đź‘‹ Meet Arfan
Hey there! I'm Md Arfan Uddin, and I'm excited you've found your way here.
I'm currently a Ph.D. student in Software Engineering at the University of Arizona. My research lies at the intersection of AI and microservices, focusing on using Large Language Models (LLMs) to improve Root Cause Analysis (RCA) in distributed systems. Imagine systems that can automatically analyze logs and traces to tell you what went wrong and how to fix it—this is the future I'm building toward.
This isn't just theory for me. My work has been published in the Journal of Systems and Software and presented at IEEE conferences (SOSE, CLOSER), and I was honored as 1st runner-up at the IEEE CISOSE Student Research Competition 2025. If you're curious, I unpack several of these papers in plain language elsewhere on this blog.
But my journey didn't start in research labs.
From Code to Cloud to Research
With over 4 years of professional experience as a full-stack and mobile developer, I've worked across multiple domains—from research platforms to real-time apps. I led engineering for KMap, a campus-wide research visualization tool, where migrating the platform to Next.js drove a 6x jump in click-through rate. Today I build full-stack systems for the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), supporting 50,000+ participants worldwide, and earlier I co-created ScholarPaw, a scholarship management platform. I've always been passionate about building systems that don't just work—but scale, evolve, and empower.
Along the way, I've adopted tools like Next.js, Spring Boot, Kafka, Redis, and Supabase, and embraced principles of DevSecOps, microservice architecture, and automation. These experiences have deeply shaped how I approach both system design and research.
Building Connecto: From Frustration to Founding
In 2024, I founded Connecto—a real-time networking app built to solve a common but overlooked problem: people attending the same event often miss opportunities to meet others around them.
Connecto helps users find and connect with people nearby at events, meetups, or even coffee shops—all in real time. Whether you're looking to expand your network, meet fellow attendees, or simply find someone with shared interests, Connecto makes that happen effortlessly. It's a startup born out of personal frustration, refined by user feedback, and built for human connection in physical spaces.
The traction has been encouraging: Connecto was selected as the official check-in and identity platform for Hack Arizona 2026, was used at IEEE CISOSE 2025, and earned Startup Wildcats milestone funding.
BDStudents: Connecting Bangladeshi Students Worldwide
I'm also the founder and president of BDStudents—a global community platform on a mission to connect the Bangladeshi student diaspora. Studying far from home can be isolating, and finding your people on an unfamiliar campus is harder than it should be.
BDStudents bridges that gap. It has already reached 106 institutions across 71 cities and 17 countries, giving students a place to find their campus chapter, discover student clubs, share through a social feed, and learn from one another. Under the hood, it's a multi-tenant platform with role-based access for university chapters and clubs, and a two-layer organization model—ambassadors, club leaders, and moderators—so the community can govern itself at scale. It grew out of my own experience as an international student, and a belief that no one should have to navigate that journey alone.
That same instinct shows up offline, too: I served as interim president of the Bangladeshi Student Association at the University of Arizona, where a small team helped rebuild a demoralized 150-member chapter and grow election participation from a single nomination to 39.
Why This Blog Exists
This blog is a journal of my journey—part research log, part builder's notebook, and part personal reflection. You'll find posts on:
- 🚀 AI and LLM applications in software engineering
- 🧠Research insights on debugging microservices
- đź› Building scalable systems and side projects
- đź’Ľ Lessons from transitioning into tech entrepreneurship
- 🧑‍🏫 Life as a PhD + MBA student juggling research, coding, and startups
Let's Connect
If you're a fellow researcher, engineer, builder, or just someone curious—I'd love to connect. You can find me on LinkedIn, check out my GitHub, explore Connecto, or join the community at BDStudents.
Thanks for stopping by. Here's to learning, building, and making meaningful things together. đź’«