COMPUTER ENGINEER · SOFTWARE, AI & HARDWARE

Jamil Khalaf.
Thoughtful systems.

I’m Jamil Khalaf, a computer engineer building across software, AI, and hardware. Turning ambitious ideas into things that work.

Explore my work

COMPUTER ENGINEERING·BYU·HARDWARE → SOFTWARE

A CONNECTED WAY OF THINKINGTAP TO RESHAPE

Curiosity → clarity → creation01 / 05

ACROSS THE WHOLE STACK

React

Python

AWS

Linux

FPGA

AI / ML

01 / SELECTED WORK

Built, from the ground up.

A few systems, experiments, and problems I’ve enjoyed solving.

All projects11

AI & intelligence01

Local RAG Over My Coursework

A fully local retrieval-augmented generation system over four years of BYU coursework — 24,778 chunks across 2,157 files, answered by an on-device LLM with citations.

Cloud & systems02

Multi-Node Kubernetes Cluster on AWS

A 2-node k3s cluster provisioned on AWS EC2 with Terraform, running a containerized URL shortener behind a load-balanced Service, with Prometheus and Grafana observability deployed via Helm.

Hardware & embedded03

Zynq-7000 SoC: FPGA + ARM Embedded System

Built a full hardware-software stack on a Zynq-7000 SoC — custom AXI peripherals in SystemVerilog, Linux kernel driver, and a userspace application.

AI & intelligence04

Task-Specific LLM Distillation (7B → 1.5B)

In progress — distilling a 7B teacher model into a 1.5B student specialized for backend debugging. Architecture and training pipeline designed; benchmarks pending.

02 / THE WAY I THINK

Curious by nature.
An engineer by practice.

I like understanding how things work, from signals on a circuit board to the systems people interact with. My background in computer engineering and computer science at Brigham Young University connects those worlds.

My work follows that curiosity: building local AI, deploying applications, and writing software that reaches all the way down to hardware.

A little more about me

Applied intelligence

From local knowledge retrieval to computer vision. Useful intelligence, thoughtfully engineered.

Python · RAG · Ollama · OpenCV

Software that scales

Full-stack applications and repeatable cloud infrastructure, built with operations in mind.

React · TypeScript · AWS · Kubernetes

Where code meets hardware

The whole path from digital logic and custom boards to kernel drivers and embedded applications.

SystemVerilog · FPGA · C · Embedded Linux

03 / GOOD THINGS START WITH A CONVERSATION

What should we build next?

A new idea, an interesting problem, or just a hello. I’d love to hear it.

Jamil Khalaf.Thoughtful systems.