Asad is available for hire
Hire AsadAsad Jibran Ahmed
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Developer
Cambridge, United Kingdom
Toptal member since February 14, 2018
Bio
Multiple managers in past roles have described Jibran as a product-minded engineer. Over a 10+ year career, he cultivated a skill for identifying and solving customer problems using software development. Having worked at companies of all sizes, from a 4-person startup to an 8,000 people strong multi-national (Stripe), he also has a unique perspective of seeing what does and does not work at different scales. Jibran uses these lessons to build teams and systems that scale with the business.
Portfolio
Sawa
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Python 3, Django, Stripe, Retool, AWS DevOps, Docker...
Stripe
Ruby, Java, React, APIs, REST APIs, Back-end, Microservices, Linux...
Felix
JavaScript, Python, Django, APIs, REST APIs, Back-end, Microservices, Pytest...
Experience
- Django - 15 years
- Python - 15 years
- JavaScript - 10 years
- REST APIs - 7 years
- AWS DevOps - 7 years
- Docker - 7 years
- Go - 5 years
- Ruby on Rails (RoR) - 3 years
Availability
Part-time
Preferred Environment
PyCharm
The most amazing...
...project I've worked on is a Windows desktop app calculating the chances of winning a game of Texas Hold'em, given starting conditions.
Work Experience
Lead Engineer
2022 - 2023
Sawa
- Developed an app and multiple internal tools to support the invoice factoring business that Sawa was trying to start.
- Built the infrastructure for deploying the multiple apps, plus the pipelines needed to automate the deployment for CI/CD.
- Oversaw and mentored two mid/junior engineers as the lead engineer at the startup.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Python 3, Django, Stripe, Retool, AWS DevOps, Docker, Linux, React, Terraform
Software Engineer
2021 - 2022
Stripe
- Acted as the directly responsible individual (DRI) for the project that launched Stripe's core offering to Croatia, Lichtenstein, and Gibraltar. Also, served as a DRI on a project to bring Stripe's multi-currency payouts functionality to a new region.
- Initiated and got leadership buy-in for mid-sized projects by writing strategy review documents that included justifying the business needs and revenue projections.
- Worked as part of multiple cross-functional teams for various projects during my time at Stripe.
Technologies: Ruby, Java, React, APIs, REST APIs, Back-end, Microservices, Linux, Elasticsearch, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Terraform
Head of Technology
2017 - 2021
Felix
- Led the technical team and made technology decisions.
- Managed the infrastructure as a DevOps engineer on AWS and later Azure.
- Provided hands-on coding on the main application and related services.
- Took part in product discussions and the product development lifecycle.
- Performed code reviews to ensure acceptable code quality standards were maintained.
- Built and managed a pricing engine that translates rules from Excel sheets to Python and presented them as an API.
Technologies: JavaScript, Python, Django, APIs, REST APIs, Back-end, Microservices, Pytest, Redis, AWS DevOps, Docker, Linux, Elasticsearch, React, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Terraform
Technical Co-founder
2016 - 2021
Agile Leaf
- Created and managed several landing pages and AdWords campaigns for a real estate agency based in the UAE.
- Helped the team finalizing and shipping to the client an Android application that showcases their product line and helps their customers to select the most appropriate product for their use.
- Led the overall technology strategy of the company and also mentored the team while trying to solve technical problems.
- Created an Ionic/Cordova-based mobile app for a printing press. The app allows the sales agents to quickly generate quotes for printing jobs in the field.
- Developed a Django-based property showcase site for a real estate agency in the UAE with integration to a leading property CRM system.
- Managed the server infrastructure for the clients' projects. This includes services deployed in a multi-cloud environment and providers like Google Cloud, AWS, DigitalOcean, and WebFaction.
- Ensured that the technology part of the business was handled according to our company's mindset.
- Worked as a product development team member to make sure the team was providing products with the most impact on the business.
- Assured that product requirements were translated to technical specs that led to fast product development.
Technologies: Flutter, Django, AWS DevOps, Docker, Linux, Terraform, Ruby on Rails (RoR)
Software Engineer
2018 - 2020
Toptal Client [NDA]
- Build a Go-based web spider to support the ad-tech safety platform of the organization.
- Improved existing Python-based scanners for better performance.
- Added Elasticsearch to parts of the platform that were extremely slow to display data from an SQL database.
- Improved the infrastructure deployed on AWS to follow industry best practices and to provide load balancing and high availability.
- Improved the structure and indexing of database tables to reduce query times for popular reporting view from minutes to seconds.
Technologies: Elasticsearch, Django, Python, Go, APIs, REST APIs, Back-end, Linux
Portals Technical Team Lead
2014 - 2017
JRD Group
- Contributed to the existing PHP codebase for one of the largest property-focused classified portals in the Middle East.
- Led the project of rewriting the existing PHP codebase to Django/Python as the senior back-end developer.
- Handled the effort to internationalize and launch the new portal in more than five countries in the Middle East.
- Stepped up the ladder to become the team leader for the portal's team, focusing on the smooth operation of the technical team.
- Managed the DevOps activities to ensure the smooth functioning of the infrastructure that the JustProperty portal uses.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), JavaScript, Python, Django, APIs, REST APIs, Back-end, Redis, Linux
Junior Web Developer
2013 - 2014
Dubizzle
- Developed the Django back and front ends of the new place-an-ad (PAA) form for the largest classifieds site in the Middle East.
- Refactored the existing code to improve the performance and clarity of the jobs vertical in the Dubizzle classifieds portal.
- Contributed to the monetization project for the jobs vertical.
- Improved the search functionality that was relevant to the jobs vertical.
- Created the back end for the customer admin panel of the jobs vertical.
Technologies: Python, Django, Back-end, Redis, Linux
Experience
50mm | A Simple-to-use Image Gallery Web App in Go
https://github.com/agile-leaf/50mm50mm is a photo gallery web application that I made when I couldn't find anything that matched my requirements. I wanted something that would work without a database, use S3-backed image storage, and optimize the images displayed using the Imgix real-time image processing service.
I did not find anything that fit the bill, so I created 50mm in Go. It uses the built-in HTTP server and Go HTML templating. It integrates with S3 for storage and uses Imgix for on-the-fly image processing.
In addition to powering my own gallery of photos, it is now used by at least two other people I know of to showcase their image collections.
I did not find anything that fit the bill, so I created 50mm in Go. It uses the built-in HTTP server and Go HTML templating. It integrates with S3 for storage and uses Imgix for on-the-fly image processing.
In addition to powering my own gallery of photos, it is now used by at least two other people I know of to showcase their image collections.
Daily Ayah Bot
https://github.com/agile-leaf/daily-ayah-botI wanted to experiment with the Twitter API and create a bot. I came up with the idea of one that would tweet out random verses from the Quran every day and programmed it in Go.
Dropletconn
https://github.com/theonejb/dropletconnA Go-based CLI tool to list and quickly connect to DigitalOcean droplets without needing to configure keys and other SSH options on the host system.
This utility allows me to quickly place SSH into the Digital Ocean droplets that I manage without explicitly having to configure them in my SSH config file. It is similar to how Google Cloud CLI allows using SSH in Google Cloud Compute instances.
This utility allows me to quickly place SSH into the Digital Ocean droplets that I manage without explicitly having to configure them in my SSH config file. It is similar to how Google Cloud CLI allows using SSH in Google Cloud Compute instances.
Vue.js Medium Editor
https://github.com/theonejb/vue-medium-editorI wanted to use a Medium-like editor on one of my projects that were using the Vue.js framework on the front end. Not finding anything that fit the bill at that time, I created my own by integrating the existing Medium Editor (GitHub.com/yabwe/medium-editor) into a Vue.js component.
Watchman | A Go Library to Listen to Changes in a Package and Its Dependencies
https://github.com/theonejb/watchmanWhen using the Go-based Gin web framework for a project, I missed the automatic reloading of Django whenever a dependency of the project changed.
I created a small library called Watchman and integrated it into Gin to fix that.
I created a small library called Watchman and integrated it into Gin to fix that.
Django Project Blueprints
In 2016, I published a book on Django titled Django Project Blueprints.
This is a book for beginner Django developers that are looking to take their skills to the next level, and it teaches them advanced skills by showing them how to build seven mid-size projects, including an eCommerce site with a search functionality powered by Elasticsearch.
This is a book for beginner Django developers that are looking to take their skills to the next level, and it teaches them advanced skills by showing them how to build seven mid-size projects, including an eCommerce site with a search functionality powered by Elasticsearch.
Banky App
A micro-lending app for Colombia. Built the backend in Django with Django Rest Framework for the APIs. The mobile application is build in Flutter.
N.B. Sons
I built a Flutter-based mobile application to showcase the products of a veterinary medicine manufacturer. The back end is a WordPress site. I was provided with the APIs by the web developer.
Education
2006 - 2010
Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering
NFC Institute of Engineering and Fertilizer Research - Faisalabad, Pakistan
Skills
Libraries/APIs
REST APIs, React, Beautiful Soup, Stripe
Tools
Terraform, PyCharm, Pytest, Retool
Languages
JavaScript, Go, Python, Ruby, Java, Python 3
Frameworks
Django, Flutter, Ruby on Rails (RoR)
Paradigms
Microservices
Platforms
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Linux, Docker
Storage
Elasticsearch, Redis, Amazon S3 (AWS S3)
Other
APIs, Back-end, AWS DevOps, Electronics
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