Resume
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Backend engineer with production experience building Python/Django, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, and AWS systems across EdTech and AI startups. Focused on LLM applications, document-grounded assistants, and agentic workflows. MS Computer Science candidate graduating August 2026.
Education
Master of Science in Computer Science
Sep 2024 to Aug 2026 at William Jessup University, Rocklin, CA — GPA: 4.0
Bachelor of Science in Software Development
Apr 2018 to Dec 2022 at KCA University, Nairobi, Kenya — GPA: 3.6
Experience
Software Engineer
Jan 2024 to Sep 2024 at Appstec America, Seattle, WA (Remote)
- Improved active engagement on an EdTech learning platform serving thousands of users by shipping React frontend optimizations and Django backend performance fixes across the stack.
- Reduced p95 API latency from 520ms to 310ms (40% reduction) by optimizing PostgreSQL schema, adding indexes, and resolving N+1 query patterns.
- Improved Stripe payment success rate by 20% by adding idempotent retry logic and PCI-DSS-aligned webhook handling.
- Implemented SSO integration with Udemy Business, streamlining access for the user base and reducing login-related support volume.
Backend Engineer (Contract)
Jan 2023 to Dec 2023 at Gre8 Intelligence, Los Angeles, CA (Remote)
- Built an LLM-powered onboarding and recommendation system in Django using the OpenAI API to classify incoming businesses across industry dimensions and recommend service packages when classification confidence exceeded a defined threshold, removing manual sales triage across pilot deployments serving 100+ end users.
- Implemented a document-grounded Q&A assistant on the OpenAI API that ingested company documents (mission, vision, FAQs, policies) to answer employee questions in natural language, reducing internal support volume for newly onboarded clients.
- Built a browser-based real-time video conferencing service using WebSockets with live transcription (Django backend, TypeScript frontend), adding retry logic, health checks, and structured logging to diagnose join failures and transcript loss in production.
Projects
Resume Agent
Python, FastAPI, Streamlit, Ollama, Qwen3, pdfplumber, Pydantic, pytest
- Built a privacy-preserving AI resume review tool that runs locally with Ollama, grades resume-to-job fit, and proposes traceable resume edits without inventing experience.
- Designed an 8-stage agent pipeline with model routing across Qwen3 4B for structured extraction and Qwen3 8B for reasoning-heavy fit analysis.
- Built a 4-layer job description parser using JSON-LD, Trafilatura, BeautifulSoup, and fallback heuristics to handle varied posting formats.
- Shipped a Streamlit frontend with Server-Sent Events streaming and a 25-test pytest suite covering parsing, SSRF protections, and schema integrity.
Leadership & Community Engagement
Keynote Speaker & Featured Speaker
2025 at The Samburu Project, Los Angeles, CA
- Delivered keynote at the Splash Bash Gala at SmogShoppe in Los Angeles; event contributed to over $315,000 raised in support of clean water, education, and community development initiatives for marginalized communities in Samburu, Kenya.
- Featured speaker at the Hike for Water annual fundraiser, which raised approximately $25,000 supporting water access and community programs in rural Kenya.
STEM Mentor
2020 to 2022 at STEM Mentorship Program, Kenya
- Mentored high school students in Mathematics, Chemistry, and Computer Studies, focused on building technical foundations for learners in underserved regions of Kenya.
- Contributed to measurable improvements in STEM outcomes, with mentees demonstrating stronger performance in national exams and increased pursuit of STEM-related university programs.
Certifications
Skills
- Python
- SQL
- TypeScript
- Django (DRF)
- FastAPI
- REST APIs
- OpenAPI
- PostgreSQL
- pgvector
- AWS (EC2, S3, Lambda)
- Docker
- GitHub Actions
- OpenAI API
- Ollama
- Agentic Pipelines
- Structured Extraction
- Prompt Engineering