Saher is available for hire

Saher El-Neklawy

Verified Expert in Engineering

OpenAI Developer

Cairo, Cairo Governorate, Egypt

Toptal member since August 4, 2016

Expertise

Web Development Full-stack Docker AWS Amazon S3 GitHub Elasticsearch Kubernetes Datadog Git Python MongoDB SaaS Artificial Intelligence OpenAI

Bio

Saher is interested in building things on the web from start to finish. Infrastructure and architecture work excites him the most, as it gets him directly involved in every step of a web request. Saher loves to automate everything and makes it a personal mission to use technology intelligently to optimize his time and task management.

Portfolio

Optima

Python, PostgreSQL, Supabase, Redis, Google App Engine, Google Cloud Functions...

b_labs

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Observability Tools, Datadog, Security, SonarQube...

Swvl

Node.js, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon Web Services (AWS), Apache Kafka...

Experience

Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 8 years
Node.js - 6 years
Kubernetes - 5 years
Google Cloud Platform (GCP) - 4 years
React - 4 years
MongoDB - 3 years
LangChain - 1 year
OpenAI - 1 year

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Bash, Python, Node.js, Git, Vim Text Editor, Linux

The most amazing...

...thing I've worked on is a unified cost dashboard for a 150-person engineering team. This visibility reduced total technology costs by 30%.

Work Experience

Principal Software Engineer

2024 - PRESENT

Optima

Created a safe and scalable code execution service for running student code submissions.
Revamped the main learning platform from JQuery and Boostrap to HTMX, AlpineJS and Tailwind.
Built a web-based WYSIWYG editor application with a custom copilot autocomplete implementation based on the content written through multiple files.

Technologies: Python, PostgreSQL, Supabase, Redis, Google App Engine, Google Cloud Functions, OpenAI, LangChain, Retrieval-augmented Generation (RAG), Large Language Models (LLMs), Claude, Flask, Pytest, HTMX, Alpine.js, Tailwind CSS, React, TypeScript, R, Pandas, Dplyr, Scrum, Agile, Microservices, Docker, Linux, JavaScript, SQL, Bash, Docker Compose, Vim Text Editor, Bash Script, Cache, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), MySQL, Architecture, Full-stack, Google Analytics 4, Page Speed Optimization, Artificial Intelligence (AI), GitHub, FastAPI

Director of Platform & TechOps

2023 - 2024

b_labs

Unified all the metrics and logging for 20 years' worth of legacy systems under one pane of glass using DataDog, even for physical store cameras and network devices.
Developed a base framework for software engineers, from their Git branching model to getting code to production with modern CI/CD tooling.
Established the internal IT support model, including operational level agreements (OLAs), for the existing 6,000 large-scale organizations.

Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Observability Tools, Datadog, Security, SonarQube, Azure, GitHub Actions, Terraform, Ansible, AWS Control Tower, AWS Secrets Manager, Scrum, Agile, Microservices, Docker, Linux, Jenkins, SQL, Bash, Docker Compose, Vim Text Editor, Bash Script, Cache, Azure Blobs, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), MySQL, Architecture, Google Analytics 4, Page Speed Optimization, GitHub, FastAPI, Amazon EC2, Amazon EKS

Director of Engineering

2021 - 2023

Swvl

Established a single dashboard to monitor tech spending broken by platform, business line, and squad. This generally improved cost, especially of development environments, by 40%.
Improved the delivery rate of signup one-time passwords (OTPs) by 30% and protected from spam OTP costs.
Established our security playbook, following the MITRE ATT&CK matrix. With this, we were able to handle breaches and automate attack responses with tools like Falco for runtime security logging and Semgrep for code-level security.
Created multiple developer tools to help with troubleshooting issues, including finding query bottlenecks quickly from MongoDB logs.

Technologies: Node.js, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon Web Services (AWS), Apache Kafka, Kafka Connect, MongoDB, Redis, AWS Lambda, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Kubernetes, Security, Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, SaaS, Scrum, Agile, Microservices, Docker, Linux, JavaScript, Express.js, SQL, Bash, Docker Compose, Vim Text Editor, Bash Script, Cache, Kibana, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), MySQL, Architecture, Page Speed Optimization, GitHub, Amazon EC2, Amazon EKS

Senior Engineering Manager

2020 - 2021

Swvl

Improved general service reliability from 98.81% to 99.99%.
Improved communication between the Site Reliability Team I was managing and the rest of the engineering team, enhancing collaboration and understanding of DevOps principles.
Migrated our infrastructure from AWS to GCP for a 20% total cost reduction without any downtime in the migration.

Technologies: Node.js, Redis, MongoDB, AWS Lambda, PostgreSQL, Kubernetes, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon Web Services (AWS), SaaS, Scrum, Agile, Microservices, Docker, Linux, JavaScript, Amazon Elastic MapReduce (EMR), Jenkins, Express.js, SQL, Bash, Docker Compose, Vim Text Editor, Bash Script, Cache, Kibana, MySQL, Architecture, Page Speed Optimization, GitHub, Amazon EC2, Amazon EKS

Director of Engineering

2018 - 2020

BulkWhiz

Led a team of 10 engineers, including front end, back end, and data, to build an eCommerce platform for bulk groceries.
Designed and implemented an on-call rotation scheme that maintained a 99.9% uptime (measured as the rate of issues a customer encounters through the whole order funnel).
Implemented a distributed transaction model for order fulfillment through distributed semaphores using Redis.
Created a single pane of glass observability layer (metrics, traces, logs, and alerts) for engineers to use when troubleshooting production issues.

Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Ruby on Rails 4, React, JRuby, AWS Lambda, Amazon CloudFront CDN, Grafana, Prometheus, Logstash, Ansible Playbooks, Scrum, Agile, Docker, Linux, JavaScript, Amazon Elastic MapReduce (EMR), Jenkins, SQL, Bash, Docker Compose, Vim Text Editor, Bash Script, Cache, Kibana, MySQL, Full-stack, Google Analytics 4, Page Speed Optimization, SEO Tools, GitHub, Amazon EC2

Data Analytics Architect

2015 - 2018

Optima.io

Built serverless websites to present reports and data analysis findings.
Crawled data for traffic in Cairo as an external data source.
Created a CLI tool for Azure Blob storage to ease automated usage.
Participated in Kaggle competitions (e.g., Springleaf).
Built use cases for data analysis of banking transactions.
Analyzed response data for Facebook and Google Ads for cost optimization.
Designed and built a data flow pipeline using Luigi to automate data cleaning, feature extraction, and machine learning modeling for the banking industry.

Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Hadoop, Apache Spark, Azure, Luigi, R, Dplyr, Scrum, Agile, Docker, Linux, Amazon Elastic MapReduce (EMR), Jenkins, SQL, Bash, Vim Text Editor, Bash Script, Cache, Azure Blobs, MySQL, Artificial Intelligence (AI), GitHub, FastAPI, Amazon EC2

Engineering Lead

2012 - 2015

Trustious

Built a grammar-based semantic search engine using elastic search and named entity recognition from the knowledge base of our listings.
Crawled multiple external sources for online reviews, book categorization, and tagging.
Made performance improvements in terms of caching and memorization of the back end and middleware.
Introduced CSS regression to reduce acceptance testing load for visual changes.
Maintained the production stack on AWS with blue-green deployments.
Monitored infrastructure using ELK, Grafana, and StatsD.
Converted an SVG vouchers design to PDF templates for creating vouchers sent to customers.
Designed a game mechanics engine to encourage users to return to the platform.

Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), MongoDB, Elasticsearch, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby, Web Crawlers, Scrum, Agile, Linux, JavaScript, AngularJS, SQL, Bash, Vim Text Editor, Bash Script, Cache, Page Speed Optimization, SEO Tools, GitHub, Amazon EC2

Teaching Assistant

2012 - 2015

German University in Cairo

Built an automated testing workflow to speed-up student grading.
Created an online submission system to detect cheating cases.
Developed a multi-touch table and presentation software used for demos.

Technologies: Adobe Flex, Python, Java, Scrum, Agile, Linux, Bash

Experience

Azure Storage CLI

https://www.npmjs.com/package/azure-storage-cmd

This code provides a command line interface (CLI) for managing Azure Blob Storage, similar to S3 by AWS. It is needed as the existing CLI complicates file handling. The CLI can be used by installing the npm package with the command "npm i azure-storage-cmd." For more details, refer to Npmjs.com/package/azure-storage-cmd.

Groceries Chat Bot

A grocery ordering bot designed for residents of Cairo, Egypt, aims to streamline the grocery shopping experience by allowing users to order a wide range of products from local stores directly through the bot.

A Public API for Google Forms

I undertook the task of developing a public API by leveraging an existing Google Form. This initiative aimed to eliminate the necessity of utilizing a database to create a straightforward application form, streamlining the process and enhancing efficiency.

Mongo Log Analyzer

A simple tool that takes in exported logs from MongoDB or MongoAtlas and processes them to show statistics and information on the worst-performing queries. This helped identify many n+1 queries done by systems using Mongo.

Education

2010 - 2011

Master's Degree in Computer Engineering

The German University in Cairo - Cairo, Egypt

2005 - 2010

Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Engineering

The German University in Cairo - Cairo, Egypt

Skills

Libraries/APIs

HTMX, Luigi, React, Node.js, Azure Blob Storage API, Pandas, jQuery

Tools

Git, Google Forms, Slack, GitHub, Docker Compose, Vim Text Editor, Grafana, Logstash, Dplyr, Amazon EKS, Amazon Elastic MapReduce (EMR), Jenkins, Kibana, AWS CLI, NPM, Amazon CloudFront CDN, Kafka Connect, Observability Tools, SonarQube, Terraform, Ansible, Claude, Pytest, Vault

Languages

Python, HTML, Bash, JavaScript, CSS, Java, Ruby, R, SQL, Bash Script, JRuby, TypeScript, C#

Paradigms

Scrum, Agile, Microservices

Platforms

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

Storage

Elasticsearch, MongoDB, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Datadog, Redis, PostgreSQL, Cache, MySQL, Azure Blobs

Frameworks

Ruby on Rails (RoR), Alpine.js, Bootstrap, Adobe Flex, Hadoop, Express.js, AngularJS, Apache Spark, Ruby on Rails 4, Flask, Tailwind CSS

Other

Web Crawlers, Full-stack, Page Speed Optimization, SaaS, Prometheus, GitHub Actions, OpenAI, LangChain, Retrieval-augmented Generation (RAG), Architecture, Google Analytics 4, SEO Tools, Artificial Intelligence (AI), FastAPI, APIs, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Ansible Playbooks, Security, AWS Control Tower, Supabase, Google Cloud Functions, Large Language Models (LLMs), AWS Secrets Manager, Clustering, K-means Clustering, Machine Learning

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