Portfolio

Rohan

Nihalani

I'm a computer science student at UC Santa Barbara, passionate about building products that solve real problems, especially at the intersection of technology, media, and human connection. I’m currently working on Rhome, a platform for sharing and discovering trusted media recs from friends. I love learning new technologies, exploring the outdoors, and playing piano in my free time.

Builder & EngineerSanta Barbara / Bay Area

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Currently Building

What I'm working on

Rhome

Co-Founder

Active

A social recommendation platform built on Go and React Native. 1,000+ active users, 3,000+ recommendations, and 10% MoM growth since launch.

GoReact NativeAWSDynamoDBS3

View project →

Daily Nexus App

Mobile App Developer

Active

The first mobile news app at any UC campus — real-time stories, push notifications, and personalised content for UCSB students.

React NativeNode.jsAPI Design

Experience

Work history

Aug 2024 – Present

San Francisco Bay Area

Rhome

·Co-Founder

Architected a scalable full-stack platform using Go and React Native, with AWS DynamoDB and S3 supporting high-concurrency dual-platform data retrieval.
Scaled to 1,000+ active users and 3,000+ recommendations, sustaining 10% MoM growth through rapid iteration and data-driven marketing.
Led end-to-end technical strategy — system design, cloud infrastructure, performance tuning, and CI/CD pipelines.

Oct 2025 – Present

Santa Barbara, CA

Daily Nexus

·Mobile App Developer

Leading development of the first-ever mobile news app at any UC campus, serving real-time news and personalised content to students.
Engineered a unified API layer with a non-blocking request architecture to handle thousands of simultaneous connections.

Jun 2023 – Aug 2023

Remote

Velosimo

·Software Engineering Intern

Built a TypeScript-based JSON sanitation utility to automate data parsing and formatting, cutting developer prep time by 15%.

Leadership

Jun 2025 – Present

Santa Barbara, CA

ACM.Industry

·Technical Executive

Oversee technical strategy and code quality for student consulting teams delivering solutions to RTX, Turing, CrossnoKaye, and Unwrap AI.

Mar 2025 – Present

Santa Barbara, CA

UCSB New Venture Program

·New Venture Fellow

Ideating, building, and pitching a business plan and go-to-market strategy in a competitive, year-long entrepreneurial program.

Projects

Things I've built

Rhome

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Full-stack social recommendation platform built with Go and React Native. Scaled to 1,000+ active users and 3,000+ recommendations with a consistent 10% MoM growth rate.

GoReact NativeAWSDynamoDBS3

AI Document Summarizer — Custom Testing Framework

Custom Python testing framework for an AI summarizer using singleton + decorator-based design. Supports deterministic, exception-based, and non-deterministic test cases with a CLI-driven, CI/CD-ready test runner and JSON reporting.

PythonCLI ToolingSingleton PatternCI/CD

MenuMate

React Native app that cross-references restaurant menus with user dietary restrictions in real time, powered by Firebase for live data sync.

React NativeExpoNode.jsFirebase

Education

School

2024 - 2028

Santa Barbara, California

University of California, Santa Barbara

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science

GPA 3.92 / 4.00

Coursework

Object Oriented Design & ImplementationFoundations of Computer ScienceProblem Solving with Computers I & IIProbability & StatisticsVector Calculus with Applications

Skills

Technical toolkit

Languages

PythonJavaScriptTypeScriptC++JavaGoSwiftSQL

Frameworks

React.jsNext.jsReact NativeNode.jsDjangoGinNumPyScikit-Learn

Cloud & Infra

AWS LambdaEC2DynamoDBS3CognitoEventBridge

Tools

GitClaude CodeCursorWindsurf

Interests

Outside of code

Entrepreneurship

Piano

Hiking

Startups

System Design

Surfing