My Journey to Google Summer of Code 2026

Fri, 01 May 2026 10:00:00 +0530

Introduction

I’m Prajwal, and this is the story of my journey from a small village in Karnataka to being a Google Summer of Code contributor with the Apache Software Foundation. This is not a tale of overnight success, but one of struggle, perseverance, and the transformative power of open source. I hope my story can guide and inspire students who are on a similar path.

Humble Beginnings and a Spark of Interest

I come from a small village called Kuppinakeri in Karnataka. My parents are farmers, and I grew up in a humble environment. After scoring 86% in my 10th grade in 2020, I got into Morarji Desai PU college, a government institution that provided free education. This was my first time living in a hostel. My elder brother, Guru Prasanna, who works at Morgan Stanley, has been my guiding light. On his advice, I chose PCMCs (Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Computer Science) over PCMB. It was here that my love for computer science, particularly C++, began to blossom, thanks to my supportive lecturer, Sanjay sir.

Employee Management System - A Microservices Architecture

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 10:00:00 +0530

The Employee Management System is a comprehensive, enterprise-grade application demonstrating a complete transition from a monolithic architecture to a distributed microservices system. As a cornerstone project in my portfolio, it showcases advanced backend development techniques and a deep understanding of modern cloud-native patterns.

This project serves as a practical guide to service decomposition, inter-service communication, centralized configuration, and robust security in a distributed environment.

Key Architectural Features

Service Decomposition: The system is broken down into independent, domain-driven microservices, each with its own database and logic.
- Employee Service: Manages core employee data and handles user authentication.
- Payroll Service: Processes detailed salary and payroll information.
- Leave Service: Manages employee leave requests and approvals.
Service Discovery: Utilizes Netflix Eureka as a service registry, allowing services to dynamically find and communicate with each other without hardcoded endpoints.
Centralized Entry Point: A Spring Cloud Gateway acts as the single entry point for all client requests. It is responsible for routing, load balancing, and cross-cutting concerns like security.
Decentralized Security: Security is enforced at the gateway level using Spring Security and JSON Web Tokens (JWT). The gateway validates tokens before forwarding requests to downstream services, ensuring the entire system is secure.

Core Technologies

Backend: Java 21, Spring Boot 3
Microservices: Spring Cloud Gateway, Netflix Eureka
Security: Spring Security 6, JWT (JSON Web Tokens)
Database: Spring Data MongoDB (for data persistence)
Build: Apache Maven