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 |
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.
- Moved the numbers. Custom Tags at Motive (~18% fewer customer contact queries); CI/CD from 52 to 7.8 minutes; a returns redesign that cut daily support contacts 95%; a Zendesk-to-Zoho migration; CRM automation taking ticket handling.
- 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 · Tags: |
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 · Tags: |
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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 · Tags: |
Android app fusing computer vision with USB radar sensors for real-time object detection on device. Stack: Kotlin · TensorFlow Lite · USB radar sensors · Tags: |
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 |
| Where | What I did |
|---|---|
| Software Engineering Pod Lead (Contract) Remote Sep 2026 to Present |
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 to 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), and 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 (Dubai, UAE) Software Engineer I (SDE) Oct 2023 to Jan 2026 |
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. Was Part of Aftersale, 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: a Zoho CRM automation that cut ticket handling from ~7 minutes to ~30 seconds; contributed to the Zendesk-to-Zoho migration (~60% saved) and the SMS-to-WhatsApp migration (~70% cost cut). Also shipped Gemini content moderation, ML instant-refund eligibility |
| JiBe ERP (Lahore) Senior Software Engineer Jan 2023 to Oct 2023 |
ERP for the maritime and shipping industry: 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 (Lahore) Software Engineer, Full Stack Jun 2021 to Jan 2023 |
High-traffic APIs, search, and Kafka-based event streaming for Pakistan's largest automotive marketplace. Query optimization took page load from 1.2s to 200ms. Rails + React. |
| Ebryx (Lahore) Software Engineer, Cybersecurity May 2019 to Jun 2021 |
Secure cross-platform backend APIs (Python + C++14) for Invisily, a Zero Trust Network Access product — 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
SEO Keywords
- Backend Engineer, Tech Lead, Engineering Leadership, DevOps Engineer, Cloud Engineer, AI/ML Engineer, Blockchain Developer, Cybersecurity Engineer
- Full Stack Developer, Open Source Maintainer, Problem Solver, System Architect
- Leadership: technology strategy, engineering standards, cross-functional squad leadership, hiring and mentoring, delivery planning and estimation, client onboarding, technical pre-sales
- Languages: Python, Rust, Go, Ruby on Rails, C++, Java, Kotlin, JavaScript, TypeScript
- Frameworks: FastAPI, Django, Flask, Node.js, React, Next.js, Spring Boot
- Cloud: AWS, GCP, Azure, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, Jenkins, CI/CD
- Databases: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, ArangoDB, Elasticsearch
- Specialties: Microservices, Distributed Systems, Event Driven Architecture, Multi-tenant SaaS, System Design, Infrastructure as Code
- AI/ML: NLP, RAG Systems, LangChain, LlamaIndex, pgvector, HuggingFace, OpenAI, Gemini API, Agent Evaluation, Computer Vision, TensorFlow Lite, OpenCV
- Blockchain: Ethereum, Solidity, Smart Contracts, Hyperledger Fabric, Web3.js, DeFi, NFTs, DApps
- Cybersecurity: Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), Invisily, IAM, Audit Logging, Secure Backend Engineering
- Companies: Motive, noon / Namshi, JiBe ERP, PakWheels (#1 automotive classified in Pakistan), Ebryx (Cybersecurity)
- Education: BS Software Engineering, University of the Punjab, Lahore