Arif Shaikh

Mathematics Instructor

Mathnasium Waterloo

2026-08 - Present

Hired to teach Grades 5 through 12, including Grade 12 IB, after a 1.5-hour math competency test, an interview, and a trial teaching session - backed by an IB Diploma Math AA HL score of 6.

AI Intern

ReliablyME Inc.

2026-08 - Present

Contributing to a production Azure-to-AWS migration at a 10-person Toronto startup, running tests against migrated systems while working directly with the founder and co-founder. Refining LLM prompts to improve function efficiency, removing the need for a dedicated frontend and enabling the company's accountability tracker to run independently across desktop and mobile.

Founder

SkillProof

2026-02 - Present

Founded a pre-launch platform turning frontline retail performance data into verified, transferable skill profiles, after seeing coworkers' negotiation and troubleshooting skills go unrecorded on resumes. Validated the premise at Best Buy across 5-10 informal sessions translating colleagues' floor experience into resume language. Architected the platform around retail metrics employers already track (sales per hour, accessory attach rate, manager feedback), completing the schema design, written architecture, and first screens. Building on Firebase and AWS toward a December 2026 subscription launch, evaluating Node.js and Java for the backend.

President

Laurier Pakistani Students Association

2025-09 - Present

Elected President after a term as VP Corporate; leading 6 executives and restructuring an oversized executive team into essential functions for a 300-person community. Closed 4 external sponsors per semester at $500-$1,500 each alongside $1,000-$2,000 in university funding and in-kind vendor contributions, funding 6+ events for a 280+ member society.

Full-Stack Developer

SCOP.global

2026-08 - 2026-12

Authored a 40+ section product and architecture specification covering sitemap, design system, content model, and MVP acceptance criteria, used as the build brief for the entire project. Scoped, built, and deployed the public-facing site for an international professional society connecting Pakistani oncologists, using an AI-assisted workflow to compress build cycles.

Product Owner / Backend Developer

Hawks Path

2026-01 - 2026-05

Served as Product Owner and Backend Developer on an agile team building an academic advising platform with degree planners, dashboards, and alerting across 50+ simulated planning scenarios. Built an automated pipeline parsing raw academic records into structured advising briefs, converting transcript data into decision-ready summaries.

Co-Developer, Insurance Policy Management System

Wilfrid Laurier University

2026-01 - 2026-05

Co-designed a normalized insurance schema in 3NF and BCNF modeling 10+ entities including weak entities and multivalued attributes, evolving an EER diagram into the final ER model in MySQL Workbench. Wrote 20+ analytical SQL queries using correlated subqueries, window functions (RANK, ROW_NUMBER), HAVING clauses, and views, including ranking agents by claims volume per region. Recognized as the top project among 40+ teams in a 150-student course, with a public GitHub repo documenting the schema and ER diagram.

Geek Squad / Computer Solutions Advisor

Best Buy Canada

2025-08 - 2026-08

Generated $50K average monthly revenue across roughly 30 transactions weekly on a 15-hour schedule, peaking at $80K - ranking top part-time associate in store and top 50 in a district of 400+. Closed a $10,800 single-visit sale for a family of five new to Canada, scoping needs across 15+ devices then running carrier activations, data transfers, and Windows setup. Diagnosed and resolved Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android issues as the store's Geek Squad escalation point. Beat an 8% membership target with a 15% average (20% peak) attach rate, and processed 50+ carrier activations in peak months across Bell, Rogers, TELUS, Fido, and Koodo.

Full Stack Developer

StudyBuddyapp

2025-08 - 2026-07

Built and launched a study-matching web app for university students (React, Tailwind CSS, Firebase Authentication, Vercel), drawing 200+ unique visitors and 50+ authenticated sessions within 24 hours of public launch. Ran a two-week closed pilot with 30 users before exam season, surfacing image upload failures and a Stripe test-key misconfiguration ahead of launch. Integrated Stripe donations, Google authentication, real-time session sync on Firebase Realtime Database, and a user reporting system routing flags to an admin portal. Drove adoption through Reddit, Instagram, and the Laurier Snapchat network, producing recurring 50+ user spikes each exam season with no paid marketing.

Contract Software Developer

BooksBeyondWords

2024-01 - 2026-01

Won a $2,500 contract through cold outreach at a bookstore event, then delivered end-to-end as sole developer across storefront, checkout, inventory, and admin tooling. Integrated Stripe checkout supporting 100+ live transactions across a two-year maintenance window. Automated order processing, inventory reconciliation, and reporting using Shopify Flow and custom inventory scripts. Built an admin dashboard from custom code and Shopify admin extensions, replacing spreadsheet bookkeeping. Cut storefront load times roughly 35-40% by migrating a 100+ product catalog onto Shopify.

Co-Founder

Trishop Inc.

2023-01 - 2023-12

Co-founded an Apple reseller importing US and Canadian stock into Karachi on a three-way equal split, generating $15K USD annually at 15-20% margins while owning inventory and supplier relations. Sold 60+ new and 100+ used units to 120-250 customers through a 3,000-follower Instagram presence and Facebook Marketplace. Priced 10-15% under the local supplier network by timing US and Canadian seasonal sales, reaching new iPhone releases about a month ahead of local retail.