Publication
Top 10 Mistakes That Django Developers Make
https://www.toptal.com/developers/django/django-top-10-mistakes
Alexandr is available for hire
Hire AlexandrAlexandr Shurigin
Verified Expert in Engineering
Python Developer
Valencia, Spain
Toptal member since July 4, 2016
Bio
Alexandr loves to create, and his favorite way to do it is through web development that fulfills a client’s need or solves a problem. He's passionate about fast, well-written, user-friendly applications. Providing clients with high-quality apps that meet their business needs is Alexandr's top priority. Alexandr excels at solving technical problems using Python, PHP, and JavaScript, and he builds expert applications from scratch.
Portfolio
NewCode.ai
Python 3, FastAPI, Next.js, Node.js, React, Large Language Models (LLMs)...
Bilt Technologies Inc
React, TypeScript, GraphQL, Node.js, Vercel, Next.js
Turneo Ltd
Python, Django, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Payment APIs, Hospitality...
Experience
- Python - 10 years
- Node.js - 9 years
- Django - 7 years
- SQLAlchemy - 6 years
- Docker - 6 years
- FastAPI - 6 years
- Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) - 5 years
- Celery - 5 years
Work Experience
Senior Full-stack Engineer
2025 - 2025
NewCode.ai
- Launched the Document Redaction System, pairing AI scrubbing with an intuitive Anonymize UI so legal teams stay compliant and BD pitches Nova as the safest way to co-work with outside counsel.
- Globalized Anonymize by wiring localization hooks through every message and state, giving regions German-ready copy and marketing the freedom to fine-tune launches without dev bottlenecks.
- Activated OpenTelemetry insights and silenced noisy 401s, letting ops catch performance dips in minutes and arming enterprise prospects with the reliability dashboards they demanded.
- Turbocharged file ingestion with smarter chunking and safer PDF conversion so multi-GB uploads finish faster, infrastructure stays predictable, and sales can promise real-time insight delivery.
- Boosted DMS trust by exposing sync events, fixing statuses, and minting unique filenames, turning compliance tracking into a self-serve story that procurement teams love to hear.
- Deepened iManage trust with auth-code logins, resilient token renewals, and export guardrails, answering security questionnaires upfront and proving Nova respects every IT boundary.
- Reimagined Matrix and Knowledge Base exports with reasoning-rich reports, multilingual formats, and a unified download flow so analysts walk straight from Nova into client-ready board decks.
- Refined conversational UX—protecting prompts, aligning auto-scroll, tightening hotkeys, and smartening LLM selectors—to make assistants feel concierge-grade instead of brittle.
- Isolated Aurora in its own stack, smoothed staging migrations, and tuned Celery routing so rollouts feel like orchestrated launches and parallel client onboardings become routine.
Technologies: Python 3, FastAPI, Next.js, Node.js, React, Large Language Models (LLMs), Open-source LLMs, Langfuse, LangGraph, LangSmith, LangChain, PDF
Senior Front-end Developer
2025 - 2025
Bilt Technologies Inc
- Restored renter confidence in ACH payouts by eliminating every instance of “0 points” confirmations, turning a confusing moment in the flow into a clear promise of rewards the moment payments are submitted.
- Equipped the entire web portfolio with a feature-flagged rollout for Google’s next-gen address autocomplete, giving product and marketing teams instant control over when new location experiences launch.
- Upgraded address search to Google’s latest Places endpoint, cutting location lookup errors to zero and ensuring every renter sees polished, trustworthy suggestions during high-intent checkout sessions.
- Reimagined the checkout payment selector so each method now pops with clear hierarchy and breathing room, raising visual QA pass rates to 100% and reducing abandonment during payment choice.
- Enforced a rent-credit safeguard directly in the Payment Summary, stopping misapplied credits before they reach finance systems and preserving confidence for 100% of resident-ledger payments.
- Simplified rewards calculations in the redesigned summary, removing 50+ lines of brittle logic and ensuring credit-card renters always see the correct earning story without conflicting cues.
- Refreshed the confirmation feature-benefits messaging to align with the latest marketing brief, so every completed payment reinforces the newest Bilt value propositions in seconds.
- Repaired the signup validation guardrails in Pay with Bilt, preventing invalid submissions after OTP and keeping net-new renters on a smooth, credibility-building onboarding path.
- Refactored ledger sorting to present charges in a clean, deterministic order, ending customer-support confusion and letting members understand their rent history at a glance.
- Added Notes visibility to the Charges modal, giving renters contextual ledger insights without leaving the Pay Rent tab and turning a once back-office-only field into a customer-first touchpoint.
Technologies: React, TypeScript, GraphQL, Node.js, Vercel, Next.js
Python Engineer
2025 - 2025
Turneo Ltd
- Architected a multi-provider Property Management System integration framework supporting 5+ enterprise platforms (Apaleo, Oracle Opera, and Mews), reducing new PMS onboarding time by 60% through a unified abstraction layer.
- Engineered a secure OAuth 2.0 authentication flow for Apaleo PMS with domain mask validation and automatic token refresh, implementing the back-end logic and intuitive front-end callback pages for a seamless user experience.
- Optimized a CI/CD pipeline, reducing test execution time by 40% through parallel test runners using pytest-split across concurrent GitHub Actions runners, implementing duration tracking and automated PR commenting.
- Developed a real-time booking synchronization system between Turneo and hotel PMS platforms using Celery task queues, implementing deduplication logic and automatic folio posting with 99%+ synchronization accuracy.
- Delivered enterprise-grade Oracle Opera SOAP API client handling reservation management, comment posting, and folio operations for the industry-leading PMS used by 40,000+ properties worldwide.
- Enhanced the test infrastructure, achieving 95%+ coverage across 2,500+ lines of integration and unit tests, implementing factory patterns and shared fixtures that reduced boilerplate code by 50%.
- Implemented intelligent booking deduplication for Mews PMS using regex-based pattern matching to extract and filter Turneo booking blocks, reducing booking conflicts by 99% through automated duplicate detection.
- Built custom B2B integration for Mahindra Holidays, processing thousands of resort bookings with 99.9% uptime, implementing secure webhook handlers, email encryption, and resort detail enrichment.
- Created comprehensive Django management commands for isolated PMS integration testing across multiple providers, reducing developer debugging time by 70% and improving integration reliability during development.
- Refactored the codebase, implementing absolute imports, enhanced logging, and comprehensive error handling across 5,000+ lines of code, improving maintainability and enabling 30% faster feature development.
Technologies: Python, Django, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Payment APIs, Hospitality, Property Management
Senior System Architect | Team Lead
2022 - 2024
Alias AI / Befake AI (Startup)
- Joined the team with a legacy back-end project for Alias mobile application, significantly improving performance and making APIs functional, while implementing video transcoding solutions, Celery integration for async tasks, and scheduled tasks.
- Developed and supported GraphQL integration with Django, enhancing schema performance, upgrades, and CI/CD pipelines, and adding integrations and Slack notifications.
- Built and maintained a moderation dashboard for user content, leveraging AI to process and flag restricted content.
- Migrated AWS infrastructure to AWS CloudFormation, optimizing and cleaning up the infrastructure, and dockerized all services. Set up production, staging, and local development environments for developers, enabling Amazon ECS deployments.
- Led the migration from AWS CloudFormation and Amazon ECS deployments to Terraform Amazon EKS infrastructure, rebuilding CI/CD infrastructure and pipelines.
- Implemented an automatic deployment solution for Amazon EC2 instances and bare metal servers using Ansible, supporting autoscaling and AI GPU server setup for the project.
- Created the architecture for the new Befake AI project, building the skeleton, CI/CD solutions, integrations, and GraphQL and Django Rest Framework solutions.
- Developed Terraform Kubernetes CI/CD and Ansible pipelines for new AI GPU workers and Celery.
- Designed and developed landing page websites in React from scratch, creating deployment configurations.
- Delivered the Befake AI project to public beta in just 45 days, a significant milestone after nearly 3 years of previous attempts.
Technologies: React, Redux, GraphQL, GraphQL API, GraphQL Code Generator, Kubernetes, Terraform, GitHub, GitHub API, GitHub Actions, Django, Django REST Framework, Celery, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Ansible, Continuous Delivery (CD), Testing, Architecture, Video Transcoding, Docker, NoSQL, React Native, Video Streaming, Amazon RDS, Serverless Architecture, Back-end, Cloud, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Helm, Monitoring, Serverless, Amazon DynamoDB, Mobile Payments, Tailwind CSS, Pandas, NumPy, Docker Compose, Single Sign-on (SSO), Product Support, Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Database Optimization, Software Architecture, CTO, APIs
Senior System Architect
2021 - 2024
GiddyUp
- Led the development of V3 of the company's eCommerce platform from scratch, building the project skeleton with Django for the back end and React for the client and employee dashboard applications.
- Designed and implemented the entire project infrastructure using AWS services (CloudFormation, ECS, RDS, SES, ECR, ElastiCache, ALB, CloudFront, VPC), setting up isolated environments for production, staging, and testing.
- Developed and maintained CI/CD pipelines using CircleCI and GitHub Actions, including Cypress tests for testing environments and smoke tests for APIs, ensuring customizable and efficient pipelines.
- Built the core system, system models, Celery infrastructure, deployment infrastructure, and Django Rest Framework integration, enabling flexible permissions and headers for a multi-tenant application.
- Created and configured Amazon CloudFront, Route 53 for automatic domain registration and validation, and SES for DKIM and PTR validations.
- Dockerized all services, set up autoscaling architecture with Amazon ECS clusters, and optimized test parallelization in CircleCI with detailed reports.
- Implemented key parts of the project, including brands, shopping cart, Avalara taxes, Stripe integration, PayPal integration, affiliate program commissions, and order processing.
- Led the team and oversaw the full system architecture, back end, front end, and DevOps work, successfully scaling the platform to handle 150,000 orders per month and over 1 million orders annually.
Technologies: React, Django, Redux, Next.js, GitHub, GitHub Actions, GitHub API, Slack, Slack API, ShipStation, Avalara Tax API, Stripe, Stripe API, PayPal, PayPal API, Celery, Stripe Checkout, ShipBob, OpenAI API, OpenAI, Cloudflare, AWS SDK, AWS CloudFormation, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR), AWS ALB, CircleCI, Cypress, Continuous Delivery (CD), Jira, SendGrid, SendGrid API, Fastly, Reporting, Mailchimp, Klaviyo, NoSQL, Amazon RDS, Serverless Architecture, Back-end, Large-scale Projects, Cloud, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Monitoring, Serverless, Amazon DynamoDB, Mobile Payments, Tailwind CSS, Docker Compose, Single Sign-on (SSO), Product Support, Cloud Computing, Elastic, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Database Optimization, Document Parsing, PDF, Software Architecture, CTO, APIs
Senior Full-stack Developer
2022 - 2022
The PepsiCo Foundation, Inc. - Food for Good
- Developed the Django REST API backend for the project website, integrating shipping providers (ShipStation, ShipEasy) and Stripe payment solutions.
- Built and processed shipping updates webhooks, transforming raw shipping event data into human-readable status updates for orders.
- Integrated Stripe payments solution for checkout and order processing.
- Implemented scheduled and ongoing Celery tasks and Celery infrastructure for async processing shipments events, payment integration events, checks, and Slack notifications.
- Developed both client-side React application and employee-side dashboard for the project.
- Created and maintained the CI/CD pipeline, deploying the project infrastructure using AWS CloudFormation.
Technologies: Django, Python, React, Redux, REST, AWS ALB, AWS ELB, AWS SDK, AWS IAM, Stripe, Stripe API, Stripe Checkout, ShipStation, ShipStation API, Slack, Slack API, Jira REST API, Geolocation, Celery, Docker, CircleCI, GitHub, GitHub Actions, AWS CloudFormation, React Native, Amazon RDS, Serverless Architecture, Back-end, Cloud, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Helm, Monitoring, Serverless, Amazon DynamoDB, Tailwind CSS, Docker Compose, Single Sign-on (SSO), Product Support, Cloud Computing, Elastic, Database Optimization, Document Parsing, PDF, Software Architecture, CTO
Senior Full-stack Engineer
2022 - 2022
Reddit, Inc.
- Developed a full-stack intranet platform from scratch for Reddit teams to manage feature rollouts, including Jira integration for automated ticket updates and Slack/email notifications.
- Built the front-end in React with Redux, implementing complex features such as forms, lists, filters, statistics, direct messaging, and user permissions.
- Developed the back-end using Python Flask with SQLAlchemy, REST APIs, and Celery for async processing of Jira updates.
- Implemented server-side rendering for React and Dockerized the back-end infrastructure within a large-scale Terraform configuration of Reddit's entire infrastructure.
- Developed CI/CD solution using custom Reddit's CI/CD toolkit for continuous integration for the project.
- Worked independently, managing both front-end, back-end, and DevOps responsibilities.
Technologies: Python, LitElement, JSON, Full-stack, Jinja, GitHub, Jira, PostgreSQL, Server-side Rendering (SSR), React, DevOps, APIs, REST, Layout, Flask, Flask API, Redux, Terraform, NoSQL, Video Streaming, Amazon RDS, Serverless Architecture, Back-end, Large-scale Projects, Cloud, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Amazon DynamoDB, Lit, Tailwind CSS, Docker Compose, Single Sign-on (SSO), Product Support, Cloud Computing, Elastic, Database Optimization, Document Parsing, PDF
Senior Full-stack Developer
2020 - 2022
FreshBooks
- Developed and implemented key features for invoice and order processing using Python and Flask.
- Improved performance of critical APIs to enhance system efficiency.
- Built and maintained front-end features using Ember.js, ensuring seamless user experiences.
- Contributed to DevOps initiatives, optimizing and enhancing existing CI/CD pipelines.
Technologies: Python, Flask, JavaScript, Ember.js, DevOps, Celery, AWS SDK, NoSQL, Amazon RDS, Azure, Back-end, Large-scale Projects, Cloud, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Helm, Serverless, Amazon DynamoDB, Docker Compose
DevOps Engineer
2020 - 2020
Secure Staffing LLC
- Supported and improved the existing architecture and component configurations.
- Refined and dockerized Nginx configurations, enhancing performance and reliability.
- Implemented CI/CD pipelines to streamline deployment processes.
- Maintained and modernized legacy source code, driving forward solution improvements.
Technologies: Linux, NGINX, Apache, DevOps, Amazon RDS, Back-end, Cloud, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Monitoring, Serverless, Docker Compose
Senior Software Engineer
2018 - 2020
Reddit, Inc.
- Worked as a full-stack senior software engineer to implement and support a sizable list of tools, features, and microservices.
- Created multiple internal tools from scratch, including UI and back-end work.
- Contributed to the development of a high-load part of the project, which should finish in a constant, predictable time. Multiple optimizations and some tricky logic were implemented to reduce IO.
- Developed parts of a bulk action tool that supports various database object actions for lists that contain hundreds of thousands of items.
- Created a Google Chrome extension to download recently implemented HLS livestream support for employees and anti-evil team folks.
- Worked on internal tools that use Zendesk and Jira integration for processing users' feedback requests and reports.
- Helped fix and implement new features and workflows for DMCA legal request processing and blocking.
- Contributed to the construction of new microservices and components of the Reddit system.
- Created a tool for admins to reset two backup factor codes for employees with various checks.
- Created an ACL system from scratch for a custom-written API and used a framework that allows developers to manage user permissions in a cool way right on the API level.
Technologies: Async.js, HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), Apache Cassandra, Microservices, Apache Thrift, React, Node.js, Python, API Integration, Next.js, Amazon RDS, Back-end, Large-scale Projects, Cloud, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Lit, Docker Compose
Senior DevOps Engineer
2017 - 2020
One Big Switch
- Contributed to the solution of a list of varying issues for the company in different areas, but the main direction was to migrate from the old Capistrano and Chef deployment system to the modern AWS CodePipeline solution via Amazon ECS.
- Created a from-scratch cookbook for custom OpenVPN installation and cross-origin integration.
- Built on AWS CodePipeline for a heavy WordPress website installation the company had and moved from a pretty expensive hosting provider to Amazon ECS, which costs the client just a few hundred bucks.
- Built a Ruby on Rails application deployment pipeline using AWS CodePipeline to Amazon ECS with optimized caching of FS layers.
- Optimized the WordPress back-end on PHP to allow handling approximately 5,000 visitors online, which was impossible to serve before.
- Developed and optimized Docker files to get everything working and building between builds without sharing build artifacts.
- Supported the custom installation of Chef and Chef Server, supporting the deployment configuration in Capistrano.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), PHP, VPN, DNS, Capistrano, Chef, Ruby, Docker, Large-scale Projects, Cloud, Monitoring
Lead Python and React Developer
2018 - 2018
Retitle, Inc.
- Developed and optimized new REST APIs and improved existing back-end performance.
- Built and enhanced user interface components using React and Redux.
- Created new UI forms and dialogs to improve user experience.
Technologies: Python, React, Flask, CSS, HTML, Django, Redux, Cloud
AWS DevOps
2018 - 2018
Tremor
- Created a Jenkins pipeline in a Docker agent that checks multiple system components, tests them, runs integration tests, builds new containers, and deploys the new application version to ECS.
- Developed the Java application build process using Gradle and Jooq tools.
- Upgraded build servers, including base systems and Jenkins components, because it was outdated for years.
- Added the Docker configuration to the components of the system, which makes Docker builds very fast and optimized.
- Fixed existing build pipelines for Java and Python projects, which have been required for blockchain mining networks.
Technologies: GitHub, React, Python, Node.js, Java, Jenkins Pipeline, Docker, Cloud
Full-stack Developer
2017 - 2018
Backstage
- Audited and refactored Celery tasks to enhance efficiency.
- Built a Stripe webhook logging and analysis dashboard.
- Supported and developed a new REST API architecture using Django and Tastypie.
- Added comprehensive unit testing across system components.
- Developed and fixed front-end features using React and Backbone.
- Overhauled and polished the Django admin dashboard for improved usability.
- Fixed bugs and implemented improvements across various system components.
- Conducted source code reviews, addressing permissions vulnerabilities.
Technologies: Unit Testing, Mercurial, Elasticsearch, MySQL, Django, Backbone.js, React, Python, Video Streaming, Cloud
DevOps Engineer
2017 - 2018
Skuchain
- Checked, fixed, refactored, and enhanced a deployment solution in the project.
- Used Docker with Docker Compose for building microservices architecture.
- Created microservices architecture using Docker, AWS CloudFormation, and Traefik (and Nginx) for traffic balancing and routing.
- Handled Bash scripting; the deployment configuration is all built in Bash.
- Configured multiple branches to support dynamic service management, enabling adding, removing, or migrating services from a plain text file with their URLs, branches, and commits.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), Secure Copy Protocol (SCP), SSH, Bash, Webpack, Express.js, React, Node.js, Hyperledger, Docker, Cloud, Software Architecture
AWS DevOps Senior Engineer
2017 - 2017
Webconnex
- Created AWS OpsWorks infrastructure from scratch. The configuration is connected with a CI pipeline.
- Created CI/CD configuration for over 30 microservice components of the project.
- Developed and supported deployment configuration recipes for Go and Node.js applications.
- Set up and fine-tuned configuration for Filebeat and Metricbeat.
- Supported a multiple-stack environment via custom JSON configuration in OpsWorks.
- Added role grouping (soft-layer) support for multiple applications in one instance.
- Integrated local testing and Chef cookbooks dependency management.
- Set up, configured, and created deployment configuration for the AWS Application Load Balancer (ALB).
- Added support and configured dynamic DNS names for multiple environments.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Node.js, Go, Ruby, Chef, AWS OpsWorks
Django and React Developer
2017 - 2017
Boyd Creative Pty, Ltd.
- Created a single-page application dashboard with various graphs, tables, and dynamic filters for analytics data.
- Developed a very fast JavaScript async application which works many times faster than previously in AngularJS.
- Support and rework of existing legacy source code.
- Optimized access to the API requests database to decrease API response time.
- Optimized Webpack build configuration to significantly improve dashboard asset performance.
Technologies: Linux, MySQL, Mercurial, REST APIs, React, Django
Lead Django and React Developer
2017 - 2017
Dalton Bain
- Integrated a multi-branch Docker-based continuous integration full cycle for the project using Chef and OpsWorks.
- Implemented from scratch CI/CD automated pipeline in Jenkins.
- Supported Django and AngularJS projects, integrating new features and fixing bugs, among other things.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Chef, AWS OpsWorks, AngularJS, Docker, Jenkins, Django
Senior Django Developer
2016 - 2017
DecisionDesk
- Improved back-end REST API performance issues.
- Dockerized all the project infrastructure from scratch.
- Developed a pipeline to convert images and Microsoft Office files to PDF.
- Manipulated various PDF files in Python and Java (read, convert, merge, export to PDF).
- Installed and configured a Graylog2 )MongoDB and Elasticsearch) cluster in Docker containers on AWS OpsWorks Stack.
- Developed custom logging adapters (TCP, UDP, HTTP/HTTPS) for the Graylog2 instance.
- Integrated a Shibboleth (SAML2 Protocol) authorization method.
- Built custom Django MongoDB Queries profiler middleware, allowing users to see and download detailed requests for deep checking code, load performance, etc., to a MongoDB server list.
- Integrated a CASHNet payment solution to accept payments.
- Implemented from scratch CI/CD pipeline with Chef.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Linux, PostgreSQL, Backbone.js, Docker, Tastypie, MongoDB, Django, Video Streaming
Full-stack Back-end Developer
2014 - 2015
Stealth Mode iOS/M-Commerce Silicon Valley Startup
- Oversaw back-end creation and maintenance of an m-commerce iOS platform.
- Served as product manager for all API integrations, including multiple payment gateways.
- Integrated Amazon S3 storage and front-end side usage.
- Rebuilt the project from the legacy source code it had.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Linux, Stripe, iOS, REST, Python
Chief Information Officer and Scrum Product Owner
2011 - 2015
FloraExpress
- Managed a five-member team and served as scrum master in the company’s Scrum environment. Additional roles included senior full-stack engineer, DevOps engineer, and deployment engineer.
- Created an API-driven platform for quickly-growing company websites, mobile applications, and third-party integrations, and fully managed the deployment process.
- Reduced website downtime from 20% to 0% by rewriting the company’s services from scratch.
- Developed an API core, four eCommerce fully functional landing sites, two alpha versions, two payment gateways (PHP and Python versions with 15 and 20 payment methods), and a lot of small tools and integrations with third-party services.
- Built a stable, DDOS-protected, and horizontal scalable platform as well as a lot of business instruments.
- Enabled the company to handle about 8,000 orders per day on holidays because of the amazing CRM system built with Ajax and HTML5.
- Increased daily orders from 25 to 75–80 and created 80% of the source code for a payment gateway's Python/Django version with 20 available payment methods, amongst other achievements.
Technologies: Distributed File Systems, Scaling, RESTful Web Services, Webpack, SCSS, Less, CSS, HTML5, Continuous Integration (CI), OAuth, Sphinx Search Engine, Redis, Memcached, MongoDB, Docker, MySQL, Node.js, JavaScript, Python, PHP
Senior PHP Developer, System Architect
2011 - 2012
Kanga
- Developed Flash games for Vk.com. Managed the team’s task management.
- Implemented a back-end REST API for mobile applications.
- Oversaw jQuery development of mobile game landing pages and websites.
- Handled the deployment process with Linux server administration tasks.
- Facilitated real-time video processing with Wowza media services.
Technologies: Continuous Integration (CI), CSS, HTML, JavaScript, Flash ActionScript, RESTful Development, REST APIs, MySQL, PHP
Middle Java Developer & System Architect
2010 - 2011
DuoTM
- Worked with a team of Java developers to develop web application tasks and AION/Lineage II server network core in Java.
- Completed the project successfully, but DuoTM was discontinued due to lack of funding.
- Built a very fast network IO-threaded solution with encryption and DDOS protection.
- Developed and deployed configuration with Java build tools.
Technologies: Network Stack, Continuous Integration (CI), Jira, Java
CEO, Team Leader, and Full-stack Developer
2008 - 2009
2315.ru
- Founded and managed a web design and development company, managed four team members, and built eCommerce and portal type websites for the Russian market.
- Oversaw team task management, contracts, system administration, PHP/JavaScript development, database management, and more.
- Completed about 100 web development projects, including all DevOps tasks and back-end development.
Technologies: Git, Sass, Less, CSS, JavaScript, Linux Administration, Python, PHP
Network Engineer and Junior .NET Developer
2004 - 2007
Ural State University
- Served as a network engineer and Windows/Linux administration team member.
- Helped manage a seven-server campus network along with 300 staff PCs.
- Oversaw diskless Linux and Windows boots, overriding workstation operating systems via remote network diskless boot and restoration of hard disk images, Active Directory management, domain politics, software politics, web servers, and network routing.
- Used Python, C# (including .NET ASPX), Bash, and PHP to create utilities and other small programs for managing Active Directory and user politics.
- Developed a student intranet portal using Microsoft technologies and .NET ASPX.
Technologies: Infrastructure, Azure Active Directory, Linux Administration, Bash, Python, PHP, C#, .NET
Network Engineer and .NET Junior Developer
2005 - 2006
SKB Kontur
- Served primarily as a contract network engineer but occasionally worked as a junior .NET developer.
- Managed all network hardware, software, and server configuration.
- Built company applications in ASP.NET C#, Windows-based C# apps, and console apps.
Technologies: Azure Active Directory, Git, Subversion (SVN), Linux Server Administration, PHP, C#, .NET
Project History
Webconnex Chef/AWS/OpsWorks Configuration
I've built Chef/AWS/Opsworks configuration for deploying all required applications and services with very flexible deployment configuration including a lot of features.
• Created AWS OpsWorks infrastructure from scratch.
• The configuration is connected with CI pipeline.
• Configuration for over than 30 microservices.
• Go language and Node.js deploy recipes.
• Filebeat and Metricbeat configuration.
• Multiple Stacks environment support via Custom JSON configuration in OpsWorks.
• Roles grouping (soft-layers) for multiple applications in one instance support is added.
• Local testing, Chef cookbooks dependency management integration.
• AWS application level balancer integration.
• Dynamic DNS names for multiple environments configuration support is added.
Used technologies: AWS, OpsWorks, Chef, Ruby, Go Lang, Node.js
• Created AWS OpsWorks infrastructure from scratch.
• The configuration is connected with CI pipeline.
• Configuration for over than 30 microservices.
• Go language and Node.js deploy recipes.
• Filebeat and Metricbeat configuration.
• Multiple Stacks environment support via Custom JSON configuration in OpsWorks.
• Roles grouping (soft-layers) for multiple applications in one instance support is added.
• Local testing, Chef cookbooks dependency management integration.
• AWS application level balancer integration.
• Dynamic DNS names for multiple environments configuration support is added.
Used technologies: AWS, OpsWorks, Chef, Ruby, Go Lang, Node.js
DecisionDesk (via Toptal)
I joined the team when the project was in a crisis due to a series of major issues: bugs, feature requests, performance problems, etc. Performance optimization was the most serious problem because it made normal usage impossible at times due to critical bugs. My work helped the team out of the crisis and stabilized the application, and it is now fast and growing.
My work included the following:
- Back-end performance optimization
- Docker container integration
- Image/Office file to PDF conversion
- PDF file manipulation (read, convert, merge, export) in Python and Java
- Graylog2 (+MongoDB +ElasticSearch) cluster installation/configuration in Docker containers on AWS OpsWorks Stack
- Custom logging adapters (TCP, UDP, HTTP/HTTPS) added to the Graylog2 instance
- Shibboleth (SAML2 Protocol) auth method integration
- Custom Django MongoDB Queries profiler middleware that allows users to see/download requests for checking code, load performance, etc., to a Mongo server list
- CASHNet payment processor integration
- Chef recipes in Ruby
- Bug fixes and features
- Postfix installed/configured as a smart host
Tech stack: Django, AWS, Mongo, TastyPie, Docker, Backbone, Postgres, Linux
My work included the following:
- Back-end performance optimization
- Docker container integration
- Image/Office file to PDF conversion
- PDF file manipulation (read, convert, merge, export) in Python and Java
- Graylog2 (+MongoDB +ElasticSearch) cluster installation/configuration in Docker containers on AWS OpsWorks Stack
- Custom logging adapters (TCP, UDP, HTTP/HTTPS) added to the Graylog2 instance
- Shibboleth (SAML2 Protocol) auth method integration
- Custom Django MongoDB Queries profiler middleware that allows users to see/download requests for checking code, load performance, etc., to a Mongo server list
- CASHNet payment processor integration
- Chef recipes in Ruby
- Bug fixes and features
- Postfix installed/configured as a smart host
Tech stack: Django, AWS, Mongo, TastyPie, Docker, Backbone, Postgres, Linux
Skills Test Project Using AWS/Chef/OpsWorks
Created a flexible configuration in Chef from scratch for deploying a test application on a cluster of application servers, balancers, database servers with dedicated logging server which collects logs from all the servers and allows you look through it in a moment.
Solution stuff:
• Python Application servers
• Nginx Router/Balancer servers
• MySQL server with slaves
• Graylog2 server with its configuration which accepts logs from multiple sources and processes it allowing flexible filtering and reporting.
• Multiple application level balancing
• Automatic S3 backups for mutable storages
Used technologies: Chef, Ruby, AWS \w OpsWorks \ ALB \ VPC \ Route53 \ EC2 \ etc, MySQL, Python, Django, Nginx.
Solution stuff:
• Python Application servers
• Nginx Router/Balancer servers
• MySQL server with slaves
• Graylog2 server with its configuration which accepts logs from multiple sources and processes it allowing flexible filtering and reporting.
• Multiple application level balancing
• Automatic S3 backups for mutable storages
Used technologies: Chef, Ruby, AWS \w OpsWorks \ ALB \ VPC \ Route53 \ EC2 \ etc, MySQL, Python, Django, Nginx.
Stealth Mode iOS/Mobile Commerce Silicon Valley Startup
The client required back-end API architecture for a mobile application with geolocation, payments, and shipment integration. I delivered a working app that had all of these features.
I also hired an iOS developer contractor for the client and managed a small team until the application was completed.
The client received a working prototype and used it to secure another round of investment.
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL
“I’ve worked with Alex on multiple projects and have been amazed at the quality of his work and his professionalism. His work is definitely top shelf material and he takes great pride in making sure of this. He is extremely easy to work with and can handle any stressful situation before him. Ambiguity is no concern for Alex! I’m also impressed with his communication skills as he makes sure to focus on his clients’ needs and puts any concerns to rest by walking them through risks and providing alternative solutions. I’ve considered myself very lucky to have worked with Alex and hope to work more with him in the future.”
I also hired an iOS developer contractor for the client and managed a small team until the application was completed.
The client received a working prototype and used it to secure another round of investment.
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL
“I’ve worked with Alex on multiple projects and have been amazed at the quality of his work and his professionalism. His work is definitely top shelf material and he takes great pride in making sure of this. He is extremely easy to work with and can handle any stressful situation before him. Ambiguity is no concern for Alex! I’m also impressed with his communication skills as he makes sure to focus on his clients’ needs and puts any concerns to rest by walking them through risks and providing alternative solutions. I’ve considered myself very lucky to have worked with Alex and hope to work more with him in the future.”
Visual Sitemap Generator - Dyno Mapper
The client needed to fix bugs and add features to a back-end ScraPy project tool that is used to crawl websites.
I added approximately sixty features, including login support for standard HTTP authorization methods, popular CMS engines, and custom client engines. We moved from a standalone dedicated server to AWS autoscaling Docker container deployment processes.
My work greatly improved crawler speed and accuracy. I added extra caching layers, database bulk writes, and temporary storage for crawling time data to Redis and MongoDB. The crawler now works without any bottlenecks and can crawl websites in about fifteen parallel threads, providing an amazing user experience. This project has increased lead generation and boosted the popularity of the client's service.
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL
“Alexandr Shurigin is a brilliant Python developer who has always delivered projects to exact specifications and has always been a pleasure to work with. If you are looking for an innovative developer with fresh ideas, he would be an excellent choice to add to your team. He works well with other developers and has an excellent attitude. He succeeds where I have seen other Python developers fail and he makes it look easy. A+ developer.”
I added approximately sixty features, including login support for standard HTTP authorization methods, popular CMS engines, and custom client engines. We moved from a standalone dedicated server to AWS autoscaling Docker container deployment processes.
My work greatly improved crawler speed and accuracy. I added extra caching layers, database bulk writes, and temporary storage for crawling time data to Redis and MongoDB. The crawler now works without any bottlenecks and can crawl websites in about fifteen parallel threads, providing an amazing user experience. This project has increased lead generation and boosted the popularity of the client's service.
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL
“Alexandr Shurigin is a brilliant Python developer who has always delivered projects to exact specifications and has always been a pleasure to work with. If you are looking for an innovative developer with fresh ideas, he would be an excellent choice to add to your team. He works well with other developers and has an excellent attitude. He succeeds where I have seen other Python developers fail and he makes it look easy. A+ developer.”
CRM & POS System Development/Magento Optimization/Linux Support
This project encompassed a wide variety of tasks, including simple template work, simple PHP work, software dev from scratch, inventory management CRM creation, POS system development from scratch, performance optimization, source code sanitation from spaghetti code, and integration with third-party services such as ShipStation, Amazon, eBay, PayPal API, PayPal Payflow Pro, and more.
I built an amazing CRM and POS with all required features and integrations, which has reduced the client’s spending on staff costs.
These systems have also allowed the client to spend less time on business management because all areas of business now are automated. This has freed the client up to grow his business, open a brick-and-mortar showroom, and make more sales than ever before.
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL
“Alex is a GREAT programmer. I have repeatedly retained his services for my private business interests (not for my employer) and he has produced prompt and expert work every time. I have learnt that I can count on his expertise every time. I also love that for many items I have wished programming for that other programmers have said that were not possible, Alex delivered them. Wow!!"
I built an amazing CRM and POS with all required features and integrations, which has reduced the client’s spending on staff costs.
These systems have also allowed the client to spend less time on business management because all areas of business now are automated. This has freed the client up to grow his business, open a brick-and-mortar showroom, and make more sales than ever before.
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL
“Alex is a GREAT programmer. I have repeatedly retained his services for my private business interests (not for my employer) and he has produced prompt and expert work every time. I have learnt that I can count on his expertise every time. I also love that for many items I have wished programming for that other programmers have said that were not possible, Alex delivered them. Wow!!"
FloraExpress
https://www.floraexpress.ru/My role: Full-stack engineer, Linux/DevOps engineer, Scrum product owner
The client required a project manager to build a dedicated CRM system from scratch with REST API endpoints and approximately seven of the company's clients' applications. I oversaw the build of a CRM system, three versions of the primary eCommerce website, two additional eCommerce websites, two payment gateways, mobile applications, several mobile websites designed from scratch (not responsive versions of the main websites), and many additional tools and utilities. I used best practices to perform all required tasks. All elements of the project have been deployed; they are now live and generating leads.
As a result of my work, the client now uses many new business instruments that generate leads and increase customer satisfaction. My work led to an increase in orders from 25/day to 80/day. Additionally, I built a stable platform with 99.99% SLA, DDoS protection, all infrastructure configuration, automated deployment, version control, and various features.
The client required a project manager to build a dedicated CRM system from scratch with REST API endpoints and approximately seven of the company's clients' applications. I oversaw the build of a CRM system, three versions of the primary eCommerce website, two additional eCommerce websites, two payment gateways, mobile applications, several mobile websites designed from scratch (not responsive versions of the main websites), and many additional tools and utilities. I used best practices to perform all required tasks. All elements of the project have been deployed; they are now live and generating leads.
As a result of my work, the client now uses many new business instruments that generate leads and increase customer satisfaction. My work led to an increase in orders from 25/day to 80/day. Additionally, I built a stable platform with 99.99% SLA, DDoS protection, all infrastructure configuration, automated deployment, version control, and various features.
Google Chrome Plugin
The client required a Google Chrome extension to perform an automation "change and control IP task" to prevent being banned when the same cookie appears on multiple IPs. This plugin saved the client a significant amount of time and prevents him from being blocked by a target service due to an IP conflict.
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL
"Excellent. Perfect on all fronts. Alexandr did a really amazing job quickly and with great communication. I look forward to hiring him again in the future."
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL
"Excellent. Perfect on all fronts. Alexandr did a really amazing job quickly and with great communication. I look forward to hiring him again in the future."
Django Deploy Fixes and Bug Fixes with Some Features
The client’s website stopped working after being switched to a new hosting provider. I fixed all deploy configuration issues so that the website would work properly. Once the website went live, I fixed numerous problems, including bad validation of form data. I also adjusted email settings/configuration, including SPF and DKIM configuration with auto-forwarding to company staff. As a result, the client’s website is now functional and able to generate leads.
CLIENT TESTIMONIALS
"I like everything about my experience working with this particular contractor: knowledge, communication, quality of work, availability, professionalism. Extremely happy with his work! Everything has been fixed even faster than I could expect! Thank you!
"Great quality of work and outstanding communication skills!
"Strongly recommending!"
CLIENT TESTIMONIALS
"I like everything about my experience working with this particular contractor: knowledge, communication, quality of work, availability, professionalism. Extremely happy with his work! Everything has been fixed even faster than I could expect! Thank you!
"Great quality of work and outstanding communication skills!
"Strongly recommending!"
Major Code Migration
The client needed to migrate from Google App Engine to an AWS Elastic Beanstalk Docker Multi-container infrastructure. This required rewriting a significant amount of source code that depended on Google App Engine API.
I rewrote a significant portion of the project and made all deployment processes as simple as possible with shippable.com CI. I found alternatives and rewrote all source code for Google App Engine APIs: URLfetch, geocoding, XMPP proxy, Cloud SQL, Async tasks, deferred tasks, and cache. I also rewrote many unit tests to test all migration process results.
DELIVERABLES
- Shippable configuration for CI and auto-deploy staging/production configurations and tests evaluation
- All source code migrated to open source existing solutions which work like Google App Engine API
- Lot of bugs and outdated source code fixes
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL
"Alex is a great developer and sysadmin. He showed great flexibility and accountability during the project. I would recommend him for any job that involves sysadmin, Docker, and Python skills."
I rewrote a significant portion of the project and made all deployment processes as simple as possible with shippable.com CI. I found alternatives and rewrote all source code for Google App Engine APIs: URLfetch, geocoding, XMPP proxy, Cloud SQL, Async tasks, deferred tasks, and cache. I also rewrote many unit tests to test all migration process results.
DELIVERABLES
- Shippable configuration for CI and auto-deploy staging/production configurations and tests evaluation
- All source code migrated to open source existing solutions which work like Google App Engine API
- Lot of bugs and outdated source code fixes
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL
"Alex is a great developer and sysadmin. He showed great flexibility and accountability during the project. I would recommend him for any job that involves sysadmin, Docker, and Python skills."
Attune.co API Python Client
https://github.com/attune-api/attune-python/The client had an API web service as the main project feature and wanted to have an API client written using Python. I built a strong API client with features such as auto-retry on 5xx errors, a circuit-breaking pattern to avoid DDoS on API web service if it has an increasing error count, async/sync execution of API, unit-tested features, and more. All of this was completed within two weeks and all deadlines were met.
The client received an exceptional Python client and has begun to use it with his web service business clients.
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL
"Alexandr produced very well written code. Very readable, well structured and commented. Great Python skills employing lambdas and multi-threading.
Alexandr worked late hours to deliver my project in time. Great talent!"
The client received an exceptional Python client and has begun to use it with his web service business clients.
CLIENT TESTIMONIAL
"Alexandr produced very well written code. Very readable, well structured and commented. Great Python skills employing lambdas and multi-threading.
Alexandr worked late hours to deliver my project in time. Great talent!"
Education
2003 - 2007
Partially Completed Degree in Theoretical Physics
A. M. Gorky Ural State University - Russia, Yekaterinburg
Skills
Libraries/APIs
React, jQuery, Node.js, Requests, Flask-RESTful, JavaScript API for Chrome, Lit, Pandas, NumPy, SQLAlchemy, Stripe, Tastypie, Backbone.js, REST APIs, Jenkins Pipeline, OpenOffice UNO API, LitElement, Flask API, Stripe API, Slack API, Jira REST API, GraphQL API, GitHub API, Avalara Tax API, PayPal API, OpenAI API, SendGrid API
Tools
Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Bitbucket, GitHub, AWS OpsWorks, Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR), AWS ELB, Redux Thunk, Git, MySQL Performance Tuning, Celery, Webpack, Xdebug, Apache, NGINX, Trello, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS), RabbitMQ, AWS SDK, Terraform, Helm, Docker Compose, Elastic, Jenkins, Chef, Shibboleth, Graylog, Gulp, GitLab, Babel, Grunt, PyCharm, PhpStorm, Slack, Subversion (SVN), Jira, Mercurial, AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), Capistrano, VPN, Xcode, AWS IAM, Stripe Checkout, ShipStation, CircleCI, AWS CloudFormation, Ansible, SendGrid, Fastly, Mailchimp
Languages
ECMAScript (ES6), Python 3, XML, Sass, CoffeeScript, Less, HTML, PHP, SQL, CSS, CSS3, JavaScript, Python, TypeScript, GraphQL, ActionScript 2, C#, HTML5, Java, Flash ActionScript, SCSS, Bash, Go, Ruby
Frameworks
CakePHP, Django REST Framework, Flask, Redux, Django, Scrapy, Material UI, Next.js, Tailwind CSS, AngularJS, Apache Thrift, React Native, .NET, Express.js, Jinja, Ember.js, Cypress, LangGraph
Paradigms
REST, Scrum, Refactoring, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), Continuous Deployment, Continuous Delivery (CD), Continuous Integration (CI), Object-relational Mapping (ORM), DevOps, Serverless Architecture, Unit Testing, Microservices, RESTful Development, Testing
Platforms
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon EC2, Docker, Linux, Ubuntu Linux, Linux RHEL/CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian Linux, MacOS, AWS Lambda, Kubernetes, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, FreeBSD, iOS, Hyperledger, iOS 10+, Android, AWS ALB, ShipBob, Klaviyo, Azure, Vercel, Langfuse, LangSmith
Storage
JSON, SQL Performance, Memcached, Redis, MySQL, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), NoSQL, Elasticsearch, Sphinx Search Engine, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Redshift, Amazon DynamoDB, Azure Active Directory
Other
Front-end, Back-end Performance, Load Balancers, Ajax, Performance Optimization, Performance, API Integration, Full-stack, CI/CD Pipelines, Architecture, APIs, Video Streaming, Amazon RDS, Back-end, Cloud, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Monitoring, FastAPI, Product Support, Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Database Optimization, Full-stack Development, Software Architecture, Distributed File Systems, Gitolite, Client-side JavaScript Frameworks, Apache Cassandra, Tailwind UI, Large-scale Projects, Serverless, Mobile Payments, Single Sign-on (SSO), Document Parsing, PDF, CTO, Linux Administration, Linux Server Administration, OAuth, RESTful Web Services, Scaling, Network Stack, Infrastructure, SSH, Secure Copy Protocol (SCP), HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), Async.js, DNS, Server-side Rendering (SSR), Layout, ShipStation API, Geolocation, GitHub Actions, GraphQL Code Generator, Video Transcoding, PayPal, OpenAI, Cloudflare, Reporting, Payment APIs, Hospitality, Property Management, Large Language Models (LLMs), Open-source LLMs, LangChain
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