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01Experience

Where
I've worked

From AI engineering at scale to founding products from scratch.

Jun. 2026 – Jul. 2026

Walnut Creek, CA

HBCU Innovation Challenge Fellow

Thurgood Marshall College Fund × CSAA Insurance Group × Guidewire
  • Won 1st place and a $10K prize among competing HBCU teams nationwide, pitching Scholar Shield — a scholarship protection insurance product — to CSAA Insurance Group and Guidewire executives as part of Team dreamZ
  • Selected as 1 of 12 HBCU students nationwide for TMCF's invite-only Innovation Challenge — an immersive insurtech venture sprint hosted on-site with CSAA and Guidewire in the Bay Area
  • Iterated the pitch through multiple rounds of live coach and executive feedback, carrying it from customer discovery through a Business Model Canvas and 10-section business plan (BP10) to the final judged pitch

May 2026 – Aug. 2026

Cary, NC

Technical Writing Intern, R&D DevOps

JMP Statistical Discovery (SAS Institute)
PythonPerlXML/DITAOxygen XMLPerforce
  • Engineered a Python automation script that reduced an estimated 2 to 3 months of manual technical writing effort to seconds, migrating 1,574 XML menu paths across 52 documentation files with zero failures as part of a FrameMaker-to-oXygen XML/DITA migration; featured in the JMP R&D Development Update
  • Built an XML/DITA element counter scanning 1,878+ files at a 99.7% parse rate; identified 550 DITA elements eligible for Oxygen UI cleanup, delivering a concrete migration roadmap
  • Designed scalable folder architecture separating BA and DOE environments with Perforce safe defaults, dry-run audit logging, and structured output isolation for cross-team QA review

Jan. 2026 – Present

Remote

Founder & Lead Developer

I Got Next
Next.jsTypeScriptReactFirebaseStripeGoogle Maps APIAirtable
  • Scaled a full-stack pickup basketball platform to 500+ active players and 120 courts across 3 cities; shipped 18 routes including player map, facility dashboard, admin panel, and public profiles
  • Engineered B2B Stripe pipeline targeting YMCAs and parks & rec departments with 3 facility pricing tiers ($199–$699/mo) and a $5.99/mo player Pro tier; integrated Airtable for facility lead capture and CRM
igotnextapp.vercel.app

Jan. 2026 – Present

Remote / Greensboro, NC

Founder | Web Development, AI Consulting & Workshops

Hicks Digital
  • Delivered AI literacy workshop to 30+ students (Boys 2 Men, Roanoke Rapids, May 2026); drafted GoHighLevel automation proposal for GROW nonprofit serving Halifax County
  • Executed 25+ cold outreach campaigns across 2 counties; secured paid brand partnerships and AI consulting engagements with local businesses
daylenhicks.com/services

Jul. 2026 – Present

Greensboro, NC

Resident Assistant

North Carolina A&T State University — Aggie Suites F
  • Incoming Resident Assistant responsible for well-being, academic success, and community development of residents in Aggie Suites F
  • Planned programming includes an AI & Career Readiness Workshop Series and monthly community-building events to support resident engagement and retention

Feb. 2026 – Present

Remote

LLM / Generative AI Engineer

Handshake
  • Benchmark output quality across 3 LLMs (Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT) using structured evaluation criteria, identifying performance gaps and selecting optimal models for production use cases
  • Perform RLHF-style feedback by rating and ranking hundreds of model responses; clean and curate training datasets to reduce noise and improve pipeline accuracy

Aug. 2024 – May 2025

Gaston, NC

Tech Leader & FRC Team Captain

Northampton County Schools
  • Chartered the school's inaugural FIRST Robotics Competition team (RoboJags), leading 10+ members to two Rookie All-Star awards, a state championship, and the FRC World Championship in Houston, TX; secured a NASA robotics grant and NC A&T sponsorship
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