Open to opportunities

Justin Lee

@justinlee8

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Senior Python engineer specializing in scalable backend systems and observability.

United States

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What I'm looking for

I am looking for a senior backend role where I can lead architecture, improve reliability and observability, mentor engineers, and work on impactful, privacy-sensitive products.

I am a senior software engineer with 10+ years building large-scale consumer and business products, focusing on Python-based microservices, REST and GraphQL APIs, and cloud-native deployments on AWS and GCP. I have delivered production systems across payments, legal-tech, shopping extensions, and education platforms while mentoring engineers and driving cross-team alignment.

My technical strengths include designing resilient architectures, optimizing async/concurrency and memory performance, and improving observability with Prometheus, Grafana, and OpenTelemetry. I have led migrations to distributed databases, implemented idempotent job orchestration, and integrated machine learning models to streamline triage workflows.

I prioritize clear problem-solving, documentation (RFCs/ADRs), and fast iteration with strong attention to security and data privacy. I seek to join teams where I can continue to lead technical initiatives, mentor engineers, and deliver measurable reliability and performance improvements.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Senior Software Engineer

Current

Atticus

Sep 2023 - Present (2 years 3 months)

Built and owned FastAPI microservices and GraphQL/REST layers for attorney-matching and intake workflows, reducing duplicate referrals and improving API p95 latency during spikes while improving PII handling and RBAC.

Python fastAPI Django GraphQL Kubernetes AWS GCP Prometheus Grafana

Senior Software Engineer

Stripe

Jul 2022 - Sep 2023 (1 year 2 months)

Contributed to global payments microservices on AWS, led an observability overhaul with Prometheus/Grafana and OpenTelemetry, and tuned async I/O and memory for high-traffic API paths to meet SLOs.

Python fastAPI Flask OpenTelemetry AWS Prometheus Grafana CI CD Performance Tuning

Senior Software Engineer

Honey

Jun 2020 - Jul 2022 (2 years 1 month)

Led resiliency, migrations, and feature rollouts for shopping extension and backend services, migrating core services to Cloud Spanner and implementing circuit breakers and gradual deployments to improve reliability.

Python Kubernetes Google Cloud Spanner REST GraphQL Microservices Resiliency CI CD

Engineering Manager

Honey

Sep 2019 - Jun 2020 (9 months)

Acted as engineering manager leading hiring, roadmaps, on-call improvements, and incident simulation tooling to prepare systems for peak events and ensure compliant user communication.

Engineering Management Kubernetes Incident Response Hiring Roadmapping Chaos Testing SLOs On Call

Senior Software Engineer

Honey

May 2019 - Sep 2019 (4 months)

Decomposed monoliths into microservices, migrated databases to Cloud Spanner, and implemented structured logging and tracing to stabilize offer-evaluation APIs during promotional traffic.

Python fastAPI Django Google Cloud Spanner Kubernetes Logging Traces Microservices

Software Engineer

Honey

Feb 2018 - May 2019 (1 year 3 months)

Built backend services on Kubernetes serving over 10M users, reworked coupon application to be idempotent, and implemented contract testing to keep retailer integrations stable.

Python fastAPI Django Kubernetes Pytest Pact Browser Extension

Software Engineer

Course Hero

Jun 2017 - Feb 2018 (8 months)

Built PDF enhancement features and scalable education platform components using Flask and React, containerized development environments, and ran A/B experiments tied to student conversion metrics.

Flask React Docker Kafka A B Testing TypeScript Frontend Backend

Software Engineer

Bluebeam

Jan 2015 - May 2017 (2 years 4 months)

Built real-time collaborative PDF editing with Django, WebSockets, and asyncio, optimized sync and rendering pipelines, and improved performance for large construction documents across desktop and mobile clients.

Django WebSockets AsyncIO Redis RabbitMQ PyMuPDF Performance Profiling

Software Engineering Intern

NiCE

Jun 2014 - Aug 2014 (2 months)

Developed an automated regression testing environment using Java and Python, introduced Selenium WebDriver tests, and documented the testing workflow for the serviceability team.