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alfonsovegasol.comAsk Alfonso

About

I like building intelligent systems that people actually use.

I'm a Computer Science student at the University of Washington's Paul G. Allen School, specializing in AI and machine learning. I've won 1st place at HackMX's Liverpool AI Challenge and Atrato's Financial Hackathon with products built on computer vision, LLMs and embeddings, and I founded Answr and ZapTap, where I ship real software to real customers.

Based in
Seattle Area, WA
Languages
Spanish (native) · English (fluent) · German (basic)
Focus
Machine Learning · Deep Learning · Neural Networks

Experience

  1. Late 2025 — Present

    Bellevue, WA

    Founder & Software Engineer · Answr

    • Built an AI voice and SMS agent that answers missed calls, cutting first-response time from hours to under 30 seconds and recovering leads that were previously lost.
    • Architected an event-driven automation stack on n8n, Supabase and the Claude API, orchestrating 20+ webhook-triggered workflows across lead capture, qualification, booking and follow-up.
    • Engineered a structured-JSON prompting layer with input sanitization and a post-booking state lock, eliminating malformed responses and duplicate outreach.
    • Designed and deployed the client-facing site and interactive demo in Next.js on Vercel, plus a two-tier plan architecture and a repeatable onboarding checklist.

    Claude API · n8n · Supabase · Next.js · Vercel · GoHighLevel · Airtable

    Case study →

  2. Aug 2026 — Present

    Founder · ZapTap

    • Built the full e-commerce site in Next.js 16 (App Router), TypeScript and Tailwind CSS v4, deployed on Vercel.
    • Implemented a React Context + localStorage cart with WhatsApp-based checkout.
    • Designed a direct-response landing page where the section order is the persuasion sequence.

    Next.js · TypeScript · Tailwind CSS · React · Vercel

    Case study →

  3. Aug 2023 — Jan 2024

    Software Engineer · SAMLA

    • Built a financial platform with ASP.NET Core MVC and SQL Server: inventory tracking, profit analysis, break-even and ROI/ROCE dashboards.
    • Integrated secure payments with Stripe and user authentication with role management.

    C# · ASP.NET Core MVC · SQL Server · Stripe

    Case study →

Education

University of Washington — Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering

B.S. Computer Science

Expected June 2028

  • Transferred in Autumn 2026 with credits from Tecnológico de Monterrey and Bellevue College
Relevant coursework

Data Structures & Parallelism · Hardware/Software Interface · Foundations of Computing · Systems Programming · Software Design & Implementation

Bellevue College

AI/ML coursework (non-degree)

2025 — 2026

  • ThinkCity 2026 Community Impact Award
  • Presented “Can AI Spot a Lie?” at Making Learning Visible (Dec 2025)
Relevant coursework

Machine Learning · Supervised & Unsupervised Learning · Optimization · AI for Business

Tecnológico de Monterrey

B.S. Computer Science and Technology (2 years, transferred)

Aug 2023 — Jun 2025 · GPA 4.0

  • Academic Talent Scholarship
  • 1st place at HackMX VI and the Atrato Financial Hackathon
Relevant coursework

Data Structures and Algorithms · Operating Systems · Computer Networks · Databases · Computer Architecture · Object-Oriented Programming · Machine Learning

Awards & recognition

  • Community Impact Award · 2026

    ThinkCity 2026 Smart City Hackathon

    Bellevue College

    Awarded for SkySAR, an AI-powered drone-swarm concept for search and rescue, built by an interdisciplinary, international team.

    SkySAR case study →

  • Presenter · 2025

    Making Learning Visible

    Bellevue College · RISE Learning Institute

    Presented “Can AI Spot a Lie?”, my fake-news classifier, at the college-wide showcase.

    Can AI Spot a Lie? case study →

  • 1st Place · 2025

    El Puerto de Liverpool AI Challenge

    Tecnológico de Monterrey

    Won 1st place out of 100+ competing teams with IdentifEye, a visual product search that matches customer photos to Liverpool's catalog.

    IdentifEye case study →

  • 1st Place · 2024

    Atrato Financial Hackathon

    Atrato

    Won 1st place with FinanceAI, an AI assistant for financial products with expert matching and embedding-based cost optimization.

    FinanceAI case study →

Skills

Every skill links to the projects where I used it.

Machine Learning & Deep Learning

LLM Applications

Full-Stack Development

Cloud, Data & Automation

Languages

Hardware & Game Dev

Learning path

Each course fed the next project, all leading to a language model built from scratch.

  1. NOW

    Ask Alfonso: a transformer built from scratch → see the Lab

  2. Jan 2026 · Deep Learning Specialization

    Structuring Machine Learning Projects

    DeepLearning.AI · 90% · Verify

  3. Dec 2025 · Deep Learning Specialization

    Improving Deep Neural Networks: Hyperparameter Tuning, Regularization and Optimization

    DeepLearning.AI · 96% · Verify

  4. Nov 2025 · Deep Learning Specialization

    Neural Networks and Deep Learning

    DeepLearning.AI · 98% · Verify

  5. Oct 2025 · Machine Learning Specialization

    Machine Learning Specialization

    Stanford University & DeepLearning.AI · 100% · Verify

  6. Oct 2025 · Machine Learning Specialization

    Unsupervised Learning, Recommenders, Reinforcement Learning

    Stanford University & DeepLearning.AI · 100% · Verify

  7. Sep 2025

    Mathematics for Machine Learning: Linear Algebra

    Imperial College London · Verify

  8. Machine Learning Specialization

    Advanced Learning Algorithms

    Stanford University & DeepLearning.AI · 100% · Verify

  9. Machine Learning Specialization

    Supervised Machine Learning: Regression and Classification

    Stanford University & DeepLearning.AI · 100%

  10. Completed

    Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python

    MITx (edX) · Verify