John Torgerson
@johntorgerson
Senior software engineer specializing in Python backend and production AI systems.
United StatesWhat I'm looking for
I am a senior software engineer with 12+ years building Python-based SaaS products and cloud-hosted backend systems, recently focused on putting LLMs into production at EliseAI. I design and deliver scalable APIs, data pipelines, and distributed services that power customer-facing AI features.
My recent work includes implementing Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) with Azure OpenAI, vector embeddings, and pgvector, improving end-to-end response latency by ~30%, and building event-driven pipelines using Celery, Redis, and Kafka. I have led API design, schema migrations, observability, and deployment using Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, and GitHub Actions.
I collaborate closely with product, ML, and customer success teams to translate customer needs into shipped features, mentor engineers, and take prototypes to production while maintaining multi-tenant security, compliance, and reliable operational practices.
Experience
Work history, roles, and key accomplishments
Senior Software Engineer
EliseAI
Jul 2022 - Present (3 years 11 months)
Owned and built backend systems for an LLM-powered conversational AI platform, implementing RAG with vector embeddings and pgvector to enable accurate AI responses and improving end-to-end response latency by ~30%.
Built Python APIs and PostgreSQL data models supporting financial data flows for millions of users, reduced DB load ~40% via query tuning and caching, and designed Kafka pipelines processing tens of millions of events per day.
Built Python backend services and relational data models for healthcare and financial SaaS, implemented RBAC and audit logging for compliance, and introduced Dockerized environments and Terraform to improve delivery consistency.
Built Azure-hosted backend services and event ingestion pipelines processing 15M+ events per day, improving request success rates and tail latency through performance tuning and refactoring.
Education
Degrees, certifications, and relevant coursework
Texas State University
Bachelor of Science, Computer Science
2011 - 2014
Completed a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, covering core computer science topics and practical software engineering skills.
Austin Community College
Associate of Science, Computer Science
2009 - 2011
Completed an Associate of Science in Computer Science focusing on foundational computing and programming coursework.
Tech stack
Software and tools used professionally
Availability
Location
United StatesAuthorized to work in
Job categories
Skills
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