I'm Arya Swamy — a mechanical engineer and product developer from RPI, now headed to Carnegie Mellon's MIIPS program. I've always been the kind of person who took things apart to see how they worked, then tried to rebuild them better — which is basically still my job description. I sit at the table between design and engineering: comfortable sketching a concept, building the prototype myself, and speaking the language of the engineers who'll help take it further. Alongside my product work, I've spent two internships (Dell, Digital Realty) translating emerging technology and infrastructure trends into strategy — so I care as much about whether a product should exist as how it's built.

Good products come from fast prototypes and honest user feedback, not perfect first drafts. I default to building something rough, putting it in front of people, and letting what breaks tell me what to fix next — whether that's a fold that doesn't hold its shape or a mechanism no one can operate one-handed. I stay close enough to the engineering to make credible tradeoffs, without losing sight of the person who actually has to use the product.