Hi, I’m Calvin Hickey

Let’s build things that help people.

I’m a software engineer working where product, design and engineering meet. I build React features for a platform thousands of University of Utah students use, and this summer I led the software for an AI-powered kitchen appliance in Lishui, China.

Open to full-time roles starting December 2026

See my work Get in touch
Salt Lake City, Utah

01 About

I care about the space between people and technology.

I’m finishing a B.S. in Software Development with a minor in Philosophy at the University of Utah, graduating in December 2026. I combine technical problem-solving with human-centered design: I like asking what a tool should feel like before I decide how it should work.

Lately that has meant leading a WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility audit, designing voice and screen interactions for an embedded device, and building a 3D way to browse books. I’m happiest on teams where design meets genuinely hard engineering.

Running my own drum studio for three and a half years taught me to explain things clearly and to adapt to how different people learn. I bring both to every team I join.

Calvin drumming at Blind Temptress’s first show under blue stage light
Blind Temptress First Show
Calvin in a blue helmet and harness on a via ferrata above a green mountain valley
via ferrata, China
Calvin in traditional Chinese costume reading a bamboo scroll at a wooden desk
cosplay in China
Calvin’s first photographer selfie: a black-and-white mirror shot behind a camera, its flash flaring
first photographer selfie

02 Experience

Where I’ve been building.

  1. –

    Lishui, Zhejiang, China

    Lead Software Engineering Intern

    Tianxi · Apecoo

    • Architected an event-driven Python control system using finite-state machines and a hardware abstraction layer for cross-platform embedded devices.
    • Led UX design for 11 embedded interface states, from startup through food scanning, cooking configuration and error handling, and shipped an end-to-end Picovoice voice interface with wake-word detection, intent recognition and session recovery.
    • Integrated vision-language models to scale cook programs automatically from photos of the food.
    • Built OpenClaw, a multi-agent system with human-approval safeguards that generates market intelligence.
    • Directed two interns, presented working prototypes to executive leadership, and wrote technical handoff documentation for PhD engineers.
    • Python
    • Finite-state machines
    • Picovoice
    • Vision-language models
    • Raspberry Pi
    • Multi-agent systems

  2. –Present

    Salt Lake City, Utah

    Software Developer & AI Training Specialist Intern

    University of Utah · A.I.I.

    • Develop full-stack features for UGuide, a React student guidance platform used by thousands of students on desktop and mobile, and maintain its regression test flows.
    • Created UGuide’s in-app feedback and bug-reporting system after spotting gaps in its spreadsheet and word-of-mouth issue tracking.
    • Led a full WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility audit: semantic HTML, ARIA labels and live regions, keyboard focus order, and contrast fixes.
    • Diagnose incorrect answers from the Swoop AI chatbot by tracing them back to the questions that trigger them, then correct and retrain its knowledge base.
    • React
    • JavaScript
    • Accessibility
    • Figma
    • Microsoft Clarity

  3. –

    Cottonwood Heights, Utah

    AI Product Documentation & QA Intern

    Enhanced AI · FluxPrompt

    • Documented every component of the FluxPrompt AI workflow toolkit, covering functionality, configuration and best practices.
    • Built end-to-end test flows to validate component compatibility, find bugs, and support front-end UI fixes.
    • QA
    • Technical writing
    • Front-end

03 Projects

Things I’ve made.

  1. UGuide homepage with three paths: Discover Yourself, Explore Programs and Browse Careers

    Student guidance platform · 2025–present

    UGuide

    A React platform that helps University of Utah students explore majors, programs and careers. I build features end to end, work with the design team in Figma, and integrated Lightcast and TefTalk data plus Microsoft Clarity analytics.

    • React
    • JavaScript
    • CSS
    • WCAG 2.1 AA

    Visit UGuide

  2. Book discovery app · 2026–present

    Hubble

    A reading app where you browse books by genre through Genre Nebula, a 3D space I designed and built with Three.js and expo-gl. I lead UX across navigation and screens, and helped design the Supabase schema that turns Google Books data into one unified book model. It runs on the web, Android and iOS.

    • React Native
    • Expo
    • Three.js
    • Supabase
    • NativeWind

    Visit Hubble

  3. Apecoo Roti-Tilla Pro, a countertop flatbread-making robot with a control panel

    Embedded software & voice UX · 2026

    Apecoo Roti-Tilla Pro

    The software side of an AI-powered kitchen appliance: an event-driven Python control system, a hands-free Picovoice voice interface, cook programs that scale from a photo of the food, and 11 on-device screen states I designed from startup to error recovery.

    • Python
    • Raspberry Pi
    • Picovoice
    • Vision-language models
    • UX design

More projects

  • Hackathon · 2026

    FOMO

    Led a four-person hackathon team building a community app for discovering local events. I integrated the Eventbrite and Google Places APIs and designed a plug-in pipeline so teammates could add their own web scrapers.

    • React Native
    • TypeScript
    • Supabase

  • Voice-to-SQL · 2025

    VoiceQuerySystem

    Ask a database a question out loud. Whisper transcribes it, a large language model turns it into SQL, and the interface shows the live transcript, the generated query and the results.

    • Python
    • Flask
    • JavaScript
    • Whisper
    • Hugging Face

04 Skills

Tools I reach for.

  • Languages

    Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Java, C#, C++, Kotlin, SQL, HTML, CSS

  • Frameworks

    React, React Native, Expo, Three.js, Django, Flask, Qt, pytest, Pandas

  • AI-assisted dev

    Multi-agent analysis, implementation, debugging, code review and PR workflows; parallel agent orchestration; Anthropic Claude API

  • Design

    Figma, design systems and tokens, WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility, voice interface design, Miro

  • Embedded

    Raspberry Pi, I2C/I2S/GPIO, Picovoice Porcupine and Rhino, audio DSP and beamforming, systemd

  • Infrastructure

    Git and GitHub, REST APIs, Linux and shell, cloud VPS deployment, CI, Supabase, SQLite

05 Now

What I’m up to right now.

Last updated

Studying
My final semester of Software Development at the University of Utah. I graduate in December.
Building
Hubble’s Genre Nebula, accessibility work on UGuide, and this site.
Playing
Dark Souls for the very first time. Praise the sun.
Back home
In Salt Lake City after a summer living and working in Lishui, China.
Looking for
Full-time software engineering roles starting December 2026.

06 Off the clock

Off the clock.

When I’m away from a keyboard, I’m usually trying something new. A few things I love:

  • Climbing & the outdoors

    Climbing, hiking, anything that gets me outside. Utah makes that easy.

  • Every sport

    If there’s a ball, a net or a scoreboard involved, I’m in.

  • Cooking & weird food

    Trying, and attempting to make, weird new food/snacks. My most recent masterpiece was a PB&J with cheese.

  • Trying new things

    My default answer to “want to try…?” is yes.

  • Travel

    Most recently a summer based in Lishui, China, and all over including places like Shanghai, Wenzhou, and Chongqing.

  • Photography

    Usually behind the camera instead of in front of it. See my photos.

  • People & community

    Meeting new people, community events, and going to free movie night every Monday at Brewvies!

  • Video games

    Just started Dark Souls 1. Learning patience one bonfire at a time.

  • Reading

    Always in the middle of a book. Currently reading The Design of Everyday Things and Veniss Underground.

  • Immersive worlds

    Meow Wolf and anything else that lets me walk around inside someone’s imagination. I recently went to the coolest escape room I have ever done called Himestu Station in SLC.

  • Helping people

    Weekly neighborhood cleanups, Bennion Center service projects, and tools that make someone’s day easier.

  • Drums

    I taught 40+ students ages 5 to 56 for the past 3 years and am currently studying myself under Kelly Wallis. Play a groove I wrote, or hear me play.

A groove I wrote

An original 16th-note groove from my drum studio days. Press play, then click any step (or use the arrow keys and space) to remix it.

Read it as drum notation 
HH |x-xx -x-- x-xx -xx-|
SN |-o-- o-oo -oo- oo-o|
BD |o-oo -o-- o--o -oo-|

Hi-hat (HH), snare (SN) and bass drum (BD). Each x or o is a hit and each dash is a rest, four 16th notes to a beat.

Got something worth building?

I’m looking for full-time software engineering roles starting December 2026, especially where design meets challenging engineering. If you have a position opening up or just want to talk about anything at all or go climb, hit me up!