Franck Tshibala

Grew up in the Democratic Republic of Congo without reliable access to food, books, or education; no one in my family had gone to college or held a professional career. First in my family to graduate, driven by the chance to change that story. Now looking for the opportunity to build a professional career and start a new tradition for my family.

Founder & Technical Support Lead at BookBridge (2025-06 – Present)

• Built and launched BookBridge solo, an AI platform that lets ESL students read real books at their own level by automatically simplifying text, narrating it aloud, and defining unfamiliar words instantly, reaching 259 active students across three schools with zero downtime over six months in production
• Built the full stack with React, Next.js, TypeScript, Node.js, and PostgreSQL, powering 170+ API endpoints
• Solved real-time audio-to-text synchronization for book narration by measuring actual audio duration instead of relying on the provider's estimated timestamps, achieving zero overlap and sub-250ms sentence-jump speed across large-scale books (3,600+ sentences)
• Built an instant tap-to-define dictionary that races Claude and OpenAI in parallel and returns whichever responds first, paired with multi-layer caching, delivering definitions in under 2 seconds with no added latency if either provider is slow
• Integrated 10 live third-party APIs, including Claude AI, OpenAI, Stripe, and ElevenLabs
• Own technical support end to end, responding to all user issues directly and turning feedback into shipped features

Web Application Developer (Academic Coursework) at Brigham Young University-Idaho (2024-01 – 2025-12)

• Built responsive web pages and applications using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript across four frontend and full-stack development courses
• Built and deployed a REST API backend using Node.js and MongoDB, implementing full CRUD operations, OAuth-protected routes, and automated unit tests
• Completed coursework in C# (.NET Software Development) and SQL (database design and queries), applying both in hands-on class projects

Custodial Lead at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (2025-08 – Present)

• Lead a team of 8, handling training, scheduling, and performance reviews
• Catch problems early and communicate clearly across all levels of a large organization
• Developed a recurring prayer and thought calendar scheduling system adopted across two workplace teams
• Authored HR documentation, including monthly performance summaries, evaluation notes, and year-end reviews, for all direct reports

B.S. in Software Development – Brigham Young University-Idaho (2024-01 – 2026-07)