# Mert Uygur

> Staff Software Engineer in Ankara, Turkey. Building AI learning products at Udemy.

Staff Software Engineer with 9+ years of experience across full-stack product engineering and systems software. At Udemy, I led the AI Role Play microfrontend migration, shipped real-time voice and video-avatar features, expanded the containerized code-execution platform, and fixed a critical sandbox RCE. Earlier in my career, I built C++ and Java software for defense and avionics systems. I focus on maintainable systems, safe staged rollouts, and close collaboration with product, design, data, and ML teams.

## Links

- [Resume website](https://mertuygr.com/)
- [Resume PDF](https://mertuygr.com/mert-uygur-resume.pdf)
- [mertuygr@me.com](mailto:mertuygr@me.com)
- [github.com/mertuygr](https://github.com/mertuygr)
- [linkedin.com/in/mertuygur](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mertuygur/)

## Skills

- Languages: TypeScript, Python, Kotlin, Java, C++, SQL
- Frontend: React, Next.js, microfrontends, WebSockets
- Backend: Django, gRPC, Protocol Buffers, GraphQL, Kafka
- Cloud / Infrastructure: AWS, EKS, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Helm, ArgoCD
- Observability: Datadog, Sentry, structured logging
- Systems: Linux, RTOS, Boost, DDS, RS-232, JNI

## Experience

### Udemy — Staff Software Engineer (Nov 2022 – Present, Ankara, Turkey)

Technical contributor across AI Role Play, coding exercises, and Practice Tests on a learning platform serving nearly 84 million learners, partnering with product, design, data, ML, and platform teams to ship learner and instructor experiences, backend services, and runtime infrastructure.

#### Staff Software Engineer (Mar 2026 – Present)

- Led the AI Role Play learner UI microfrontend migration, defining module boundaries, integration contracts, and staged rollout strategy across the course-taking experience.
- Shipped production AI Role Play capabilities across TypeScript/React, Python/Django, Kotlin gRPC, and WebSocket services, including instructor publishing, org-level controls, multilingual support, analytics, and rollout telemetry.
- Built and hardened conversational and video-avatar flows with browser VAD, streaming STT, low-latency TTS, mic capture, audio framing, barge-in handling, session lifecycle handling, third-party token APIs, and Kubernetes/Helm configuration.

#### Senior Software Engineer (Nov 2022 – Mar 2026)

- Expanded Udemy's in-browser coding exercise platform to SQLite3, PostgreSQL, C++20, Java 21, and web development, extending its Django/GraphQL APIs and learner templates.
- Built isolated Docker evaluators on AWS EKS that run learner code under time limits, test it against instructor solutions, and return results over WebSockets, backed by Terraform/ECR pipelines and Kubernetes image pre-pulling for faster cold starts.
- Delivered AI-powered Practice Test experiences with generated answer explanations, content-hash caching to reduce duplicate LLM calls, result-review flows, and instructor workflow analytics.
- Fixed a critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in the code-evaluator sandbox, and improved reliability by compressing real-time Pusher payloads, migrating gRPC proto contracts, moving Python services to structured logging, and improving Sentry/Datadog signal quality.

### Bites — Senior Software Engineer (Apr 2020 – Oct 2022, Ankara, Turkey)

_Defense and aerospace software and simulation company, an ASELSAN subsidiary._

- Built telemetry and telecommand software in Java on the open-source YAMCS framework, controlling hardware and sharing its status with other system components over RS-232 serial and network protocols.
- Developed C++17/Linux software that dynamically loaded Simulink-generated missile model libraries for an air defense simulation, communicating with system components through an asynchronous Boost TCP server.
- Contributed to high-performance C++ radar adapter software using DDS, TCP, and Google Test, with automated Azure DevOps build, test, and release pipelines.

### Ayesas — Software Engineer (Dec 2016 – Apr 2020, Ankara, Turkey)

_Defense and aerospace systems company: C4ISR, avionics, and electromechanical systems._

- Built Java/OSGi control software for a frigate's decoy launchers on distributed Linux systems, including a C++ JNI wrapper and automated TeamCity builds.
- Developed the C++ communication component of Link 16 tactical data link software on Integrity RTOS and helped integrate it into the avionics system.
- Built C++/Qt automated regression-testing infrastructure for utility helicopter digital map software.

## Education

- Middle East Technical University — M.Sc. in Computer Engineering (2018 – 2021). Capstone project: automated classroom attendance using a single-board computer, a camera, and AI inference.
- Bilkent University — B.Sc. in Computer Engineering (2012 – 2016). Foundation in algorithms, systems programming, software engineering, and computer systems.