Portrait of Asmaa Abdul-Amin, software engineer and founder of PantherByte
Asmaa Abdul-Amin Founder · Engineer
Profile

A real engineer, not a project manager.

I'm a software engineer with 2+ years of experience building production software, REST APIs, backend systems, and automation tools supporting NASA mission platforms at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. I work across the full software development lifecycle using Python, PHP, JavaScript, SQL, and cloud-native development practices.

At APL, I developed and maintained production web applications supporting 10+ active NASA and APL missions, engineered an automated ETL pipeline that converts requirements documents into a searchable, machine-readable knowledge base, and built database-driven administrative portals that let mission teams manage content without code changes. I've owned features end-to-end — from requirements gathering through deployment, maintenance, and iteration — often across multiple concurrent projects.

PantherByte is that same discipline, applied to the systems that run your business. When you hire me, you talk to the person writing the code. Nothing gets lost in translation.

Experience 2+ years production
Missions shipped 10+ NASA/APL
Based in Germantown, MD
Clearance Interim Secret (prior)

Technologies

Python PHP JavaScript React SQL HTML/CSS REST APIs Elasticsearch MySQL Bootstrap Linux Git Atlassian IBM DOORS Pandas TensorFlow Hugging Face OpenAI API Qiskit
Work with me GitHub
Experience

Building for NASA missions.

May 2024 – May 2026

Software Engineering Intern

Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory · Space Exploration Sector (SOF-2)

Developed and maintained production web applications supporting 10+ active NASA and APL missions. Engineered a Python automated ETL pipeline converting .reqIF/.XML to JSON for indexing into Elasticsearch, powering a requirements intelligence pipeline. Built database export tools, admin portals, and public-facing sites across a dozen mission platforms using PHP, JavaScript, MySQL, Bootstrap, and DataTables. Planned and built the JHUAPL Ice Giants mission website, and modernized legacy NASA applications by migrating archived data into APL databases.

March 2023 – May 2024

Undergraduate Research Intern

Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory · Research & Exploratory Development Department (R1N)

Deployed webpages for the NASA Dragonfly internal portal, streamlining access to mission resources. Developed machine learning models analyzing COVID-19 policies versus mortality to improve interpretability of public health data. Presented research at the NIST-PREP (Professional Research Experience Program) Showcase.

2021 – 2022

Freelancer

Developed the core skills behind my software development and data engineering work, and continue to extend them through self-directed study in machine learning, quantum computing, and DevOps.

ML/AI Algorithmic trading Quantitative finance
Education

In progress, with intent.

Expected December 2028

B.S. Data Science

University of Maryland Global Campus
Expected December 2026

A.A. Computer Science

Montgomery College
Certifications

Continuously learning.

JHU APL · 2025 Python Programming II
UChicago · 2024 Quantum Computing Systems Design I
IBM · 2023 Machine Learning with Python
Harvard · 2022 CS50 Intro to Computer Science

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