Senior Python Backend Engineer (FastAPI/Celery)

James Little

Austin, TX *************@*******.*** 940-***-****

https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-l-8a295a448

Professional Summary

Senior Python engineer with 10 years of experience building backend systems for investment management and digital banking using FastAPI, Django, and Celery. Bring hands-on experience with financial data ingestion, asynchronous processing, Redis caching, and AWS deployments, with a focus on reliable APIs and well-tested services. Skills

• Backend Development: Python, FastAPI, Django,

Flask, Pydantic

• Asynchronous Processing: Celery, Amazon SQS,

RabbitMQ, Apache Kafka

• Databases and Caching: PostgreSQL, Redis,

SQLAlchemy, Django ORM

• Cloud and Infrastructure: AWS, Amazon ECS Fargate, Amazon RDS, Docker, Terraform

• Testing and Code Quality: pytest, Ruff, Black, mypy, PEP 8

• API Security: OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, JWT, RBAC

• Observability: OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana, AWS CloudWatch

• Data Processing: Pandas, NumPy, Apache Airflow,

AWS Glue, PySpark

Work Experience

Dimensional Fund Advisors Austin, TX

Senior Software Engineer / Tech Lead 01/2022 – 09/2026

· Led the design and modernization of an enterprise investment portfolio analytics and rebalancing platform using Python and Django, developing scalable backend services and financial data processing workflows to support portfolio performance analysis, investment exposure monitoring, asset allocation, portfolio valuations, investment rule validation, and automated rebalancing.

· Designed modular microservices using Domain-Driven Design, CQRS, and event-driven architecture, defining service boundaries for portfolio holdings, valuations, market data, investment rules, and rebalancing workflows.

· Engineered RESTful and GraphQL APIs using FastAPI, Django REST Framework, Graphene-Django, Pydantic, and SQLAlchemy, with schema validation, versioning, pagination, and OpenAPI documentation for investment data services.

· Developed investment dashboards using React, Next.js, TypeScript, Redux, Apollo Client, Storybook, and Sass/SCSS, delivering accessible interfaces for portfolio analysis, asset allocation, and rebalancing reviews.

· Engineered ETL pipelines using Pandas, NumPy, SciPy, Apache Airflow, PySpark, AWS Glue, and S3 to process market feeds, portfolio positions, and historical transactions for Snowflake and ClickHouse, reducing processing time by 25%.

· Optimized PostgreSQL performance using Django ORM tuning, execution-plan analysis, composite indexes, materialized views, partitioning, transaction isolation, and Redis caching, reducing portfolio analytics query latency by 20%.

· Implemented event-driven processing using Apache Kafka and Amazon SQS for market updates and investment events, with retries, dead-letter queues, and idempotency.

· Developed background workers using Celery and RabbitMQ for portfolio calculations, scheduled tasks, and batch processing, keeping long-running operations outside interactive API requests.

· Integrated AI-assisted investment research using OpenAI APIs, Anthropic APIs, and LangChain for document summarization, natural-language research queries, structured extraction, and analysis of approved financial research.

· Developed RAG workflows using LangGraph, Hugging Face embeddings, pgvector, and vector search, adding agent tool execution, source attribution, response validation, and human review for investment research.

· Engineered investment analytics and machine learning workflows using scikit-learn, XGBoost, PyTorch, and statistical models to detect anomalies, analyze portfolio datasets, and deliver validated insights through backend services.

· Implemented OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, JWT, RBAC, and TOTP authentication to secure financial APIs, protect sensitive investment data, and enforce access policies.

· Implemented rate limiting, audit logging, and AWS IAM controls to protect service access and maintain traceability of sensitive investment operations.

· Containerized backend services using Docker and Docker Compose, deploying on AWS ECS Fargate and EKS with RDS and Lambda.

· Automated infrastructure provisioning and application delivery through Terraform, Helm, Argo CD, and GitHub Actions.

· Implemented distributed tracing and monitoring using OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, Sentry, and AWS CloudWatch to diagnose service and pipeline failures, reducing mean time to resolution by 20%.

· Developed unit, integration, API, frontend, and performance tests using pytest, Factory Boy, Postman, React Testing Library, Playwright, and k6.

· Enforced code quality and PEP 8 conventions through automated checks using SonarQube, Black, Ruff, and mypy in CI pipelines.

· Led a team of 8 developers, overseeing code reviews, technical mentoring, and production troubleshooting while coordinating with investment researchers, portfolio managers, product owners, and QA engineers. Q2 Austin, TX

Senior Software Engineer 01/2019 – 12/2021

· Developed and maintained a digital banking transaction and account servicing platform using Python and Django to support customer account management, financial transactions, payment processing, and banking operations for financial institutions.

· Engineered RESTful banking APIs using Django REST Framework and Flask, adding serialization, versioning, pagination, request validation, and error handling to exchange account data, transaction records, and payment statuses with third-party systems.

· Developed Angular and TypeScript banking dashboards using RxJS, NgRx, Angular Router, and Sass/SCSS, delivering reusable account servicing, transaction history, and payment status interfaces.

· Implemented concurrency-safe payments using PostgreSQL transactions, row-level and advisory locks, and idempotency keys while tuning Django ORM queries, SQL indexes, connection pooling, and Redis caching. Softeq Houston, TX

Software Engineer 10/2016 – 12/2018

· Developed and maintained enterprise web application components using Python, Django, and Flask, implementing reusable backend modules, server-side business logic, and application functionality while following established development practices and coding standards.

· Implemented RESTful APIs using Django REST Framework, incorporating serializers, pagination, authentication, authorization, and request validation to support communication between frontend applications, backend services, and third-party integrations.

Education

Texas Tech University

Bachelor of Science Computer Science

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