Sohaib
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~/sohaib · Kolkata, India

Sohaib Irfan

I build backend systems and AI applications in Python — and photograph the inside of video games.

§01 — about

I'm an MCA graduate who got hooked on the unglamorous parts of software: retrieval pipelines, schema design, the control loop inside an AI agent. I've built and deployed RAG systems and tool-using agents with FastAPI, PostgreSQL and pgvector — not from a framework, but from the ground up, because I wanted to know what was actually happening.

When I'm not working, I'm usually inside a game with the HUD switched off, hunting for a frame worth keeping. That habit has its own wing on this site.

§02 — selected projectspulled from GitHub, written by hand

MeowProof

2026

A Windows tray app that locks your keyboard before the cat does.

Every cat owner who works from home knows the failure mode: you step away, the cat finds the warm keyboard, and you come back to forty browser tabs and half a Slack message. MeowProof exists because that kept happening.

One click — or a hotkey — and the keyboard is locked by a low-level Windows hook, with a soft acrylic blur drawn over every monitor so it's obvious the machine is paw-proofed. The fun part is smart paw detection: it watches typing patterns across four signals (keystroke timing, key randomness, simultaneous presses, hold duration) and locks automatically when the 'typist' is clearly not human.

  • System-wide low-level keyboard hook with a global unlock chord that works even while locked
  • Heuristic cat-vs-human detection over four typing-pattern metrics
  • Per-monitor glassmorphism overlay via Windows compositor acrylic effects
  • Auto-unlocks on sleep or session lock so you can never lock yourself out
  • Ships as a single self-contained .exe — no installer, no runtime to fetch
MeowProof's main window over a pastel clouds wallpaper — a sleeping cat icon, 'Keyboard Unlocked', and a big Lock Keyboard button
C# 12 · .NET 8 · WPF · Win32 hooksVisit site ↗View source ↗

Distributed File System

2026

Private, end-to-end encrypted file sharing across your own group's machines.

This started as my MCA major project and refused to stay an assignment. The pitch is 'WhatsApp groups, but for file storage': a small invite-only group pools the disks they already own instead of renting a cloud bucket from a stranger.

Files are encrypted client-side with AES-256-GCM before they leave the device, split into chunks, and replicated across group members' machines. One member hosts a zero-knowledge coordinator that only ever sees metadata — never file contents, never keys. The README has an 'honest caveats' section, because a security project that doesn't state its limits is lying to you.

  • Client-side AES-256-GCM via the Web Crypto API — the coordinator can't read anything
  • Chunked storage with configurable replication for fault tolerance across nodes
  • Invite codes with expiry presets and one-time-use options for group control
  • Background transfers with progress tracking, previews, and desktop notifications
  • 205 commits of iterating on consistency trade-offs the CAP theorem warned me about
Architecture sketch: a zero-knowledge coordinator linked to four member nodes, each holding replicated encrypted chunks
Electron · React · Node.js · Socket.io · SQLite · Web CryptoVisit site ↗View source ↗
All projects (03) →

§03 — toolbox

AI / LLM

  • Retrieval-augmented generation
  • LLM APIs (Claude / OpenAI / Gemini)
  • Embeddings & vector search
  • AI agents & tool calling
  • Structured output generation
  • Prompt engineering

Backend

  • Python
  • FastAPI
  • REST API design
  • Pydantic
  • SQLAlchemy
  • JWT auth
  • Async programming

Data

  • PostgreSQL
  • pgvector
  • SQL & schema design
  • Indexing
  • Caching

Tools & concepts

  • Docker
  • Git & GitHub
  • pytest
  • Alembic
  • Distributed systems
  • System design
  • Java
  • JavaScript

§04 — the road here

  1. Now

    Open to work

    Looking for AI engineer / Python backend roles. Building in public on GitHub in the meantime.

  2. 2025–2026

    AI engineering, project by project

    Completed a structured, project-based AI engineering path: a version-aware RAG assistant (~90% top-3 retrieval accuracy, hallucinations cut from 6/20 to 1/20 on an eval set), and an autonomous research agent with a hand-rolled tool-calling loop.

  3. MCA

    Master of Computer Applications

    CGPA 8.19. Major project: a distributed file system with chunking, replication and AES-256-GCM encryption — which later grew into the desktop app below.

§05 — after hours · virtual photography

Same eye, different worlds.

HUD off, photo mode on. A growing collection of shots taken inside the games I keep coming back to — composed, graded, and hoarded like film negatives.

Enter the gallery →
Baldur's Gate 3 cover shot
Ghost of Tsushima cover shot
Red Dead Redemption 2 cover shot
Sohaib Irfan · Kolkata, India
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