Pedro Ochoa

About Me

A little about me

I am a Computer Science student at UC Berkeley with a strong interest in building products that sit at the intersection of software, design, and practical business value.

I enjoy working on projects that feel real — products that solve a problem, help people make decisions, or create a smoother user experience. I am especially drawn to early-stage environments where learning is fast and the work has visible impact.

Experience

Where I’ve worked

Founding Software Engineer — HazLab Services

Hayward, CA · Dec 2025 – Present

Built and deployed a production-grade website for a hazmat services company using Next.js, emphasizing performance, accessibility, and modern UI design.
Architected a backend request system with PostgreSQL and API routes to manage client submissions and operational data.
Developed an internal admin dashboard and integrated an AI-driven chemical assistant using structured data and retrieval workflows to support SDS-related queries.

Software Developer Intern — Sharpen Minds

Berkeley, CA · Aug 2025 – November 2025

Built NLP-driven features and graph-based representations to power a personalized recommendation system.
Developed knowledge graphs to uncover engagement patterns and guide early ML model design.
Conducted user interviews with Bay Area students to inform product direction and feature prioritization.

Blockchain & Software Developer Intern — Carbon Sustain

Berkeley, CA · Aug 2024 – June 2025

Built a payment system for Carbon Removal Units using Stripe for secure checkout and transaction handling.
Designed APIs and backend workflows with AWS to manage transaction data and system integrations.
Refactored UI components and resolved performance issues, improving usability and page load speed.

Undergraduate Researcher — Eviction Research Network

Berkeley, CA · Aug 2023 – Feb 2024

Conducted exploratory data analysis on census and policy data to identify eviction trends in Delaware.
Authored a published report presenting data-driven findings and policy insights.

My Expertise

What I focus on

Software Engineering

Building full-stack applications with modern frameworks, strong structure, and attention to maintainability.

Product Thinking

Approaching projects with the user in mind and designing with clarity, function, and long-term value.

AI & Technical Exploration

Exploring practical applications of AI, APIs, and systems that can power smarter products and workflows.

Portfolio

Recent Projects

Berkeley Course Navigator

Production-level RAG system over UC Berkeley's STEM course catalog combining a Neo4j prerequisite knowledge graph with hybrid semantic retrieval. Reverse engineered Berkeley's internal course API to ingest 946 courses and 799 prerequisite relationships, with a LangGraph multi-hop agent in development.

View Project