Zaid HakakDownload PDF

https://ubergeek.me/ /uber1geek /uber1geek

Focused on performance-oriented development of web services and back-end components using Django and other Python-related technologies.

Extensive experience scaling platforms across FinTech, Travel Tech, and PropTech.

Passionate about programming, user experience, and communities.

Experience

Associate Director (Technology & Transformation) - Fullerton Fund Management
Feb 2022 - Present

  • Collaborated closely with CTO as Founding Engineer to drive digital transformation initiatives, architecting modern development infrastructure and implementing engineering best practices that accelerated product delivery.
  • Led comprehensive cloud migration from Temasek Data Center to AWS. Implemented Snowflake as the data warehouse, significantly enhancing data processing speed, enabling real-time analytics for $30B+ AUM.
  • Implemented enterprise-wide DevOps practices with Docker, automated CI/CD pipelines using Terraform and GitHub Actions, reducing deployment time and production errors.
  • Architected and built enterprise API platform using Django, FastAPI, and Flask, enabling seamless integration across investment systems and improving operational efficiency.
  • Collaborated with teams to develop and maintain critical software systems for investment research and portfolio management across multiple asset classes.
  • Scaled and led cross-functional software engineering team across multiple regions (IND, SIN), achieving 100% project delivery rate while fostering a collaborative and innovative work environment.
  • Optimized infrastructure costs by designing and implementing an on-premises high-performance computing environment for Machine Learning workloads, resulting in 45% reduction in cloud expenses.
  • Implemented software development policies and agile methodologies, improving project delivery timeframes and team productivity.
  • Established comprehensive data security measures and compliance frameworks, ensuring zero breaches and 100% adherence to MAS, Industry regulations and privacy standards.
  • Built strong relationships with key stakeholders including business lines, risk, compliance, regulators, and IT, from operational teams to C-Level management.

AWS Snowflake Docker GitHub Terraform CI/CD Machine Learning Data Engineering Python Django DevOps IaaC Team Leadership Cloud Architecture fullertonfund.com

Senior Software Engineer - Pelago
June 2020 - Feb 2022

  • Pelago is an itinerary focused travel marketplace that makes every aspect of a trip, from discovery & organising to booking & experiencing - easy, fun and personalised! Backed by Singapore Airlines, the company is currently in pre-launch stage, and well-positioned to disrupt the $250 Billion travel experiences industry.
  • Part of the founding team and stakeholder in defining the product vision and guiding teams to plan, design, and build a highly scalable platform.
  • Co-authored the booking and payment system for the core platform that serves ~150K MAU and can rapidly scale to millions of users.
  • Co-authored a shared API platform using GraphQL with multi-regional support for our merchant partners as well as our internal teams positioned across the region.
  • Primary author of an extensive encrypted audit logs trail to provide compliance, boost performance, increase accountability, and keep the systems stable.
  • Championing the partner integration efforts with aggregators and loyalty rewards providers to rapidly scale our business across APAC.
  • Mentored junior engineers by guiding them with knowledge on best practices and techniques by putting focus on security and user data privacy.

Python Flask GraphQL Data Pipelines PostGres DevOps Redis Celery Sentry Stripe AWS Lambda Dynamo DB pelago.co

Lead Engineer - Hmlet
Feb 2018 - May 2020

  • My journey began as a freelance opportunity. I was fortunate to be the first tech hire at Hmlet and architected our stack from grass root levels. I wore multiple hats - which included taking part in major technology decisions, the health of production systems, and overseeing day-to-day operations.
  • Hmlet creates homes that connect people. We transform spaces into dynamic environments for inspiring people to live, connect and grow.
    To support this vision we are building technology that enhances our members lives on a daily basis and improves operational efficiency.
  • Scaled the engineering team from 2 to 16.
  • Ensure the regular and timely delivery of high-quality features and products.
  • Ensure the adoption of best practices in engineering, product and UI/UX.
  • Enable processes within the team which has strong data governance culture.
  • Streamlined development environment setup such that engineers can start contributing from day one.
  • Partner with marketing (digital & performance, branding and communications), design and infrastructure teams to shape engineering processes to ensure optimum productivity
  • Responsible for implementing robust and well-tested API for mobile, web apps and third party APIs with Python/Django and Django Rest Framework.
  • Worked with third-party APIs intergrations of tools like Xero, SalesForce, Airtable, Freshworks CRM, Docusign.
  • Introduced development flow, dependency management and automated testing using Github, CircleCI, Docker and Docker compose to ensure that that the backend API runs on identical dependencies on all environments (local, staging, production).

Python Django Django Rest Framework PostGIS Data Pipelines MySQL PostGres OpenVPN DevOps Redis Celery Sentry Firebase AWS Lambda hmlet.com

Lead Backend Engineer - Minance
May 2017 - Apr 2018

  • Minance's second tech hire.
  • Building a highly scalable real-time web platform, plumbing RESTful APIs, managing cloud, and technical infrastructure.
  • Minance is a private investment firm focused on developing quantitative models for the Indian financial markets. We study historical patterns in security prices in order to predict trends and invest in them profitably and safely for our partners.

Python Django Django Rest Framework MySQL PostGres OpenVPN DevOps Redis Celery Sentry Firebase AWS Lambda minance.com

Freelance Software Engineer
Aug 2016 - Apr 2017

  • Lead numerous projects through requirements, database design, architecture, and development, wearing whatever hat is necessary
  • Automated new production server setups and minimized complexity and increased efficiency of local development setup
  • Provided support, new features, and code maintenance on retainer projects
  • Integrated code with other technologies and 3rd party APIs.

Python Django JavaScript Node.js MongoDB MySQL Vagrant ES6 HTML CSS AWS Elastic Search Nginx Gunicorn ubergeek.me

Regional Lead - Google Developers Group - Kashmir Oct 2011 - Apr 2018

  • Nurtured a developer community from scratch.
  • Planned and executed projects on behalf of Google by building comprehensive work plans and project schedules,managing budgets for larger events like GDG Devfest and Women Techmakers.
  • Executed beta and pilot programs in collaboration with various Google offices.

gdgkashmir.com


Internship - Freo Labs
Feb 2016 - Apr 2016

  • Data Analysis, Visualization and Video Processing in Python.
  • Increased efficiency to process and render the video by 75% by implementing an efficient data analysis algorithm.
  • Worked on data analysis and video processing in python, designed an algorithm for data analysis for analyzing and visualizing geojson data from supercars.

Python Numpy Pandas Matplotlib FFMPEG

Intership - iKraft Software Jan 2015 - Mar 2015

  • Worked on Python, Web and Data Analysis.
  • Analysed and visualized San Francisco City crime data using Python, Numpy and Matplotlib.

Python Pandas NumPy Git Web 2.0 ikraftsoft.com

Freelance Web Developer - WebWeave2008 - 2014

Designed & developed compelling websites, intuitive interfaces, and engaging brands. All helping to improve response, drive sales, and boost profitability for a wide array of clients across the globe.

  • Developed Kashmir’s first online classifieds website.
  • Started “KashTech”, a tech news blog to bridge the digital divide in the region in 2008.

HTML CSS JavaScript PHP WordPress CMS Drupal Joomla Adobe PhotoShop CSS AWS GCP

Education

IUST2012 - 2016

Bachelors in Computer Science, and Engineering.

Final Year Project - Android based Autonomous Robotic Platform

Tyndale Biscoe School1997 - 2011

K-12 (Science, Math and I.T)

Features and Awards

ICT, Women and Sustainable Development 2016

Publication - Awarded by NIT Srinagar.

Google IO 2014

Was invited and sponsored by Google to attend Google I/O 2014 at San Francisco, USA

Mercy Corps 2011

  • Handled web and graphic design for the G-Kashmir event by Google in 2011.
  • Collaborated with Google to lay the foundation of GDG Kashmir.

Others

Languages

I love learning about new cultures and speak:

English Kashmiri Urdu Hindi Arabic

Location

I am currently based out of Singapore and willing to relocate for the right opportunity.
Would require VISA sponsorship.

Relocate OK Remote OK
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