Umair Khan, Developer in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Umair is currently unavailable

Umair Khan

Bio

Umair is a Python developer and entrepreneur. He has over 15 years of experience writing software, has founded three companies, and is passionate about solving performance-related problems. He built an open-source alternative to Slack, authored BitMate software that made the BitTorrent protocol accessible to low-bandwidth nodes, and created an application that automates drop shipping.

Portfolio

Sema
Python, Django, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Full-stack, Technical Leadership...
626 Holdings LLC
Python, Node.js, SQL, APIs, JavaScript, InfluxDB, Large Language Models (LLMs)...
PixieBrix
Python 3, Django, Django REST Framework, React, TypeScript 3, PostgreSQL...

Experience

  • JavaScript - 13 years
  • Python - 12 years
  • PostgreSQL - 5 years
  • Celery - 5 years
  • Django - 5 years
  • Docker - 5 years
  • Django REST Framework - 4 years
  • Scraping - 4 years

Preferred Environment

Vim Text Editor, Linux, Docker

The most amazing...

...project I have worked on is BitMate: a low-bandwidth client for the popular BitTorrent protocol. It has been featured on websites such as GigaOm.

Work Experience

Full-stack Engineer

2025 - 2025
Sema
  • Implemented a Jira project integration. I added code to retrieve Jira projects and save them to the database.
  • Mapped Jira projects to the code repository groups for further processing by the AI.
  • Introduced email messages to be sent to the users with insights and anomalies.
Technologies: Python, Django, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Full-stack, Technical Leadership, Data Pipelines, Leadership, Software Architecture, Dashboards, Web Dashboards, Dashboard Development, GitHub, SonarCloud, Veracode, WhiteSource, Code Review, Full-stack Development, Cloud Architecture, JSON, Pytest, Cloud, Microservices Architecture, RESTFul APIs, Web App Development, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Data Integration, Web Development, OAuth 2, GitHub API

Full-stack Developer

2021 - 2024
626 Holdings LLC
  • Developed a chatbot enabling engineers to interact with medical imaging machines.
  • Built the front end using React and the back end with Python.
  • Created an HTML proxy in FastAPI to make the medical imaging machine's web interface accessible via the web app.
  • Integrated real-time data-gathering functionalities from medical imaging machines.
Technologies: Python, Node.js, SQL, APIs, JavaScript, InfluxDB, Large Language Models (LLMs), ChatGPT, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Natural Language Queries, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Gemini, OpenAI, FastAPI, Machine Learning, ChatGPT API, CSS, Full-stack, TypeScript, Front-end, HTML, HTTP, Material UI, DevOps, API Integration, Asyncio, Cython, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), Amazon Web Services (AWS), API Development, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), CI/CD Pipelines, Code Review, Dashboard Development, Dashboards, Architecture, Query Optimization, Database Optimization, Back-end Development, Microservices, REST APIs, Proxies, Application Architecture, Solution Architecture, AI Chatbots, Scalability, Chatbots, Amazon EC2, Full-stack Development, Event-driven Design (EDD), Cloud Architecture, Grafana k6, JSON, Cloud Infrastructure, Grafana, Pytest, Cloud, Database Design, Microservices Architecture, RESTFul APIs, Real-time Communication (RTC), GitLab CI/CD, Web App Development, Multitenancy, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Data Integration, Web Development, AI Agents, Scalable Architecture, Data Modeling, Distributed Architecture, Event-driven Architecture, Progressive Web Applications (PWAs), AI Integration, System Architecture

Full-stack Python Contractor

2021 - 2021
PixieBrix
  • Updated the API views to use proper DRF base classes to reduce code size.
  • Incoporated OpenAPI schema generation. API documentation was made available via a webpage. OpenAPI YAML file was used to generate TypeScript type definitions.
  • Implemented link header pagination in the project.
  • Developed API versioning. This allowed us to move only a subset of API endpoints to their paginated versions.
  • Built API throttling. The requirement was to have different rate limits for different endpoints.
  • Increased code coverage to over 90%. We used mocks, factory boy, and others to write tests that covered permissions and business logic.
Technologies: Python 3, Django, Django REST Framework, React, TypeScript 3, PostgreSQL, Webpack, Unit Testing, APIs, Full-stack, ESLint, Queuing Systems, Startups, CSS, TypeScript, Front-end, HTML, HTTP, DevOps, API Integration, Cython, Amazon Web Services (AWS), API Development, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), CI/CD Pipelines, Code Review, Query Optimization, Database Optimization, Back-end Development, REST APIs, Scalability, Amazon EC2, Full-stack Development, Cloud Architecture, JSON, Storybook, Pytest, Marketplaces, Cloud, Database Design, RESTFul APIs, Web App Development, Multitenancy, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Web Development, Scalable Architecture, Data Modeling, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), OAuth 2, Distributed Architecture

CEO

2019 - 2021
Fecundity
  • Scaled the team from two to 28 employees within a year.
  • Oversaw the development of large-scale scraping software, the back end of event management software, and a progressive web app.
  • Created infrastructure for running the business such as the accounts, HR, and operations department.
  • Create API backend in Python/Django. This backend served web application, PWA, and native mobile apps of the client.
  • Worked on the ETL of data from the legacy MongoDB to the new PostgreSQL DB.
Technologies: Python, Docker, PostgreSQL, React, RabbitMQ, Celery, Django REST Framework, Django, Git, Back-end, Python 3, Vim Text Editor, Linux, Scraping, Memcached, JavaScript, Relational Databases, SQL, Technical Leadership, Management, REST, APIs, Databases, Queuing Systems, Selenium, Browser Automation, CSS, Full-stack, HTML, HTTP, DevOps, Geolocation, API Integration, Multithreading, Cython, Code Review, Architecture, Database Optimization, Back-end Development, Microservices, REST APIs, Web Scraping, Proxies, Application Architecture, Distributed Systems, Solution Architecture, Database Caching, Scalability, Amazon EC2, Full-stack Development, CSV File Processing, Document Parsing, Event-driven Design (EDD), Cloud Architecture, Event-driven Programming, GraphQL, JSON, Cloud Infrastructure, Pytest, Amazon RDS, Data Engineering, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), CTO, Entrepreneurship, Cloud, Database Design, Microservices Architecture, RESTFul APIs, Web App Development, PDF, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Web Development, Scalable Architecture, ETL, Data Cleansing, Data Modeling, Distributed Architecture, Event-driven Architecture, Progressive Web Applications (PWAs), System Architecture

Python Contractor

2018 - 2021
Dropified
  • Developed a Python Django application that automates the dropshipping business.
  • Used Python Celery to write asynchronous tasks. We used a Redis broker.
  • Tracked bugs and user stories using Jira software.
Technologies: Python, JavaScript, Docker, Celery, Django, PostgreSQL, Back-end, Python 3, Django REST Framework, Vim Text Editor, Linux, Scraping, Git, Memcached, jQuery, Relational Databases, SQL, Redis, APIs, Databases, Queuing Systems, Startups, eCommerce, Chrome Extensions, CSS, Full-stack, HTML, HTTP, API Integration, Multithreading, Cython, Multiprocessing, API Development, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), CI/CD Pipelines, Shopify, Code Review, Architecture, Database Optimization, Data Scraping, Back-end Development, Microservices, REST APIs, Payment APIs, Web Scraping, Proxies, Distributed Systems, Database Caching, Scalability, Amazon EC2, Full-stack Development, Cloud Architecture, Event-driven Programming, JSON, jQuery CDN, Pytest, Marketplaces, Cloud, Database Design, Microservices Architecture, RESTFul APIs, Web App Development, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Data Integration, Web Development, Bootstrap, ETL, Data Cleansing, Data Modeling, Distributed Architecture, Event-driven Architecture, SendGrid, Heroku, System Architecture

CEO

2016 - 2019
Droozal
  • Managed the 1st independent office while running Droozal.
  • Developed a Python/Django software to automate the printing of business cards.
  • Used Docker to manage the servers in development and production environments.
Technologies: Python, Django, PostgreSQL, Python 3, Vim Text Editor, Linux, Docker, Git, Memcached, JavaScript, Back-end, jQuery, Relational Databases, SQL, Technical Leadership, Management, REST, APIs, Databases, HTML, HTTP, Cython, Back-end Development, REST APIs, Full-stack Development, JSON, Pytest, Entrepreneurship, Digital Asset Management, Database Design, RESTFul APIs, Web App Development, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Web Development, Bootstrap, Data Modeling, Elasticsearch, System Architecture

Python Contractor

2016 - 2018
Zulip
  • Contributed to a very successful open-source project.
  • Mentored high school students for Zulip in Google Code-in.
  • Mentored university students for Zulip in Google Summer of Code.
  • Developed the Python back end. The technology stack included Django, Tornado, and PostgreSQL.
  • Built the front end localization. I used the i18next library to manage the translations.
Technologies: Python, PostgreSQL, Tornado, Celery, WebSockets, Back-end, Python 3, Vim Text Editor, Linux, Git, Memcached, JavaScript, jQuery, Relational Databases, SQL, APIs, UI Automation, Automated UI Testing, Databases, CSS, Full-stack, HTML, HTTP, Real-time Systems, Multithreading, Cython, Amazon Web Services (AWS), API Development, Code Review, Back-end Development, REST APIs, Automation, Full-stack Development, Event-driven Design (EDD), Event-driven Programming, JSON, jQuery CDN, Real-time Data, Cloud, RESTFul APIs, Real-time Communication (RTC), Multitenancy, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Web Development, Scalable Architecture, Distributed Architecture, Event-driven Architecture

Software Contractor

2014 - 2016
BuzzFeed
  • Assisted in the development of a very performant machine learning software.
  • Automated server configuration and management using Chef.
  • Interfaced C++ with Python to call code written in C++ from Python.
Technologies: Python, C++, Memcached, Vim Text Editor, Linux, Git, Back-end, Relational Databases, SQL, Databases, Cython, Code Review, Back-end Development, Scalability, Datadog, Cloud, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Web Development

Python Developer

2011 - 2014
Freelance
  • Assisted on a localization software. This software was responsible for managing a distributed team of translators and their work.
  • Used Git for collaboration within a team of developers.
  • Learned how to do test driven development using Python unit tests and mock-ups.
Technologies: Python, MySQL, Git, Google App Engine, Vim Text Editor, Linux, JavaScript, Back-end, jQuery, Relational Databases, SQL, Databases, HTML, HTTP, Cython, API Development, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Google Cloud Datastore, Back-end Development, REST APIs, jQuery CDN, Cloud, Database Design, RESTFul APIs, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Web Development

Founder and Lead Developer

2011 - 2012
Blend.pk
  • Launched Pakistan's first job search engine. The concept was similar to Indeed.com.
  • Created spiders to scrape job listing from different job portals in Pakistan.
  • Implemented the Levenshtein distance algorithm to guard against incorrect spelling in user searches.
Technologies: Python, Google App Engine, Scraping, Vim Text Editor, Linux, Git, Back-end, Databases, HTML, HTTP, API Development, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), NoSQL, Database Optimization, Data Scraping, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Google Cloud Datastore, Back-end Development, Web Scraping, Application Architecture, Scalability, LinkedIn API, JSON, RESTFul APIs, Web App Development, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Web Development, ETL, Data Cleansing, Data Modeling, System Architecture

Research Assistant

2009 - 2010
LUMS
  • Authored BitMate software which made the BitTorrent protocol fair to the low-bandwidth nodes.
  • Published a paper in HotNets. It is considered a very prestigious conference.
  • Completed research in the field of peer-to-peer software technology.
Technologies: Python

Software Developer

2005 - 2008
VST
  • Developed a medical record management software in VB.Net.
  • Became a team lead and managed a team of three developers and two QAs.
  • Developed a school management software in C#.Net. I was also involved in requirements gathering for this project.
Technologies: JavaScript, Back-end, Relational Databases, SQL, Databases, Microsoft SQL Server, C#.NET, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Web Development, Data Modeling

Experience

BitMate

A low-bandwidth client for the popular BitTorrent protocol. I was the main author of this software. This software made the tit-for-tat protocol of BitTorrent fair for regions with low bandwidth. It has been featured on big websites such as GigaOm.

Twitter Live Feed

https://github.com/Prixite/twitter-livefeed
A Python Tornado-based application that pushes tweets to the Angular front end via WebSockets. I created this project to learn about WebSockets, and push notifications, and real-time updates.

Back-end Template

https://github.com/Prixite/backend-template
I created this tool to serve as the back-end template for my projects. It includes all the scaffolding necessary to start a production-grade application. It's a Django application and includes token-based authentication. The permissions are back-end delivered by unit tests.

React/Flask Template

https://github.com/Prixite/react-flask-demo
A React and Flask application that serves as a template for my projects. You will observe a few interesting concepts in this template, such as that everything is tied up as microservices through Docker and Linters are integrated.

flashclass

The adaptive learning platform for busy people. It uses AI to generate customized sessions for learning software development. It's not an LMS. flashclass gives options to users to choose the mode of learning. People can use audio, video, text, and many more learning methods. flashclass also builds personality profile of the user and then adapts the learning cognitive load according to the personality of the user.

Neurofrog

https://neurofrog.com/
Neurofrog is a New Zealand-based company dedicated to enhancing early childhood development through neuroscience-inspired parenting solutions. Their mission is to empower parents during the critical first 1,000 days of a child's life by providing personalized support and guidance.

• Oversaw the development of a mobile application using React Native.
• Developed a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) system for answering user queries utilizing PineCone and OpenAI GPT-4.
• Built a web scraping pipeline to populate a vector database with relevant information.

Simplisafe - Senior Full-stack Developer

http://www.simplisafe.com
A real-time outdoor home surveillance system that used AI to detect threats. I worked as a back-end-focused full-stack developer. I maintained the API infrastructure in FastAPI. I worked on the deployment infrastructure. I wrote tests. This was a highly complex application, and the back end had to process millions of events during a day.

AuditAlly

Audit Ally is a subscription-based financial analysis platform that uses AI to help investors understand earnings calls and SEC filings. The platform covers almost all companies listed on NASDAQ and NYSE exchanges, totaling around 12,000 companies with comprehensive financial data. From this extensive dataset, we filtered and focused on approximately 3,300 active stock companies with consistent data to provide advanced insights. The system leverages OpenAI and Anthropic models to generate insights, categorizing information as positive, negative, or neutral. It scores companies across dimensions like Confidence, Transparency, Growth Outlook, Stability, and Innovation. The platform's standout capability is its real-time analysis of earnings calls, providing investors with immediate AI-powered insights on company performance and outlook.

GetWow

GetWow is an AI-powered analytics platform that enables Shopify store owners to query their eCommerce data using natural language. The system extracts data from Shopify and stores it in Google BigQuery using Databricks for ETL. A multi-agent LLM architecture translates natural language into SQL, validates it, executes the query against BigQuery, and returns results to the user through a React-based frontend interface.

AST Renamer

https://github.com/umairwaheed/ast-renamer
ast-renamer is a Python-based utility that leverages the Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) module to automate the renaming of functions within Python source files. It parses the input code, locates all function definitions, and renames them by prefixing renamed_ to the original function names. This tool demonstrates practical use of Python’s introspection capabilities and simplifies tasks such as code obfuscation, refactoring, or static analysis experimentation.

CAP Server

CAP Server is a centralized, real-time alert management platform built on the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) standard. It is designed to coordinate emergency siren towers deployed across multiple regions, enabling secure, geo-targeted alerts and live system monitoring.

Zarr and Rasterio Demo

This demo showcases how to generate a synthetic geospatial raster dataset using NumPy, save it in GeoTIFF format with rasterio, and convert it into a Zarr-based storage format for efficient, scalable access.

PDF to SVG Converter

https://github.com/umairwaheed/pdf-to-svg
PDF to SVG Converter is a lightweight Python-based utility that transforms multi-page PDF documents into high-quality SVG files. It supports two distinct conversion methods—via the pdf2svg command-line utility and the PyMuPDF library—allowing users to choose the approach that best suits their needs. The tool is ideal for developers, designers, and document automation workflows that require scalable vector graphics output. Key features include:

• Dual conversion engines: pdf2svg and PyMuPDF
• Supports multi-page PDF to SVG conversion
• Produces scalable, high-fidelity vector graphics
• Simple CLI interface for easy batch processing
• Ruff integration for code linting and formatting

go-todo-api

https://github.com/umairwaheed/go-todo-api
Go Todo API is a lightweight, efficient, and fully RESTful API designed for managing to-do tasks. Built with Go using the Gin web framework and SQLite for persistent storage, it supports all essential CRUD operations and includes comprehensive test coverage. This project is suitable for anyone looking to implement a simple back end or learn about building production-ready APIs in Go.

Tresal

https://www.tresal.eu/
Tresal offers a unified solution that continuously scans both external digital assets and internal cloud configurations for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations. It delivers real-time alerts and actionable remediation steps to enhance organizational security posture. The platform is fully GDPR-compliant and hosted in regional data centers within Europe.

Active Prime CleanData

https://www.activeprime.com/cleandata
CleanData is a comprehensive CRM-based application designed primarily for Salesforce that helps organizations maintain clean, accurate, and duplicate-free data. The application integrates with Heroku and provides intelligent data quality management by identifying duplicate records and various data quality issues across multiple semantic types including company names, emails, phone numbers, and websites.

Principal Engineer

http://mycerebro.ai
A Python/FastAPI + React platform combining an AI-powered email assistant and an automated Bill of Materials generator for the electrical-distribution industry, built on multi-model AI (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Grok) with pgvector/AlloyDB-backed semantic product search and multi-agent workflow automation. I was the full-stack and DevOps lead — owned the Azure → GCP cloud cutover end-to-end, designed and shipped the MCA v2 product-enrichment pipeline (ETIM classification → DocAI/OCR/web-search spec extraction across a 50,000+ subcategory catalog), and built the deployment, migration, and database tooling (Alembic, GitHub Actions, AlloyDB Auth Proxy) used by the rest of the engineering team.

Education

2008 - 2010

Master's Degree in Computer Science

LUMS - Lahore, Pakistan

2001 - 2005

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science

FAST-NU - Lahore, Pakistan

Skills

Libraries/APIs

jQuery, Django ORM, React, OpenAI API, Asyncio, API Development, REST APIs, Stripe API, LinkedIn API, jQuery CDN, Node.js, SQLAlchemy, Chart.js, GitHub API, X (formerly Twitter) API, Flask-RESTful, ZeroMQ, Zarr, NumPy, Vue

Tools

Vim Text Editor, Git, Celery, RabbitMQ, NGINX, ChatGPT, Pytest, GitLab CI/CD, Terraform, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), Elastic, SendGrid, Webpack, AWS CloudFormation, GitHub, SonarCloud, Claude, Grafana k6, Kafka Connect, Grafana, BigQuery

Languages

Python, JavaScript, Python 3, SQL, CSS, HTML, TypeScript, GraphQL, Go, C++, TypeScript 3, Java, C#.NET

Frameworks

Django, Django REST Framework, Next.js, OAuth 2, Tailwind CSS, Flask, Selenium, Express.js, Bootstrap, AngularJS, Material UI, JSON Web Tokens (JWT), Nuxt.js

Paradigms

REST, Unit Testing, DevOps, Real-time Systems, Microservices, Application Architecture, Event-driven Design (EDD), Event-driven Programming, Database Design, Microservices Architecture, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), ETL, Event-driven Architecture, Management, Automation, Serverless Architecture, Lambda Architecture

Platforms

Linux, Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon EC2, Shopify, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Apache Kafka, Kubernetes, Google App Engine, AWS Lambda, Databricks, Heroku

Storage

Memcached, PostgreSQL, Relational Databases, Redis, Databases, MongoDB, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Data Pipelines, NoSQL, Database Caching, JSON, Data Integration, Elasticsearch, MySQL, Google Cloud Datastore, InfluxDB, Microsoft SQL Server, Datadog

Other

Scraping, Tornado, WebSockets, Back-end, Gunicorn, APIs, UI Automation, Automated UI Testing, Full-stack, Large Language Models (LLMs), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Retrieval-augmented Generation (RAG), ChatGPT API, Web Scraping, FastAPI, Queuing Systems, Startups, eCommerce, Vectorization, HTTP, API Integration, Multithreading, Cython, Multiprocessing, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), CI/CD Pipelines, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Code Review, Dashboard Development, Dashboards, Architecture, Query Optimization, Database Optimization, Data Scraping, Back-end Development, Payment APIs, Single Sign-on (SSO), Distributed Systems, Solution Architecture, AI Chatbots, Scalability, Software Architecture, Chatbots, Full-stack Development, CSV File Processing, Document Parsing, Cloud Architecture, Financial APIs, Cloud Infrastructure, Amazon RDS, Real-time Data, CTO, Marketplaces, Entrepreneurship, Cloud, RESTFul APIs, Real-time Communication (RTC), Web App Development, Multitenancy, Web Development, AI Agents, Scalable Architecture, Data Cleansing, Data Modeling, Distributed Architecture, Vector Data, Agentic AI, LangChain, AI Integration, System Architecture, Technical Leadership, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Vector Databases, Machine Learning, Browser Automation, Front-end, Geolocation, Supabase, Proxies, Big Data, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Data Engineering, Serverless, MERN Stack, Progressive Web Applications (PWAs), NextAuth.js, ESLint, Lambda Functions, Natural Language Queries, Gemini, OpenAI, Chrome Extensions, Leadership, Web Dashboards, Veracode, WhiteSource, Prompt Engineering, Storybook, Abstract Syntax Trees (AST), Geospatial Data, Rasterio, Digital Asset Management, PDF, SVG, Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Collaboration That Works

How to Work with Toptal

Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.

1

Share your needs

Discuss your requirements and refine your scope in a call with a Toptal domain expert.
2

Choose your talent

Get a short list of expertly matched talent within 24 hours to review, interview, and choose from.
3

Start your risk-free talent trial

Work with your chosen talent on a trial basis for up to two weeks. Pay only if you decide to hire them.

Top talent is in high demand.

Start hiring