I earned an Associate of Science in Mechanical Engineering degree from San Antonio College in 2021. My engineering education includes differential equations, physics, and 3D drafting. I have work experience as an ABO certified optician and lab technician, and also as a cell phone and electronic repair tech. Engineering projects include building electronic devices using an Arduino Uno open-source microcontroller board with sensors and modules.
ECONOMICS
A.A. Economics:
2022
I earned an Associate of Arts in Economics degree from San Antonio College in 2022. My economics education includes statistics, finance, and data analysis. I have several years of related experience in the insurance industry. My favorite economic projects include developing machine learning models using tools such as Python to create sales data predictions, and using supervised and unsupervised learning models such as logistic regression and clustering to analyze business data.
COMPUTER SCIENCE
B.S. Computer Science:
2025
I graduated from UTSA in Fall 2025 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science and a concentration in Software Engineering. I also study data science and cyber security. I'm a full-stack web developer and I build database driven, secure websites using AWS, Linux, NGINX, MySQL, and mobile applications using Android Studio, SQLite, and TensorFlow Lite for machine learning and artificial intelligence. Languages include C, C++, Java, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Python, Kotlin, etc.
ABOUT ME
Hi, my name is Chaz Ortiz, I graduated in Fall 2025 with a degree in computer science. I especially like to work on projects that have some kind of a positive impact. For example, some of the programs in my portfolio include a solar energy calculator, a cancer research data science project, and security projects to protect user data. I began programming in Fall 2021. I'm a member of the honor society, I made the dean's list Fall 2004 and the honor roll Spring 2005, and I graduated with a 3.89 GPA in my Software Engineering concentration.
I have over 7 years of work experience in the property and health insurance industry, including team leader, trainer, and subject matter expert roles. I also have work experience in mobile device and electronic repair, optics manufacturing, sales, and I even used to play guitar professionally in a band! I've held several professional licenses, including property and casualty insurance agent licenses in over 40 states, and an Optician's license certified by the American Board of Opticianry. I like to take into consideration my work experience when building software, in order to connect theory to practice. And my mechanical engineering background taught me about modes of failure, which I think about constantly when writing code.
I ventured outside of my work comfort zone by pursuing a degree in Computer Science, but besides programming, I've actually worked with computers my whole life. My grandfather was an early computer programmer for the U.S. Army working on huge mainframes that fill an entire room! My childhood hobby was playing video games online, where I first encountered exploits and hackers, so cybersecurity became important to me. As a teenager I would work with my stepdad's small business LAN networks, and my work experience in cell phone and electronic repair included unlocking, jailbreaking, and sim swapping, as well as soldering and repairing hardware. Later, I gained domain knowledge working in the insurance industry, and now I like to connect the dots between the business data, software, and hardware, to bring a unique perspective and contribution to a business.
DATA SCIENCE
Data science incorporates concepts from computer science, mathematics, and domain-specific knowledge in order to transform raw data into information, and can be used in any environment that allows the manipulation of data. A data scientist uses programming languages, APIs, and other tools to evaluate whether data, experiments, and evaluation are properly designed for a given problem.
I incorporate algorithms and their implementations, statistics, and data visualization while connecting them to software engineering by remaining flexible and utilizing strong computing skills. Programming languages I use for data science include Python, Java, C, C++, and SQL. I use libraries and tools such as NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib, Scikit-learn, and TensorFlow, which support data manipulation, machine learning, and visualization.
I work with algorithmic approaches including clustering, regression, classification, k-nearest neighbor, and machine learning techniques, and handle data frames and data processing, including data collection, cleaning, transformation, and analysis.
CYBERSECURITY
Cyber security professionals use principles of cyber security such as the CIA Triad: Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability in order to ensure the secrecy of data, protect the reliability and correctness of data, and ensure that authorized subjects are granted timely and uninterrupted access to data.
One of my favorite cybersecurity projects included conducting a full, professional cybersecurity assessment of a fictional small business which included an evaluation of policies and procedures, assessment of network security, assessment of physical systems, recovery and backups, identification of technical vulnerabilities, briefings, cybersecurity training, and potential mitigations.
As a software engineer, I apply security design principles, secure architecture, and security design patterns to my work, and I use secure testing methodologies like dynamic analysis using tools such as OWASP ZAP, and static analysis using tools such as SpotBugs in order to help protect sensitive information in computer systems.
COMPUTER SCIENCE
Database Design
This is a database that I designed and implemented as a project in my Database Systems class while earning my Computer Science degree. The design includes an entity-relationship diagram,
a schema written in SQL, and several example queries. I explain the use of bridge-entities to solve M:N relationships, normalization, cardinality, ordinality, and ideas for optimization.
Chaz's GitHub
Chaz's Linkedin