// Hi, I'm Said Elhefny
Software Developer · Incoming CS Student · Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
const status = "open to junior software engineering roles";
I build reliable, efficient systems and desktop applications — from a multithreaded C++20 cross-exchange market-data scanner and a historical backtesting engine for crypto markets to a full project-management dashboard for freelancers. My work spans C++, Python, and Java, usually with a database underneath, a clean UI on top, and real attention paid to the details: concurrency, data persistence, error handling, and secure API integrations.
I finished high school in July 2026 and start a Computer Science degree at the University of Silicon Valley in 2027. Until then I'm building — currently Aegis, a local-first enterprise AI knowledge platform — working through Harvard's CS50x, and taking on freelance projects through Upwork.
// selected work
// Experience
experience.md
Upwork · Remote · Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Design and build custom desktop productivity tools and data utilities for clients, owning each project end-to-end — from scoping requirements through development, testing, and delivery. Work spans Python and Java, typically backed by a local SQLite database with a clean, maintainable UI layer on top.
- Independently manage the full project lifecycle: requirements, architecture, development, testing, and client communication
- Translate loosely-defined client briefs into scoped, working software
- Delivered production-quality desktop applications, several of which are now published as open-source references — see Projects
// Education
education.md
Incoming Computer Science student.
Harvard's introduction to computer science and programming — currently completing it alongside my own projects.
High School Diploma · Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Completed a college-preparatory curriculum with a strong focus on mathematics and computer science, graduating on July 12, 2026.
// Projects
a look at what I've shipped
A cross-exchange (Binance/Kraken) HFT arbitrage scanner written in C++20. Keeps live order books from multiple exchanges synchronized and detects spread opportunities in real time, behind a risk-gated execution engine.
- Real-time order book synchronization with checksum validation
- Multithreaded networking and concurrent event processing over WebSockets
- Cross-exchange spread detection with risk controls gating execution
- Binance execution verified live on testnet; Kraken execution unverified due to the lack of a Spot sandbox
A local-first enterprise AI knowledge platform. Employees ask questions over company documents and get grounded answers with citations, while access control is enforced before retrieval and before anything reaches the model.
- Designed so authorization happens before retrieval and context construction — the LLM never decides who can see what
- Hybrid semantic + lexical retrieval with evidence-linked citations, scored by a benchmark that separates retrieval, grounding, and security
- Built for local/on-prem models via Ollama, with a visible privacy mode and no silent cloud fallback
- Planned MCP interface that exposes the same permission layer to compatible AI clients
A desktop personal finance manager built with PyQt6, pandas, and matplotlib. Tracks income, expenses, savings, accounts, and categories through a live dashboard, plus a full suite of optional AI features backed by the OpenAI API.
- Multi-file CSV import, manual entry, and multi-account support
- Dashboard cards, income/expense trend chart, and expense distribution pie chart
- Editable savings goal tracking with chart export to PNG
- Optional AI insights, budget advice, fraud checks, chat, and category suggestions
- Autosave with session restore and automatic update checks
A system utility that silently organizes files in the background. Developed in Python with interactive configuration dialogs built using PyQt, it routes files to custom local or cloud destinations by type — controlled entirely from the Windows system tray.
- Watches multiple high-traffic folders at once, mapping categories to custom drives or cloud folders
- Recognizes and routes 10+ file categories, from images and documents to code, archives, and executables
- Smart System Scan auto-detects Windows/OneDrive folders, with chronological sub-sorting by year/month
- Windows registry checks for automatic startup persistence, for a seamless, install-and-forget experience
- Rotating error log handlers plus collision handling and safety nets to skip locked files
A cryptocurrency backtesting engine for evaluating trading strategies against historical market data. Pulls OHLCV candlestick data via ccxt, caches it locally in SQLite, and simulates a moving-average crossover strategy with realistic order execution.
- Realistic trade execution modeling — next-bar open fills, exchange fees, and slippage
- Advanced gap-detection that extrapolates the exchange's timestamp grid to catch missing candles without false positives
- Full trade ledger with equity curve charting and exportable JSON/CSV performance reports
- Fully configurable via CLI flags — symbol, timeframe, moving-average windows, starting cash, fees, and slippage
A comprehensive desktop application for managing freelance workflows end-to-end — clients, projects, time tracking, and invoicing. Built with Java and JavaFX, styled with AtlantaFX, with data persistence handled locally using SQLite and JDBC.
- Dashboard with monthly revenue, active projects, hours tracked, and a revenue trend chart
- Time Inbox: optional local window-activity tracking, reviewed and approved before it hits the billing ledger
- Invoice generation from unbilled hours, with paid-status tracking and PDF printing
- One-click Markdown project status reports and pipeline value projection
- Engineered a Javalin webhook endpoint with HMAC signature verification to securely process and validate backend transaction events
// Skills
skills.json
// Contact
contact.txt
if (you.areHiring()) { reachOut("said.m.n.w.o@gmail.com"); }