Reliable Distributed Backend & Async Systems Engineer

Kitson Lee

Senior Software Engineer

Greater Seattle Area · ******.*******@*****.*** · 323-***-**** · linkedin.com/in/kitsonlee S UMMARY

Practical backend specialist with over 11 years of experience building distributed systems and high-throughput data pipelines. Focused on the intersection of algorithmic efficiency and operational reliability, with a habit of digging into low-level system behavior to resolve bottlenecks. Seeking a role where complex asynchronous workflows and scalable architecture are the primary challenges.

S K I L L S

Backend: Python, Django, FastAPI, Node.js, Java, Spring, Go, Ruby Asynchronous: Celery, asyncio, RabbitMQ, Kafka, Redis, Event-driven architecture Databases: PostgreSQL, MongoDB, DynamoDB, Cassandra, Redis, SQL optimization Cloud & Infra: AWS, GCP, Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, Serverless API & Networking: REST API, GraphQL, WebSockets, gRPC, API Gateway, OAuth2 Observability & Quality: Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack, pytest, Playwright, Datadog Tools & Delivery: CI/CD, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Trunk-based development, Git, Cursor E X P E R I E N C E

Alaska Airlines — Senior Software Engineer June 2021 – Present · Greater Seattle Area PROJECT Flyways AI Route Optimization

• Architected high-throughput data pipelines using Python and Kafka to process real-time flight telemetry, ensuring strictly ordered event delivery for route optimization engines.

• Developed asynchronous worker clusters with Celery and Redis to handle computationally intensive fuel-burn simulations without blocking the primary REST API request thread.

• Optimized complex PostgreSQL queries and implemented strategic indexing to reduce latency for flight recommendation lookups in the network operations center dashboard.

• Built resilient outbound integrations with external weather services using FastAPI, implementing idempotency keys and exponential backoff to handle unstable third-party endpoints.

• Hardened system reliability by designing a distributed locking mechanism in Redis to prevent race conditions during concurrent flight route updates by multiple dispatchers.

• Instrumented comprehensive observability using Prometheus and Grafana to track SLA metrics for route recommendation latency and pipeline throughput.

• Refactored legacy route-analysis services into a microservices architecture, utilizing gRPC for low-latency inter-service communication across the optimization cluster.

• Implemented a circuit breaker pattern in Python to prevent cascading failures when downstream airline scheduling tools experienced high latency or outages.

• Designed and maintained a CI/CD pipeline using GitHub Actions and Docker, enabling the team to ship multiple small, verified releases to production daily.

• Tuned asyncio event loops in the route-processing layer to maximize concurrent I/O operations, significantly increasing the volume of flights analyzed per second.

• Collaborated with operations research scientists to translate complex optimization algorithms into production-ready Python code, focusing on time and space complexity.

• Led the transition to trunk-based development, reducing merge conflicts and accelerating the delivery cycle for critical route-optimization feature updates.

• Mentored mid-level engineers on system design patterns and the implementation of robust unit tests using pytest for core algorithmic logic.

Alaska Airlines — Software Engineer July 2019 – June 2021 · Greater Seattle Area PROJECT Scan and Fly Self-Bag-Drop

• Developed the backend coordination layer for self-service kiosks using Node.js and TypeScript, managing real-time bag scanning workflows and passenger validation.

• Built an internal operations web portal using React and REST APIs to allow ground crews to monitor kiosk health and triage passenger errors in real-time.

• Engineered a robust event-handling system with RabbitMQ to synchronize bag-drop events between airport hardware and the central passenger service system.

• Implemented a queue-and-replay mechanism to handle intermittent network connectivity at LAX kiosks, ensuring no bag-drop data was lost during outages.

• Optimized the check-in data model in MongoDB to support rapid retrieval of passenger itinerary and bag-fee status during the self-service flow.

• Integrated secure payment gateways for bag-fee collection, ensuring PCI compliance and implementing strict transactional integrity for e-commerce checkouts.

• Developed automated integration tests using Playwright to simulate end-to-end passenger journeys from kiosk scanning to bag-tag printing.

• Stabilized the kiosk-to-backend communication layer by implementing WebSockets for instant status updates on bag acceptance and routing.

• Coordinated with airport ground operations to map physical bag-drop workflows into technical specifications, reducing passenger wait times through process automation.

GE Digital — Software Engineer July 2017 – June 2019 · San Francisco Bay Area PROJECT Proficy Operations Hub

• Developed web-based industrial dashboards using JavaScript and Java, enabling remote monitoring of plant analytics for industrial clients.

• Built data visualization components that integrated with Proficy Historian to render high-frequency time-series data from IoT sensors.

• Implemented backend API endpoints in Spring Boot to aggregate operational data from multiple industrial sources including iFIX and CIMPLICITY.

• Wrote automated unit tests in JUnit to ensure the correctness of data transformation logic within the industrial IoT pipeline.

• Collaborated on the frontend implementation of remote operations displays, focusing on reducing render latency for real-time sensor updates.

• Resolved critical bugs in the data ingestion layer by tracing requests through the GE Predix platform logging system.

• Assisted in the documentation of API contracts for the Operations Hub to support internal GE Digital development teams.

E D U C ATION

University of Washington — Bachelor's Degree, Computer Science

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