Senior Python Backend Engineer (FinTech)

Zacary Phillips

Austin, TX · ****************@*******.***

737-***-**** · https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacary-p-6071a4449 PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

Senior Software Engineer with 12 years of experience building Python backend services for financial services, specializing in FastAPI, Django, Flask, Celery, Redis, and PostgreSQL. Experienced in scalable REST APIs, asynchronous processing, batch data pipelines, AWS deployments, and production reliability, with technical leadership of a seven-developer team.

WORK EXPERIENCE

Charles Schwab San Francisco, CA

Senior Software Engineer / Tech Lead Jan 10, 2022 – Sep 18, 2026

· Led the modernization of a digital payments and brokerage money movement platform using Python, Django, Django REST Framework, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, and AWS to support ACH transfers, wire payment instructions, internal cash movements, payment approvals, and transaction reconciliation across financial accounts.

· Developed Python/Django microservices using DDD, CQRS, and event-driven patterns for payment initiation, account validation, transfer authorization, execution tracking, and reconciliation.

· Designed RESTful payment APIs using Django REST Framework, FastAPI, Pydantic, and OpenAPI to validate accounts, initiate transfers, retrieve statuses, and connect brokerage systems with payment services.

· Developed full-stack operations dashboards using React and TypeScript, integrating payment APIs for transfer reviews, approval workflows, status monitoring, and exception investigations.

· Engineered ACH and wire transfer workflows using idempotency keys and SQLAlchemy-based reconciliation to match external confirmations, flag settlement exceptions, and prevent duplicate payment instructions.

· Optimized PostgreSQL performance through Django ORM tuning, execution plans, composite indexes, transaction isolation, connection pooling, and Redis caching, reducing payment history retrieval time by 30%.

· Implemented asynchronous payment processing using Kafka, Celery, RabbitMQ, and AWS SQS for transaction events, retries, and dead-letter handling, improving processing throughput by 25%.

· Designed financial data pipelines using Pandas, NumPy, Apache Airflow, AWS Glue, and Amazon S3 to process ACH files, wire records, account activity, and external payment feeds for reporting.

· Developed rule-based payment risk monitoring to identify duplicate transfers and unusual account activity, reducing manual fraud review time by 20%.

· Integrated AI-assisted operations using Amazon Bedrock, LangChain, and RAG to summarize transaction exceptions, retrieve operational policies, and support investigations with source references and human review.

· Integrated scikit-learn and XGBoost models into payment screening workflows to generate risk scores for ACH and wire transfers and flag suspicious activity for fraud investigation.

· Implemented payment security controls using OAuth 2.0, OIDC, JWT, RBAC, encryption, transaction limits, audit logging, and AWS IAM to protect financial data and restrict initiation and approvals.

· Deployed payment microservices using Docker, Kubernetes, AWS EKS, RDS, Lambda, Terraform, Helm, and GitHub Actions, automating infrastructure provisioning and CI/CD pipelines.

· Implemented observability and distributed tracing with OpenTelemetry, Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, and AWS CloudWatch to monitor services, diagnose incidents, and troubleshoot production issues.

· Implemented transaction search using Amazon OpenSearch Service to index payment records, surface reconciliation exceptions, and support investigations across high-volume transaction histories.

· Developed Power BI dashboards to visualize payment trends, reconciliation exceptions, and financial KPIs, supporting data-driven decisions for financial operations teams.

· Reviewed backend service changes for API validation, retry-safe processing, and transaction consistency as part of technical guidance and code reviews.

· Led a team of 7 developers, providing technical guidance, code reviews, and mentoring to ensure high-quality software delivery.

Capital One McLean, VA

Senior Software Engineer Jan 8, 2018 – Dec 17, 2021

· Developed and enhanced a digital banking transaction and account servicing platform using Python, Django, Django REST Framework, Flask, PostgreSQL, and Microsoft Azure to support customer account management, transaction histories, payment processing, and consumer banking workflows.

· Developed responsive banking dashboards using Angular, TypeScript, RxJS, HTML5, and CSS3, integrating banking APIs to support account management, payment activity, and transaction history views.

· Engineered transaction processing using Django ORM, idempotency keys, concurrency controls, and retry-safe operations to maintain data consistency and prevent duplicate payments during outages.

· Implemented asynchronous workflows using Celery, RabbitMQ, Redis, and Azure Service Bus for transaction alerts, scheduled payment checks, reconciliation, and integration retries without delaying banking services.

· Implemented payment security controls using OAuth 2.0, JWT, RBAC, API rate limiting, audit logging, and Azure Key Vault to protect financial data and enforce secure access across banking services.

· Containerized backend services using Docker and deployed them to Azure App Service, integrating Azure Database for PostgreSQL and Blob Storage for application data management.

· Deployed serverless components using Azure Functions and automated application builds and deployments through Azure DevOps CI/CD pipelines.

· Monitored production services using Azure Monitor, Application Insights, and structured logs to investigate transaction failures, integration issues, and performance bottlenecks alongside product, security, and QA teams.

· Built financial data validation and fraud-monitoring services using Pandas, SQL, and rule-based checks to identify unusual transactions and generate structured risk indicators for review teams. SS&C Technologies

Software Engineer Sep 22, 2014 – Dec 15, 2017

· Developed and maintained Python/Django backend components for financial services applications, implementing reusable business logic and database-driven functionality to support investment operations, financial records, and reporting workflows under established application architecture.

· Implemented RESTful APIs using Django REST Framework and Flask with validation, serialization, authentication, pagination, and structured error handling to integrate internal systems and financial data services.

· Collaborated on responsive UI components using AngularJS, JavaScript, jQuery, AJAX, HTML5, CSS3, and Bootstrap, integrating web interfaces with Django backend APIs.

· Implemented scheduled Celery, RabbitMQ, and Redis jobs for batch processing, financial data synchronization, automated notifications, and report generation under senior developer guidance.

· Developed unit, integration, and API tests with Python unittest, Django testing tools, Postman, and Selenium; assisted with bug fixes, regression testing, code reviews, and debugging. SKILLS

• Backend Development: Python, FastAPI, Django,

Django REST Framework, Flask

• Asynchronous Processing: Celery, Redis, Amazon

SQS, RabbitMQ, Kafka

• Databases: PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, Django ORM

• Cloud and Containers: AWS, Amazon RDS, Docker,

Kubernetes, AWS Lambda

• API Architecture: REST APIs, OpenAPI, Pydantic,

Event-driven architecture, Idempotency

• Testing and Delivery: Python unittest, Django testing tools, Postman, GitHub Actions, Terraform

• Observability: OpenTelemetry, Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, Amazon CloudWatch

EDUCATION

Texas Tech University

Bachelor of Science Computer Science

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