Toshali Randev

About Toshali Randev

My expertise lies in the gamut of the Software Engineering lifecycle, with several years of experience, including my current Principal SWE position. I have a background in a broad range of web-development technologies, including front-end and back-end tools. I earned a Master’s Degree in Tech Management from Johns Hopkins and a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from the University of Virginia.My experience includes development with various stacks, such as LAMP, MEAN, MERN, and Python/Django. Additional skills include Java, Spring Boot (MVVM, MVC, RESTful) development, front-end development with CSS, HTML5, JavaScript, TypeScript, testing with Selenium, Playwright, Cucumber, JUnit, as well as API design and best practices. I thrive in heavily collaborative environments involving multiple SMEs, engineers, managers, and stakeholders, and have a keen awareness of the importance in connecting technical solutions to top-priority business requirements.Outside of work, I enjoy reading (particularly fantasy, science fiction, and mythology), handicrafts like embroidery and crochet, and spending time in the great outdoors whether it be hiking or gardening.

Experience

1. Staff Software Engineer

   Brightspot

   Jul 2023 — Present · Reston, VA, US

   Along with continuing all the work mentioned below, as a Staff SWE, I am responsible for managing 4 direct reports and 4 indirect reports from a technical and people-management perspective. I also serve as the technical lead and scrum master for a team of 6 developers, all working on the out-of-the-box Brightspot platform. This involves regularly reprioritizing the backlog, scoping new work, writing technical notes, doing architectural design, discussing with product managers and other stakeholders, and balancing business needs with the available resources. A major part of my job is to peer review code to ensure functionality, maintainability, robustness, and implementation of best practices.My current dev work is fourfold: 1. integrating the latest LLMs into our product, allowing users to generate content and images on the fly; 2. leveraging retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to enable users to find answers most relevant to the existing content in their CMS; 3: detecting AI-generated content within the CMS for audit and compliance purposes; and 4: flagging and blocking potentially harmful prompts and responses by applying guardrails around all our AI integrations.I also work with sales engineers to develop custom features within Brightspot for demos and customer proof-of-concepts. These features range from new integrations to customization of the UI. I lead an onboarding session for new hires and Brightspot partners introducing them to the platform\'s MVVM-based architecture. I work with technical writers to write developer documentation and with PMs to provide technical perspective to the product roadmap. On a less serious note, I also lead a monthly book club in which we read books about technology and management and debate other people\'s bad opinions.

Education

• Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering

  Master of Science - MS, Technical Management

  2019 — 2021

• Briar Woods High School

  Advanced Studies Diploma

  2010 — 2014

• Virginia Governor's School for Math, Science, and Technology

  Computer Science

  2013 — 2013

• University of Virginia

  Bachelor of Science - BS, Computer Science

  2014 — 2018

Skills

• Data Warehousing
• Spring Mvc
• Windows
• Eclipse
• Powerpoint
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft Office
• Java
• Javascript
• Mathematics
• Xml
• Linux
• Greenplum
• Teamwork
• Spring Boot
• Leadership
• Communication
• Mathematica
• English
• Software Development
• Python
• Time Management
• Agile Application Development
• Public Speaking
• Robotc
• C
• Programming
• Data Analysis
• Microsoft Powerpoint
• Microsoft Word
• Web Development
• Postgresql
• C++
• Pl/Sql
• R
• Mathcad
• Web Applications
• Mongodb
• Representational State Transfer (Rest)
• Html