Nishkarsh Shah
SJSU · Bay Area

I like
figuring
things out.

I’m a San José State student working across data, systems, and real-world questions. I build projects to understand what the numbers are actually saying, then figure out what to do with them.

field notes / 01current state

Questions first.
Evidence next.

football market valueevaluated
e-commerce intelligencebuilding
career directionopen
keep looking closer
01 / selected work

Things I’ve
been testing.

Two projects at different stages. Both are less about presenting a perfect answer and more about making the reasoning visible.

case study · 01
01 / 02

What makes a footballer expensive?

I wanted to see whether football transfer values could be estimated with data I could actually explain. The study uses performance, appearance, transfer, and player data across seven leagues.

Models V1 to V4 · 7 leagues · MAE: €8.16M to €3.29M
Pythonpandasscikit-learnRandom Forest
Open the repository ↗
in progress · 02
decisions, not just dashboards
02 / 02

An e-commerce project that asks better questions.

A growing decision-intelligence project combining relational data, SQL analysis, Python, Tableau, and future classification work.

99K orders · 112K items · built around decisions, not just dashboards
PostgreSQLSQLPythonTableau
Follow the build ↗
2 active project threads1 documented case studyalways leaving room for the caveat
02 / experience

Alongside
school.

Peer Academic Success Coach

SJSU University Housing Services · Aug 2026 to present

One-on-one academic coaching, study planning, goal-setting, and support for student workshops.

Summer Conference Assistant

SJSU University Housing Services · May to Aug 2026

Guest operations, reservations, payments, StarRez, Excel, and maintaining accurate records across conference groups.

03 / how I work

The useful
part is the middle.

The clean result is usually the least interesting part. I want to understand what changed between the messy input and the conclusion.
01

Start with the question.
Before choosing a model or a chart, define what decision the work is supposed to support.

02

Make the data earn its place.
Clean, join, filter, and inspect the inputs before treating them as trustworthy.

03

Leave room for the caveat.
A useful result includes what worked, what did not, and what the analysis still cannot tell us.

Right now, I’m building toward stronger work in data, analytics, machine learning, and databases.
04 / context matters

A wider
starting point.

The work is technical, but the reason I care about building it is personal.

Coming to the United States as an international student has made me pay attention to how people learn, communicate, and find their footing in unfamiliar systems.

That perspective shows up in the way I work: I ask questions before reaching for answers, explain decisions clearly, and keep improving the parts that are not obvious at first.

What I bring
Adaptability, curiosity, and a practical point of view
What I’m building toward
Technical work that helps people make better decisions
05 / elsewhere

Beyond the
projects.

Some interests stay separate. Some end up influencing the work.

◌
the one I kept thinking about

Football

I love football, so building something around it felt pretty natural. I’m a strong Barça and Messi supporter, and that interest eventually led me to look at what actually drives a player’s market value.

♠
the one that keeps me honest

Poker

Probability, incomplete information, and decisions that make sense even when the outcome goes the other way. Useful habits outside the card table too.

♫
the one that keeps things moving

Music

For long work sessions, study breaks, and the background of ordinary days. A fairly consistent rotation of pop, alternative, and Hindi music.

Justin BieberColdplayThe ChainsmokersOne DirectionArijit Singh