication logistics for an 8-member team; pavilion won the 'People’s Award' for most public votes and was featured in the University’s official publication and ISSUU. ## Education ### Master of Science - MS in Information Systems Santa Clara University ### Non-matriculated in Computer Programming University of California, Berkeley ### Bachelor of Architecture - BArch in Urban Design Anna University Chennai ### Higher Secondary Savitri Vidyasala Hindu Girls Higher Secondary School ### High School Chinmaya Vidyalaya ### MS Information Systems in Computer Science Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business ### Bachelor of Architecture - BArch in Urban Design MEASI Academy Of Architecture ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/swetha-vijayaraju - GitHub: https://github.com/SwethaVijayaraju --- Source: https://flows.cv/swethav JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/swethav/resume.json Last updated: 2026-03-29