Zhenhua Cao

Product-Minded Engineer in AI Era | Architect | Tool Builder | Software Engineer


Location

New Providence, NJ

Phone

908-376-9068

Expertise

Building AI-powered products that solve real user problems and drive business value.
01

AI-Powered Product Development

Leading the charge in integrating AI capabilities into products that deliver tangible value. Expertise in AI agent frameworks (CrewAI), conversational interfaces, and intelligent automation. Proven track record of building products that leverage AI to solve complex user problems, from automated order processing to creative generation and natural language interfaces.

02

Product Strategy & Innovation

Product-minded approach to engineering, balancing technical excellence with user needs and business objectives. Experience driving organizational AI transformation, evaluating and selecting vendors, and building products that become major revenue streams. Skynet became CertiK's second-largest revenue stream, demonstrating product-market fit and sustainable growth.

03

User-Centric Design & Development

Building products with exceptional user experiences, from creative editing platforms comparable to Adobe After Effects to conversational AI interfaces. Expertise in modern frontend frameworks, server-side rendering, and creating intuitive interfaces that enable users to accomplish complex tasks through natural language and visual interactions.

04

Full-Stack Product Engineering

End-to-end product development from conception to production. Expertise in Next.js, React, TypeScript, and modern web technologies. Proven ability to build scalable platforms that handle high traffic, integrate with third-party APIs, and deliver seamless user experiences across web and mobile platforms.

Experience

Building AI-powered products that transform businesses and delight users.
2024 – Present

XR Extreme Reach

Principal Architect

New York, NY, USA

Led product development and AI transformation initiatives that revolutionized how XR delivers value to clients:

  • AI Transformation Leadership - Championed organizational AI adoption, onboarding Cursor for engineers, establishing partnerships with Vercel and Vercel AI Gateway, and creating an AI agent interest group. Drove cultural shift toward AI-enhanced development and product innovation.
  • AI Order Processing Agent - Built an intelligent automation product using CrewAI multi-agent framework that processes diverse email order formats. The system extracts structured data from plaintext emails, PDFs, and Excel attachments, performs fuzzy entity matching, and automates order creation. This product eliminated manual bottlenecks and reduced processing time by over 90%, directly impacting operational efficiency and client satisfaction.
  • Design Lab Platform - Architected and developed a Next.js-based creative editing platform comparable to Adobe After Effects and Figma. Integrated AI capabilities for automated video, image, and voiceover generation. Built Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) engine that generates thousands of creative variations from product feeds, transforming manual production workflows into automated, scalable processes.
  • XR Chat Agent - Designed and implemented an AI-powered conversational interface integrated across Design Lab and XR platform. Enabled users to interactively refine designs, generate DCO delivery logic, and query reporting data through natural language. Built using Vercel AI SDK with advanced prompt engineering. Won Best Technical Innovation Award at XR Extreme Reach 2025 Hackathon, demonstrating product innovation excellence.
  • Social Delivery Platform - Architected comprehensive extension enabling clients to create, manage, and deploy social media campaigns directly from XR interface. Integrated with Meta, TikTok, and Snapchat APIs to automate creative delivery and campaign management, expanding XR's market reach and reducing time-to-market for clients.
2020 – 2024

Certified Kernel, LLC

Software Architect

New York, NY, USA

Led product development of CertiK Skynet, a Web3 security rating platform that became CertiK's second-largest revenue stream with high profit margins. Built products that demonstrated 4+ years of continuous growth and served as a model for scalable product development.

  • Frontend Product Modernization - Architected and executed migration to Next.js in early 2021, establishing CertiK as an early adopter of Vercel's platform. This strategic technology decision improved performance and developer experience, directly contributing to product success.
  • CMS Integration for Self-Service - Integrated Contentful CMS in late 2021, enabling self-service content management for business teams. This product feature decoupled content from code, reducing developer overhead by 40% and accelerating content updates from days to minutes, significantly improving product agility.
  • GraphQL API Gateway - Built high-performance GraphQL API gateway in early 2022, implementing sophisticated caching strategies as unified data access layer. Reduced API response times by 70% and eliminated redundant data fetching, directly improving user experience and product performance.
  • Product Scalability & Cost Optimization - Following successful launch of Skynet Quest in 2024 which brought massive traffic spike, implemented Cloudflare integration and multi-layer caching architecture. Architected self-hosted Next.js API cluster to handle high-volume traffic, reducing infrastructure costs by $50K+ annually while maintaining performance SLAs, demonstrating product economics expertise.
2015 – 2020

FreeWheel Media, Inc (A Comcast Company)

Principal Software Engineer

New York, NY, USA

Architected and led development of modulajs, a proprietary frontend framework with 97%+ test coverage that became the foundation for FreeWheel's flagship MRM product. This framework enabled consistent, maintainable product development across multiple teams.

Established FreeWheel's US Web engineering team from the ground up, building a high-performing unit that delivered multiple critical product initiatives, demonstrating product-focused team building.

Education

Continuous learning and professional development.
2023 – present

Georgia Institute of Technology

Master of Science in Cybersecurity (In Progress)

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Currently pursuing an Online Master of Science in Cybersecurity at Georgia Institute of Technology. The program provides comprehensive coverage of cybersecurity principles, risk management, secure system design, and emerging threats, complementing hands-on experience with formal academic foundation in security best practices.

2003 – 2007

Xiamen University

Bachelor of Computer Science

Xiamen, Fujian, China

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science with coursework in algorithms, data structures, software engineering, and systems design. This foundational education established the theoretical basis for a career focused on building scalable, reliable software systems.

Community Involvement

Using my technical skills to serve as a faithful humble servant.
2020 – Present

Rutgers Christian Community Church

Coworker

Volunteer

Created and maintain the Sunday school website for Rutgers Christian Community Church, providing an online platform for class management, registration, and resource sharing.

Developed and maintain the Quest for Life website and check-in/reporting system, enabling efficient participant registration, real-time attendance tracking, and comprehensive event reporting for the annual 1,000+ participant gospel camp.

2025

Quest for Life

Chairman

Volunteer Leadership

Served as Chairman for Quest for Life, an annual gospel camp event with over 1,000 participants. Led strategic planning, coordinated cross-functional volunteer teams, and oversaw end-to-end event execution including logistics, programming, and participant experience.

Responsibilities include budget management, vendor coordination, volunteer recruitment and training, program development, and ensuring seamless operations for large-scale community gatherings. This role demonstrates strong organizational leadership, stakeholder management, and ability to deliver complex events at scale.