My Story
My path as a software and cloud/DevOps engineer has taken me across the full range of building, deploying, and scaling production systems. I gained deep experience with cloud infrastructure during an internship at IUST's Cloud Computing Center, deploying and managing OpenStack environments for live research labs. From there, I moved into a Software Engineer role at IR Tourism Bank, where I designed microservices, optimized SQL at scale, and built CI/CD pipelines that teams actually relied on.
At SFU, my research pushed into cloud-native performance, specifically how to make immersive VR streaming viable over constrained networks. The result: a published system that cut bandwidth requirements by 56% without sacrificing visual quality. That work now appears in the ACM Multimedia Systems Conference proceedings (2026).
What drives me isn't any single technology. It's the problem. Whether it's cutting latency, rethinking a deployment pipeline, or making a distributed system resilient under load, I want to understand the constraints and build something that holds up. A big part of that has been infrastructure, designing systems that are not just functional but deployable, observable, and resilient at scale. The other part is the software itself, clean abstractions, well-designed APIs, and code that other engineers actually want to work with. I've worked across Java, Python, Spring Boot, AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform, and Docker, but I'm always more interested in why a system is designed a certain way than in the tool itself.
Honors & Awards
- 2022Full scholarship for thesis-based Master's program, SFU.
- 2020Ranked 4th out of 90 undergraduate students in Computer Engineering, IUST.
- 2017Selected as a primary ACM team member, Computer Engineering Department, IUST.
- 2016Ranked within the top 0.2% in the Iranian University Entrance Exam.
Teaching
Teaching Assistant, SFU
2023–2026- ·Data Communications & Networking (8 terms)
- ·Distributed & Cloud Systems
- ·Object Oriented Design in Java
- ·Discrete Math
- ·Programming Basics
Academic Tutor, SFU
2025- ·Object Oriented Design in Java (Centre for Accessible Learning)
Teaching Assistant, IUST
2017–2021- ·Software Engineering (3 terms)
- ·Embedded Systems
- ·Data Transmission
- ·Database
- ·Data Structure
Volunteer
- 2024Executive member of IEEE INFOCOM Conference on Computer Communications.
- 2023Executive member of ACM Multimedia Systems Conference.
- 2018Member of Scientific Association, Computer Engineering Dept., IUST.
- Researched bandwidth optimization techniques for cloud VR streaming.
- Built a deep learning pipeline in PyTorch combining stereo-aware colorization and super-resolution.
- Collected and curated a 4K stereo VR gaming dataset from popular titles for model training and evaluation.
- Reduced required bandwidth by 56% while maintaining visual quality and supporting real-time performance.
- Designed and developed backend services for a digital banking platform using Java and Spring Boot.
- Built database models and optimized SQL queries to support customer records and transaction workflows.
- Implemented REST and gRPC API integrations via an API gateway for scalable microservice communication.
- Designed and maintained CI/CD pipelines with Jenkins to streamline software delivery and DevOps practices.
- Configured and deployed OpenStack services (Nova, Neutron, Keystone) to deliver IaaS to research labs.
- Provisioned VMs and resolved critical infrastructure issues for students and researchers.
- Automated VM provisioning by preparing standardized cloud-ready OS images for Windows and Linux.
- Built backend services for ChillinWars, IUST's annual AI programming competition in Python.
- Developed socket-based game logic for a real-time two-player Pac-Man game.
- Implemented server-side communication to manage player actions, game state updates, and match results.
- Created a testing framework for competitors to run AI agents against other teams and built-in opponents.
M.Sc. Computer Science
Simon Fraser University (SFU)Thesis: iSR: Super-resolution for Immersive Cloud VR Gaming Platforms
Supervisor: Prof. Mohamed Hefeeda
Research Areas
Relevant Coursework
B.Sc. Computer Engineering
Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST)Thesis: Security and Performance-aware Virtual Machine Placement in Cloud Computing Centers
Supervisor: Dr. Mehrdad Ashtiani
Research Areas
Relevant Coursework
Communication
Translate technical complexity into clarity, whether in the classroom, a code review, or a research paper.
Problem Solving
Love tackling complex challenges and finding elegant solutions to technical problems.
Team Collaboration
Contributed to teams across banking software, academic research, and university teaching; used to environments where the work crosses disciplines and roles overlap.
Continuous Learner
Picked up new stacks, tools, and domains throughout my career; lately focused on how LLMs and AI are changing the way software is built.
Real-Time Super-Resolution for Cloud VR Gaming.
H. U. Rehman, G. Bakhtiariazad, and M. Hefeeda.
Manuscript in preparation
iSR: Super-resolution for Immersive Cloud VR Gaming Platforms.
G. Bakhtiariazad, H. U. Rehman, S. Shirmohammadi, I. Amer, and M. Hefeeda.
ACM Multimedia Systems Conference (MMSys), 2026.
10.1145/3793853.3795746A heuristic-based package-aware function scheduling approach for creating a trade-off between cold start time and cost in FaaS computing environments.
H. Ebrahimpour, M. Ashtiani, F. Bakhshi, and G. Bakhtiariazad.
The Journal of Supercomputing, July 2023.
10.1007/s11227-023-05128-zMoments worth keeping. Click any photo to explore the full story.
Web Summit 2026
Vancouver, BC, Canada
IEEE INFOCOM 2024
Vancouver, BC, Canada
ACM MMSys 2023
Vancouver, BC, Canada
NMSL Lab
Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC
Graduation, SFU
Burnaby, BC, Canada
Let's Get In Touch
I'm open to new opportunities in software engineering and cloud infrastructure.
Whether you have a role in mind, want to collaborate,
or just want to say hello, feel free to reach out.