Building Reliable Systems Through Experience
Portrait of Shreya Wanisha. Courtesy Photo.
Shreya Wanisha, MS’26, software engineering systems, leveraged Northeastern’s co-op program to gain hands-on experience in large-scale backend development at Labcorp, where she worked on systems processing over 70 million healthcare records daily—experience that’s shaping her path toward cloud computing and distributed systems engineering.
Shreya Wanisha, MS’26, software engineering systems, has built her graduate experience around one of Northeastern’s most distinctive opportunities: the co-op program. Through hands-on industry work, Wanisha has translated advanced coursework and prior experience into real-world impact, strengthening her focus on backend and infrastructure engineering. She also serves as a teaching assistant for Enterprise Software Design and Web Development Tools & Methods, supporting students through mentoring, code reviews, and technical guidance.
Before enrolling at Northeastern, Wanisha earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and worked for nearly two years as a software developer at Thoughtworks. In that role, she focused on backend development and cloud technologies, gaining early exposure to professional software engineering environments. While this experience gave her a strong foundation, it also highlighted the complexity of building systems that operate reliably at scale. Motivated to deepen her understanding of system design and large-scale architecture, Wanisha pursued graduate study with a strong experiential learning component.
Wanisha in front of Labcorp building. Courtesy Photo.
That experiential focus became central during her co-op experience at Labcorp, a global healthcare company working with large volumes of critical data. Early in her first semester, Wanisha completed Northeastern’s ENCP course, which prepared her for the co-op search through structured guidance on resume development, interview preparation, and professional communication. With persistence and continuous refinement of her application materials, she secured a backend developer co-op at Labcorp.
At Labcorp, Wanisha worked on large-scale healthcare data processing systems responsible for handling more than 70 million records each day. The scope and responsibility of this work introduced her to production-level challenges that extended well beyond academic settings. She contributed to building and maintaining robust data pipelines, supporting AWS-based infrastructure, and ensuring code reliability through comprehensive testing practices. Working on systems at this scale required careful attention to performance, fault tolerance, and maintainability—skills that became central to her growth as a software engineer.
Wanisha credits her Northeastern coursework with preparing her to succeed in this environment. Courses such as Object-Oriented Design and Web Development and User Experience Engineering strengthened her understanding of clean code, design principles, and system organization, allowing her to contribute effectively from the start of her co-op. The collaborative, project-based structure of the program closely mirrored workplace dynamics, helping her refine her communication skills and work productively within a team.
Beyond her co-op responsibilities, Wanisha continued to apply these skills through academic projects that emphasized real-world problem solving. One standout example is ParkBnB, a smart parking reservation platform designed to address urban parking challenges. The project allowed users to list unused parking spaces and enabled drivers to find and reserve nearby options through features such as geolocation-based search, secure payments, and a review system. The experience reinforced the importance of planning, collaboration, and scalable design—lessons directly connected to her co-op work.
Looking ahead, Wanisha plans to pursue backend and infrastructure engineering roles where she can continue working on complex, high-impact systems. She is particularly interested in cloud computing and distributed systems and hopes to contribute to products that operate at a meaningful scale. Reflecting on her experience, Wanisha sees Northeastern’s co-op program as a defining part of her graduate journey, providing the real-world exposure and confidence needed to move forward in her software engineering career.