Senior Backend Engineer & Tech Lead · Python, FastAPI, Go, Rails · Distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and applied AI
I build the backend layer products stand on — and lead the squads that ship it.
| 7+ years shipping backend systems |
$1.3M+ / month new vertical I led the tech for |
52 → 7.8 min CI/CD pipeline time |
95% fewer daily support contacts |
7-person squad led as tech lead |
53 merged pull requests across 11 upstream projects I don't own. Updated daily by a GitHub Action; each count links to the full list on GitHub.
I build the backend layer that products stand on — APIs, event-driven services, payment and finance workflows, and the infrastructure that keeps them observable and boring in production — and increasingly I lead the teams doing it. I've been a tech lead for cross-functional squads at noon / Namshi (Dubai), owned architecture and a team-wide restructuring on the Safety Event team at Motive, and I'm currently contracting as a software engineering pod lead, owning a pod's throughput, review standards and quality bar.
I came up through competitive programming (two ICPC Asia West Regional gold medals) and I still like problems where the right data structure or the right queue design is the whole answer. These days a lot of that energy goes into applied AI — LLM-backed product features, RAG pipelines, agent evaluation — and open-source tooling around FastAPI. I also founded PCPers, a competitive programming community in Pakistan.
Open to senior backend, platform, and engineering leadership roles — remote or relocation.
- Built a new revenue line. Led the technology for a Namshi instant-delivery vertical: integrated the Noon Food rider fleet and built a store platform for direct fashion-store deliveries, reaching $1.3M+ in monthly sales in its UAE pilot.
- Led teams and architecture. Tech lead for cross-functional squads at noon / Namshi (7-person Aftersales squad) and lead on the Safety Event team's monorepo-to-polyrepo restructuring at Motive — service boundaries, migration path, delivery planning, code quality, mentoring.
- Moved the numbers. Custom Tags at Motive (~18% fewer customer contact queries); CI/CD from 52 to 7.8 minutes; Aftersales automation at noon saving $1.2M+ per year; a returns redesign that cut daily support contacts 95%; a Zendesk-to-Zoho migration that saved ~$700K; and a Zoho CRM automation that took ticket handling from ~7 minutes to ~30 seconds.
- Applied AI in production. A generative-AI shopping assistant on the Gemini API (prototype to production, with prompt design, retrieval and safety controls); RAG pipelines on LangChain, LlamaIndex and pgvector; Gemini content moderation; ML instant-refund eligibility; and authored/QA'd agent evaluation tasks for frontier AI lab benchmarks.
- Open source. Maintain SoftTrack, an open-source issue tracker with outside contributors and a funded Open Collective.
| Area | What I reach for |
|---|---|
| Languages | Python · Go · TypeScript · Ruby · Rust · C/C++ · Kotlin/Java |
| Backend | FastAPI · Django · Flask · aiohttp · Ruby on Rails · Spring Boot · Node.js |
| Data & messaging | PostgreSQL · MySQL · Redis · MongoDB · Elasticsearch · ArangoDB · Kafka · RabbitMQ · Google Pub/Sub · AWS SQS |
| Cloud & DevOps | AWS (ECS, Lambda, RDS, S3, SQS, IAM) · GCP (BigQuery, Pub/Sub) · Kubernetes · Docker · Terraform · Ansible · GitHub Actions · Jenkins · GitLab CI |
| Observability | OpenTelemetry · Prometheus · Grafana · ELK |
| AI / ML | Gemini API · LangChain · LlamaIndex · pgvector · RAG pipelines · agent evaluation & benchmarking · HuggingFace · scikit-learn · OpenCV · TensorFlow Lite · custom agents |
| Frontend | React · Vite · Next.js · Orval (typed clients from OpenAPI) |
| Architecture | Event-driven & microservices · multi-tenant SaaS · sagas/outbox · idempotent consumers · rate limiting · caching · incident response |
| Also | Zero Trust / IAM (ZTNA) · OAuth 2.0 / JWT · Ethereum & Solidity · Hyperledger Fabric · Web3.js / Ethers.js |
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Open-source, self-hostable issue tracker inspired by Linear: teams, projects, a drag-and-drop kanban board, labels, comments, and filtering. Runs with one Stack: FastAPI · SQLModel · PostgreSQL/SQLite · JWT · React · Vite · TypeScript · Tailwind · TanStack Query · Orval |
Open-source, text-first interactive interview prep courses. Every few paragraphs you have to do something: answer, recall, predict what breaks. Courses are Markdown files, so anyone can fork or fix one via PR. Stack: Python · FastAPI · React · Markdown course format |
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An AI-powered, cross-platform operating system with a Rust kernel and a Flutter GUI. Targets PC (x86_64) and smartphones (ARM64), with local and server-backed AI for low-power devices. Stack: Rust · C · Flutter |
A modern learning management system for schools, colleges, and universities: role-based access, online classes, exams, and reporting. Stack: FastAPI · React/Next.js · PostgreSQL · Docker |
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Personal knowledge management with retrieval-augmented generation: AI-assisted querying and contextual search over your own notes. Stack: FastAPI · LangChain · pgvector · RAG |
Android app fusing computer vision with USB radar sensors for real-time object detection on device. Stack: Kotlin · TensorFlow Lite · USB radar sensors |
Small, production-shaped repos I use to show how I structure backend services.
| Repo | What it demonstrates |
|---|---|
| demo-multi-tenant-microservices | Multi-tenant, event-driven microservices: tenant-scoped auth, FastAPI, Celery, RabbitMQ, PostgreSQL |
| Health-Seeker-Backend | Healthcare workflow API with JWT auth, role-aware authorization, appointment automation, audit-friendly background jobs |
| Demo-Fastapi-Next-Celery-Project | Full-stack campaign scheduler: FastAPI + MySQL + Redis + Celery + Next.js, one-command Docker Compose |
| webhook-integration-demo | Production-style webhook receiver in FastAPI: HMAC-signed payload validation and safe downstream processing |
Software Engineering Pod Lead · Contract
Sep 2026 – Present · Remote
- Lead a pod of engineers on a client engagement, owning the pod's throughput, review standards, and quality bar for delivered work.
Motive · Senior Software Engineer, Safety Event Team
Jan 2026 – Aug 2026 · Fleet telematics for commercial fleets across North America
- Built and led the Custom Tags feature for safety events end to end (~18% fewer customer contact queries).
- Led the team's monorepo-to-polyrepo restructuring: service boundaries, migration path, cutover.
- Cut GitHub CI/CD time from 52 minutes to 7.8 minutes by sharding test runs and automating suites.
- Owned Rails/Python/Go services on MySQL and Redis across AWS and Kubernetes, with event-driven processing on SQS (dead-letter queues, idempotent consumers) and LLM-backed features on the Gemini API.
noon / Namshi · Software Engineer II (SDE-2) · Tech Lead
Oct 2023 – Jan 2026 · Dubai, UAE
- Led the tech for a new Namshi instant-delivery vertical: integrated the Noon Food rider fleet and built a store platform for direct fashion-store delivery, $1.3M+ in monthly sales in the UAE pilot.
- As Aftersales tech lead, ran a 7-person squad rebuilding the post-purchase journey (payments, refunds, cashback, returns) as event-driven FastAPI services, with sagas/outbox, idempotent consumers, and OpenTelemetry end to end: automation saved $1.2M+ per year and the returns redesign cut daily support contacts 95%.
- Built a Gemini-based shopping assistant (prototype to production) and a Zoho CRM automation that cut ticket handling from ~7 minutes to ~30 seconds.
- Contributed to the Zendesk-to-Zoho migration (~$700K saved) and the SMS-to-WhatsApp migration (~70% cost cut).
- Also shipped Gemini content moderation, ML instant-refund eligibility, and noon BNPL microservices (Spring Boot, Python, Go) on GCP (Pub/Sub, Kubernetes).
JiBe ERP · Senior Software Engineer
Jan 2023 – Oct 2023 · Lahore · ERP for the maritime and shipping industry
- Built finance modules (AR/AP, invoicing, reconciliation) on an event-driven backend (RabbitMQ, Dramatiq/Celery), breaking a monolith into modular services.
- Client-facing for external organizations: onboarding calls, requirements gathering, live troubleshooting.
PakWheels · Software Engineer, Full Stack
Jun 2021 – Jan 2023 · Lahore · Pakistan's largest automotive marketplace
- Built high-traffic APIs, search, and Kafka-based event streaming (Rails + React).
- Query optimization took page load from 1.2s to 200ms.
Ebryx · Software Engineer, Cybersecurity
May 2019 – Jun 2021 · Lahore
- Built secure cross-platform backend APIs (Python + C++14) for Invisily, a Zero Trust Network Access product.
- Covered IAM, threat-aware API design, layered rate limiting, audit logging, and encryption hardening.
- 🎓 BS Software Engineering — University of the Punjab, Lahore
- 🥇 ICPC Asia West Regional — two gold medals, plus multiple silvers across consecutive contests
- 🧑🤝🧑 Founder, PCPers: a competitive programming community in Pakistan
- 🛠️ Open source: building FastAPI-based tools in public (SoftTrack, Roundhouse) and working through issues in Python and C++ projects
- 🧠 Tinkering: OS internals in Rust, on-device AI, and anything with a queue in it
I'm always up for collaborations, open-source work, and interesting backend problems.
📫 wak327@gmail.com · 💼 LinkedIn · 🌍 waleedkhalid.me