Nikolai Escondo

I'm a senior Computer Science student at GVSU also pursuing a Mathematics minor with a background serving in the U.S. Army. During my last year of service in 2023, I took a free Python programming course that sparked my passion for software development and set me on a new career path. Since then, I've been building experience through school, internships, research, and self study.

Currently, I work as an undergraduate student researcher, where I conduct computational evolutionary experiments to theorize and gather insight on evolution as a whole. In 2026, I interned at PlatinumEdge Solutions as a CET/software developer, where I created various 3D/2D models for customer products (worksurfaces, shelving, seating) and redesigned the UI/UX of 9 different company product lines in the CM object-oriented programming language. During the semester, I worked as a junior software developer for GVSU's Blue Nucleus program, where I helped design and integrate the UI/UX of a mobile college-admissions mobile application, as well as remedy any workflow issues/bugs in React Native.

In 2025, I interned at Delta Dental of Michigan as a software developer, where I worked with Angular, TypeScript, and Java to develop and test in-house tools for management and configuration of customer-facing web applications. I was also a student mentor for the College of Computing at GVSU, where I helped computing students navigate their first semester by exposing them to campus resources and support, tutoring, and career path help/guidance.

I'm always open for conversation, whether that be professional opportunities, curiosity, or general talk - feel free to reach out!

Undergraduate Student Researcher at Grand Valley State University – College of Computing (2025-08 – Present)

• Published and presented a peer-reviewed research paper at the ALIFE 2026 conference.
• Utilized Bash scripts to automate thousands of simulations on GVSU's high-performance cluster.
• Created data visualizations of experimental results and findings via Tableau.

Software Development Intern at PlatinumEdge Solutions (2026-05 – 2026-08)

• Implemented functional 3D/2D models for customer products (worksurfaces, shelving, seating) using CM, a proprietary object-oriented programming language.
• Redesigned the UI/UX of 9 different company product lines to modern CET standards for enhanced visuals and customer interaction.
• Coordinated with developers, QA, and project leads to fulfill customer requests efficiently while maintaining high quality code standards.

Junior Software Developer at Grand Valley State University – Blue Nucleus (2026-01 – 2026-08)

• Integrated the UI/UX of a college-funded mobile application using React Native.
• Collaborated with a team of 3 student developers to design and integrate a college admissions mobile application for GVSU.

Software Development Intern at Delta Dental of Michigan (2025-08 – 2026-01)

• Implemented Angular components to streamline CRUD operations for product management tasks, reducing completion time by 83%.
• Integrated REST APIs to ensure secure and reliable data flow between front-end and back-end systems.
• Developed, tested, and shipped in-house tools to manage and configure customer-facing web-applications.

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Minor in Mathematics – Grand Valley State University (2023-08 – 2027-05)