Guardian Life Insurance
Associate Software Engineer
Associate Software Engineer at Guardian Life Insurance since July 2026.
AVIKAR KHAKH / SOFTWARE ENGINEER
Avikar
Khakh.
Associate Software Engineer at Guardian Life Insurance and Technical Cofounder & Engineering Lead at Steward. I build iOS apps, backend systems, and web applications.
Explore my work01 /WORK
Current roles
Steward
Technical Cofounder & Engineering Lead
Credit-card rewards optimization
I co-founded Steward and architected its iOS app and backend from the ground up. Real-time merchant detection and rewards optimization help people choose the best card at checkout.
Now available on the App Store with 100+ downloads and a growing user base. We’ve secured investor funding and are closing additional investment to support continued growth.
SWIFT / PYTHON / FASTAPI / POSTGRESQL / TYPESCRIPT
01
The platformA SwiftUI app spanning wallets, trips, goals, and widgets, backed by FastAPI, PostgreSQL, and 30+ API endpoint groups.
02
Rewards & data pipelinesServer-side rewards ranking and automated pipelines that collect and normalize card, offer, and loyalty data—with freshness monitoring built in.
03
Engineering leadershipI lead 2 engineering interns through daily stand-ups, sprint planning, and agile workflows in Jira.
04
CI/CD infrastructureBuilt the CI/CD pipeline from the ground up, with GitHub rulesets enforcing PR reviews and an automated test gate on protected branches. Separate server, configuration, and iOS binary release paths let backend fixes ship independently of App Store review.
02 /EXPERIENCE & EDUCATION
Career timeline
Education, internships, and current roles.
Robotics leadership
Wake Forest University
Robotics Organization President
Grew a community of builders from 3 to 20+ members. Led hands-on robotics projects and helped turn the club’s work into a 1.5-credit course.
Software development internship
NYC Administration for Children’s Services
Software Development Intern
Built an AI-powered knowledge search system using Azure OpenAI and retrieval-augmented generation. Worked across Angular interfaces and backend APIs to make information easier to find.
Co-founding Steward
Steward
Technical Cofounder & Engineering Lead
Co-founded Steward and built its full-stack platform from the ground up. Launched on the App Store with 100+ downloads and a growing user base. Leading 2 engineering interns and continuing to develop the app and rewards engine.
Graduating from Wake Forest
Wake Forest University
B.S. Computer Science · Minor in Economics
Graduated with a foundation in algorithms, machine learning, and the economics behind decisions.
Joining Guardian
Guardian Life Insurance
Associate Software Engineer
Joined Guardian Life Insurance as an Associate Software Engineer in July 2026.
CURRENTLY AT GUARDIAN & STEWARD
03 /PROJECTS
Selected projects
04 /ABOUT
AVIKAR KHAKHWAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY · CLASS OF 2026
Background & skills
I’m a Wake Forest graduate with a B.S. in Computer Science and a minor in Economics. I like the space where technical systems meet human decisions.
My projects include credit-card recommendations, AI-powered knowledge search, portfolio optimization, and natural-language data queries.
I work across product development, system architecture, and implementation. At Steward, I also lead engineering interns and manage the release process.
MY WORKING TOOLKIT
Product & interfacesSwiftUI · React · TypeScript
Systems & dataPython · FastAPI · PostgreSQL
Intelligence & deliveryRAG · Applied ML · Docker · Git