Open to 2026 roles Software Engineer · MS SE · Physics BS

Building systems that perform.

I'm Joe Hughes, a software engineer with a physics background. I build full-stack apps in React and .NET, and I like to know what's happening underneath them.

SYSTEM  ONLINE
ROLE     SWE CO-OP
ORG      CONSUMERS ENERGY
STATE    METRO DETROIT, MI
SCROLL
01About

A physicist's instinct,
applied to engineering.

I came to software from physics, and I still approach it like a physicist. I want to know why a system behaves the way it does before I change it.

At Michigan State I learned to break complex systems down to the rules that govern them. I carry that into my work: I'm a Software Engineer Co-op at Consumers Energy, building internal React and .NET applications with an Agile team. On my own time I build things like Tally, a voice-first nutrition tracker, and NHLe Rankings, a hockey prospect model.

I earned my M.S. in Software Engineering from DePaul in May 2026, with a focus on software architecture and UI/UX.

Off-screen, same theme: training for the Detroit Marathon, dialing in espresso, tending my plants and garden, and getting outside on the bike. Measure, adjust, repeat.

DesignationSoftware Engineer
Current roleSWE Co-op
OrganizationConsumers Energy
DegreeMS Software Eng · DePaul '26
FoundationBS Physics · MSU
BaseMetro Detroit, Michigan
StatusOpen to 2026 roles
02Selected Work

Things I've built
and measured.

IdxProjectDomainYear
001 Consumers Energy Internal Apps Enterprise / Full-stack 2026 — +

Internal tools built on a React front end and .NET back end over SQL Server. The Absence Request App moves employee absence management out of manual administrative processes; it is part of an internal app suite supporting 4,000+ users. PathFinder, built for the Consumers Energy intern challenge, is an expert-finder: React components and .NET services with search and discovery so employees can locate subject-matter experts and connections across the company.

SOFTWARE ENGINEER CO-OP · AGILE TEAM · AZURE DEVOPS CI/CD

React.NET / C#SQL ServerREST APIsAzure DevOps
002 Tally Product / Web + Mobile 2026 — +

A nutrition tracker built around fast logging: search, photo, barcode, or (fastest) voice. Describe a meal in detail ("1 cup of ice cream, 1 medium avocado, 100g 2% milk") and it estimates the macros, with community recipes and habit tracking against goals. React + Vite PWA, wrapped for Android with Capacitor; Vercel serverless functions run a provider-agnostic AI proxy (origin allowlist, rate limiting, token caps) and pull food data from USDA FoodData Central, FatSecret, and Open Food Facts. It started life as MacroTrack.

PERSONAL PRODUCT · ACTIVE BUILD · AI AS ACCELERATOR, NOT DEPENDENCY

Live ↗

ReactViteCapacitorVercel FunctionsLLM APIsUSDA / Open Food Facts
003 NHLe Rankings Sports Analytics / Data 2026 — +

Uses NHL equivalency (NHLe) to translate a prospect's stats in other leagues into expected NHL production. For example, 100 points in the SHL might be worth about 20 NHL points. That helps scouts judge NHL readiness and see which leagues develop talent. A Python data pipeline (pandas/NumPy) cleans prospect data, applies position-specific league adjustments, and calibrates them against historical draft outcomes; a Flask + SQLAlchemy REST API (Alembic migrations) serves rankings to a React front end deployed on Vercel.

PERSONAL PROJECT · DATA PIPELINE → API → WEB

Live ↗

Pythonpandas / NumPyFlaskSQLAlchemyReactVercel
004 DraftBoard Web / PWA 2026 — +

A free, customizable fantasy-football draft board. Paid sites lock editable cheat sheets behind subscriptions, and a spreadsheet means looking up every player by hand. DraftBoard pulls rankings and team data automatically and works offline: a keyboard-driven table on desktop, swipe-to-tag cards on mobile. Built with React and Tailwind, bundled with esbuild, with Node data scripts, a service worker, and tests.

SIDE PROJECT · IN PROGRESS · NO BACKEND

Live ↗ · Repo ↗

ReactTailwindesbuildNodeService WorkerPWA
005 EduSummarize Web / Team Project 2025 +

A web app that transcribes lecture videos and summarizes them. I was the team's Product Owner, Scrum Master, tester, and a developer, building backend services in FastAPI and front-end features in Next.js, plus test scripts and build, test, and deploy automation in GitHub Actions.

GRADUATE TEAM PROJECT · PO / SCRUM MASTER / DEV

PythonFastAPINext.jsJavaScriptGitHub Actions
03Approach

How I move
through a problem.

i
∇

Reduce to first principles

Before writing code I want the governing rules of the system — the constraints, the data shapes, the real bottleneck. Physics taught me to strip a problem to what actually drives it.

ii
∂

Build the measurable thing

I ship the smallest version that produces a number — a benchmark, a latency, a pass rate. Working software you can measure beats a perfect plan you can't.

iii
∑

Tune against the data

Then I iterate against what the numbers say, not what I assumed. Profile, adjust, re-measure. The same loop whether it's an API's response time or a marathon split.

04Toolkit

The instruments
I reach for.

Languages

  • C#.net
  • TypeScript / JavaScriptweb
  • Pythondata · apis
  • SQLsql server · mysql
  • Javaoop

Frameworks

  • Reactweb ui
  • .NETservices
  • FastAPI / Flaskpython apis
  • Next.js / Viteweb
  • Tailwindstyling

Platform & Ops

  • Azure DevOpsci/cd
  • Git / GitHub Actionsversion ctrl
  • Verceldeploys
  • Dockercontainers
  • SQL Serverdata
// 05 — CONTACT · OPEN TO 2026 OPPORTUNITIES

Let's build something
that performs.