
Muhammad Ali
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Developer
Berlin, Germany
Toptal member since October 7, 2022
Ali is an engineer with eight years of experience who specializes in Python and its frameworks (Django, FastAPI, Flask, and Odoo). He's proficient in building robust APIs, integrating systems, and optimizing performance. He has a strong foundation in algorithms, data structures, and system design and is experienced with Agile development, version control, and CI/CD. Ali is a problem-solver known for a structured, reliable development approach and delivering maintainable, error-free code.
Portfolio
Experience
- Django - 8 years
- Python - 8 years
- Django REST Framework - 7 years
- Celery - 6 years
- Redis - 6 years
- PostgreSQL - 6 years
- Agile Software Development - 4 years
- Odoo - 3 years
Preferred Environment
Python, REST, Back-end, Django, FastAPI, Flask, Odoo, SQL, Docker, JavaScript
The most amazing...
...thing I've built is a notification system with high availability, performance, scalability, and analytics to support multiple communication mediums.
Work Experience
Senior Software Engineer
Sastaticket.pk
- Built an ETL system in Go (Echo), integrating APIs to transform and store data in databases.
- Developed a rule engine in Go for fast rule and action generation; added a UI for easy CRUD ops.
- Refactored the data flow, reducing response size by 30% and improving speed by 27%.
- Led development and maintenance of nine fintech APIs across core financial services.
- Built an Airbyte ETL pipeline, cutting API time by 90% and reducing external dependencies.
- Optimized queries to improve premium matrix accuracy and lower execution time.
- Automated payment reconciliation via six RPAs, cutting workload by 66%.
- Built a notification system with SMS, WhatsApp, email, and Slack support.
- Designed and launched the e-wallet feature to simplify customer transactions.
- Wrote documents for 18 APIs across four verticals to support third-party integrations, Cut Docker image size by 10% and build time by 15% using multi-stage and library resets.
Senior Software Engineer
Techwards
- Built a managed service for DataHub using GraphQL, providing a centralized data catalog.
- Integrated AWS Cognito with Django for authentication with manageable groups and permissions. Handled the AWS SES and SNS integration for email and SMS notifications.
- Built a payment module providing invoice, refund, and multi-payment support, integrating Stripe and Paypal payment gateway and Change Health Insurance APIs for insurance claims.
- Developed REST APIs for multitype user modules, scheduling with availability configuration and time-variable slots.
- Developed a multilingual full-text search engine using DRF, Elasticsearch, and Firebase for authentication.
Software Engineer
Sastaticket.pk
- Built Django RESTful APIs and web crawlers and maintained applications to streamline business functions.
- Analyzed and troubleshot problems and identified areas for improvement with documentation.
- Delivered three major refactorings, which optimized database queries by 40% and increased the response time by 30%.
- Achieved 88% of codebase coverage by designing 60+ unit and API tests.
- Designed and developed an email service app from context handlers to template design, reducing complexity and coupling and increasing readability and maintainability.
- Integrated two airlines, one hotel, and two payment providers, enabling more search results and payment options.
- Developed the ETL infrastructure and acquired and ingested data to build and maintain data pipelines. It helped discover an opportunity for new features.
- Integrated Google AdWords, Analytics, and Facebook Pixel APIs to extract campaign data and correlate them with the product database to analyze accusation costs.
- Wrote and maintained web crawlers to extract data from four traveling sites for rates and offer comparisons.
Software Engineer
MarketIQ
- Developed and modified 10+ Odoo modules, including sales, purchase, accounts, inventory, and warehouse.
- Performed process automation to reduce complexity and improve system performance.
- Built and maintained a data-driven analytics and reporting framework with 12 reports and three analytics dashboards.
- Created an automated restaurant manufacturing system that maintains the raw product's stock in real time for 6+ clients, including big restaurant chains.
- Designed and developed a recipe and BOM management system for restaurants and textile factories to maintain the product quantity in defined quantized units.
- Identified possible system enhancements and shifted the manual process to automation by integrating POS with WordPress, sustaining the synchronal stock between clients' eCommerce site and POS system.
- Collaborated with clients' finance teams and integrated QuickBooks, which averred the accounting details between the POS system and QuickBooks.
Software Engineer
Speedy Movers ltd.
- Collaborated with software development and testing team members to design and develop a file management system with a user module and ACL for employees to store clients' details and documents.
- Integrated with AWS S3 to upload all the files to the cloud.
- Developed admin, reporting, and analytics dashboards for employees to manage the system.
- Implemented workspace modeling to handle file management of multiple clients simultaneously.
- Delivered unit-tested systems within customer-prescribed timeframes.
Data Analyst
Traffic Online JLT
- Conducted data verification and validation for 35 clients by implementing an automated process to acquire records from primary and secondary data sources, resulting in improved accuracy and efficiency in data management.
- Analyzed data quality and identified key metrics to draw meaningful conclusions, contributing to the identification of opportunities for improvement.
- Developed reports based on analysis and presented findings to management, improving decision-making processes.
- Extracted and interpreted data patterns to identify trends and opportunities, resulting in actionable outcomes that increased business efficiency and effectiveness.
Experience
Odoo Module Development
• Developed and maintained 10+ Odoo modules with custom features and business logic.
• Developed and maintained 20+ FastAPI APIs to integrate Odoo with external systems.
• Optimized performance and fixed critical bugs to improve system stability and speed.
SDK for GraphQL APIs and Phoenix Channels
https://pypi.org/project/stx-pysdk/To make the SDK user-friendly, I created an API middleware using a proxy design pattern. This middleware dynamically injects APIs to the client modules with auto authentication, making it easier for users to utilize the SDK to its fullest potential. I also wrote detailed user manual documentation covering everything from installation instructions to in-depth explanations of the SDK's abilities. This documentation empowers users to get up and running with the SDK quickly and ensures they have all the necessary resources to make the most of its features. I built a demo bot as proof of concept, showcasing how the SDK can interact with the services. This bot is an example of the SDK's capabilities and can serve as a starting point for users to build applications using the SDK. I configured GitHub Actions for running tests and linters and a pipeline for the SDK build packaging.
E-health Web App
I was the back-end developer leading the back-end team of four developers and:
• Setting up the base project using Docker compose, Django REST Framework, Redis, and PostgreSQL
• Configuring GitHub workflows CI for running linter and test cases
• Developing a member module that handles multitype users with a single point of authentication using JWT with HttpOnly cookies
• Developing a scheduling model with availability configuration and time variable slots
• Building an accounts module with invoicing, refund, and multi-payment support features
• Integrating Stripe payment gateways and the ChangeHealthCare insurance platform
• Integrating AWS SES and SNS for email and SMS notifications
• Adding 40 unit tests and 15 API tests
Notification System
Sastaticket
ETL Service
Oscar Analytics
Oscar Reports
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
University of Karachi - Karachi, Pakistan
Skills
Libraries/APIs
REST APIs, WhatsApp API, Mandrill API, Handlebars, Asyncio, QuickBooks API, WordPress API, Google Ads API, Google Analytics API, CyberSource, Stripe API, Pandas, Twilio API, Beautiful Soup, Slack API, NumPy, Amazon EC2 API
Tools
Celery, Odoo, Amazon Simple Email Service (SES), Docker Compose, Karate API Testing, Pytest, Facebook Pixel, Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), Amazon Cognito, Meilisearch, Firebase Authentication, DataHub, Retool, Grafana, PyPI, RabbitMQ
Languages
Python, SQL, XML, GraphQL, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Go
Frameworks
Django, Django REST Framework, Flask, Jinja, Scrapy, JSON Web Tokens (JWT), Phoenix
Paradigms
REST, Agile Software Development, Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Delivery (CD), Kanban, Templating, ETL, Unit Testing, Scrum
Storage
JSON, Redis, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Cache
Platforms
Software Design Patterns, Ubuntu, Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Firebase, Google Ads, Linux
Other
Documentation, Integration, API Integration, API Documentation, Agile Sprints, Back-end, Web Development, APIs, SaaS, Business Requirements, RESTFul APIs, Data Visualization, Data Structures, FastAPI, SOAP, Analytics, Reporting, Web Crawlers, Libraries, Payment APIs, Scraping, Web Scraping, CI/CD Pipelines, Data Engineering, Scripting, Finance APIs, Data Analysis, Finance, Data Analytics, Data Reporting, SMS, Localization, Internationalization, Insurance APIs, GitHub Workflows, WebSockets, Fintech, Product Design, Single Sign-on (SSO), Data Science, Channels, MkDocs, Integration Testing, GitHub Actions, Build Pipelines, Tox, Intuit QuickBooks, Full-stack, OAuth
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