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Walter Shewmake

Walter Shewmake

I'm Walter, a Senior Product Engineer at beatBread. I build internal tools, customer-facing software, and the systems that support them.

I study philosophy at the University of Utah, alongside computer science and mathematics. My projects also explore AI, education, and reasoning.

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Building systems. Examining assumptions. Continuing to learn.

About

Walter Shewmake

At beatBread, my work spans product architecture, internal operations, customer-facing software, and developer infrastructure. I began programming at seven; the work I do now has grown through professional engineering, research, and building tools around people's needs.

I work across requirements, architecture, implementation, and delivery, with other engineers and the people who use the software.

I'm a philosophy major at the University of Utah, studying computer science and mathematics. After a spring 2026 semester at the Utah Asia Campus in South Korea, I'm back in Salt Lake City. Philosophy gives me room for sustained reading, writing, and questions that matter beyond preparing for a job.

I'm a product engineer and a philosophy student. I care about understanding difficult systems, making them useful, and taking responsibility for how they work.

Education
Work
Project

2026

project: LUCID · First place at mission:BRAIN

Global Neurosurgery Hackathon

June 19–21, 2026

Built the software system for our team's phone-based AI assistance prototype. Team: Walter Shewmake, David Ross, and Rodney Courtright; David developed the clinical decision logic.

Role: AI architecture and engineering

Outcome: Our three-person team won first place at the 2026 mission:BRAIN Global Neurosurgery Hackathon. We’re now developing the prototype and planning local adaptation. LUCID is not a clinically validated or deployed medical service; clinical review and evaluation planning are needed before pursuing a supervised pilot.

Read about the project →

project: Beyond Belief

RELS 3500 · Utah Asia Campus

Spring 2026 · Prepared for June 4 presentation

Completed a fieldwork and presentation project on how Buddhist monastics understand the value of their traditions for secular visitors, drawing on participation at Musangsa and an interview with Zen Master Tan Wol.

Role: Student researcher and presentation author

Outcome: Completed the fieldwork and presentation project in May 2026, connecting my study of philosophy and religion with experience in South Korea. Prepared the work for a June 4 presentation.

Read about the project →

2025

project: Dementia Simulator

Medical-humanities coursework · Unity

Fall 2025

Built a first-person educational interpretation exploring cognitive impairment and dependence on environmental cues.

Role: Developer

UnityC#

Outcome: An educational interpretation of cognitive impairment, rather than a clinically validated representation of living with dementia.

Read about the project →

project: OrthIQ at CalHacks

CalHacks 12.0

October 24–26, 2025 · Hackathon prototype

Led software and mobile-product work for a team prototype connecting wearable sensors with movement feedback.

OrthIQ prototype signal, repetition-detection, and movement-comparison graphs

Role: Software and mobile-product lead

React Native / ExpoTypeScriptNext.jsConvexPython

Outcome: Delivered a functional team hackathon prototype. The project demonstrates wearable/mobile integration, not clinical effectiveness or a deployed medical service.

Read about the project →

project: Argument Outliner

Interactive reasoning tool

Fall 2025

Built a browser editor for outlining arguments and premises with automatically updated references, local saving, and keyboard controls.

Role: Designer and developer

Next.jsReactTypeScriptTiptap / ProseMirror

Outcome: A usable connection between engineering and philosophy: a focused workspace for inspecting the structure of reasoning while writing. Available directly on this site.

Read about the project →

work: Senior Product Engineer

beatBread

August 2025–Present

Own significant architecture and implementation work across internal operations, customer-facing products, and developer infrastructure, collaborating with engineers and domain experts.

TypeScriptReactPostgreSQLAWStRPCCI/CD

education: University of Utah

University of Utah

Fall 2025–Present

Current study in Salt Lake City includes philosophy, computer science, and mathematics. My academic plan includes computer science and a mathematics minor; formal CS declaration depends on completing CS 2420.

2024

work: Co-Founder & CTO ·

Door-to-door sales software

May 2024–April 2025

Built and launched a React Native/Expo sales app, with responsibility for product architecture and delivery. Stepped away in April 2025.

LazyRep mobile interface showing a prospect map and heatmap

Role: Former Co-Founder & CTO

React Native / ExpoTypeScriptNext.jstRPCPostgreSQL

Outcome: Built and operated a sales product through its launch, owning the mobile application and its supporting systems. My involvement ended in April 2025.

Read about the project →

education: Third place · Advanced Division

Utah Tech University Annual Programming Contest

March 2024

Placed third in the advanced division as a team with Colby Starr.

work: AI Research Intern

Utah Tech University

January–August 2024

Implemented hierarchical classification using vector embeddings and similarity search, with an API, taxonomy import pipeline, and performance profiling.

Project artifact showing a vector-field projection in a development workspace

Role: AI Research Intern

PythonFastAPIPostgreSQL / pgvectorOpenAI embeddingsAWS Elastic Beanstalk and RDS

Outcome: The project README documents a historical peak of 49.5 requests per second using seven t3.micro application instances and text-embedding-3-large. The repository includes profiling results and classification analysis alongside the implementation.

Read about the project →GitHub →

work: Product Engineer

beatBread

January 2024–August 2025

Took on product engineering responsibilities across internal tools and customer-facing systems.

2023

work: Joined beatBread

Intern → Technology Associate / contract work

January–December 2023

Joined as an intern in January; continued in an associate/contract capacity later in 2023 before becoming Product Engineer in January 2024.

  1. Technology Intern

    January–May 2023

  2. Technology Associate

    May 2023–January 2024

2022

education: Second place · Industry Division

November 2022

Our team placed second in the industry division of the programming competition.

2021

project:

Biology coursework · Unity

Earlier biology coursework

Built an interactive 3D cell model for a classroom project.

Role: Developer

UnityC#3D modeling

Outcome: Created for a classroom demonstration, applying software development to learning biology.

Read about the project →

Projects

Selected work spanning AI systems, mobile architecture, and tools for learning

LUCID

Emergency medical AI for low- and middle-income countries

AI architecture and engineering

Functional prototype · In development

June 2026–present

Global HealthAccessibility

LazyRep

Mobile software for door-to-door sales teams

Former Co-Founder & CTO

Past startup work · App launched during my tenure

May 2024–April 2025

React NativeTypeScriptProduct delivery

Argument Outliner

A working editor for making the structure of an argument visible

Designer and developer

Working tool on this site

Fall 2025

ReasoningTypeScriptReact
More projects

Beyond Belief

The Value of Buddhist Traditions for Secular Visitors of Templestay Programs

Student researcher and presentation author

Completed fieldwork and presentation project

Spring 2026 · Prepared for June 4 presentation

PhilosophyFieldworkKorea

OrthIQ

Wearable sensors and software for movement feedback

Software and mobile-product lead

CalHacks prototype

October 24–26, 2025

React NativeHardware integrationHackathon

Dementia Simulator

An educational interpretation of cognitive impairment and environmental cues

Developer

Medical-humanities coursework

Fall 2025

UnityEducationInteractive narrative

Shewmake Design

Custom websites and platforms built around client needs

Founder and developer

Freelance portfolio

Client work from March 2022

Web developmentClient workE-commerce

ScoreFiller

Classroom assessment and reporting for teachers

Developer

Historical school deployment

Earlier educational software

EducationData managementReporting

Interactive Cell Explorer

A 3D cell model for biology coursework

Developer

Educational experiment

Earlier biology coursework

Education3D visualizationUnity

Testimonials

From colleagues and mentors

"Walter's ability to advance our products using state‑of‑the‑art technology is truly distinctive."

JH
CTO at the time of the testimonial, beatBread

"He led our team from ideation to execution and set a new benchmark for innovation."

Justin Bush
Justin Bush
CEO at the time of the testimonial, Vessium
View Justin Bush on LinkedIn

"Walter's reputation reached me before I met him."

Mike Hassler
Mike Hassler
Work‑Based Learning Mentor,
View Mike Hassler on LinkedIn

"Out of 3,000 students I've taught over 17 years, Walter ranks #1 across all STEM abilities."

Nicholas Lang, M.Ed.
Nicholas Lang, M.Ed.
Biology Faculty, Snow Canyon High School
View Nicholas Lang, M.Ed. on LinkedIn

"Rarely do you come across a student with so much drive and love for computer science."

Helene Morse
Helene Morse
CTE Coordinator,
View Helene Morse on LinkedIn

"The impact of Walter's software helped our school reach the needs of hundreds of students. He simplified complex systems so they ran efficiently and displayed data teachers could act on."

MD
Reading Interventionist Teacher,

Skills

Technical expertise organized by category