Open to opportunities

Michael Kessler

@michaelkessler

Message

Senior software engineer building scalable AI-enabled cloud platforms and APIs.

United States

Message

What I'm looking for

I’m looking for a role where I can build secure, observable, AI-enabled backend platforms and real-time analytics on cloud-native architectures, partnering with ML and frontend teams to deliver measurable performance and reliability improvements.

I’m a Senior Software Engineer with 11+ years of experience building scalable AI-enabled platforms, distributed backend systems, and cloud-native full-stack applications. I focus on production-grade AI infrastructure, real-time analytics, and event-driven architectures that perform reliably in high-growth environments.

In my recent work, I designed and developed AI-enabled backend services using Python, Django, and FastAPI for platforms supporting 5M+ telemetry events daily. I’ve improved deployment scalability and reliability to 99.99% uptime, reduced data processing latency by 40%, and strengthened backend performance and observability—cutting incident response times by 50%.

I partner closely with ML, platform/infrastructure, and frontend teams to deliver secure, observable, and highly reliable systems. I’m especially effective at integrating AI/ML inference workflows behind API endpoints, implementing OAuth 2.0/JWT/IAM security, and using Prometheus/Grafana and CI/CD tooling to drive measurable business impact.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Senior Software Engineer

Current

Cruise Vehicles

Dec 2023 - Present (2 years 8 months)

Designed and developed AI-enabled backend services using Python, Django, and FastAPI, supporting over 5M telemetry events daily. Built cloud-native systems on AWS with Docker/Kubernetes and implemented telemetry pipelines, AI inference endpoints, and secure REST/GraphQL APIs.

Python Django fastAPI Docker Kubernetes AWS Pub Sub BigQuery REST APIs GraphQL React JWT IAM Role Based Access Control Prometheus Grafana Alerting

Senior Software Engineer

Digital Ocean

Jan 2021 - Dec 2023 (2 years 11 months)

Built scalable backend application services using Python, Django, and FastAPI for internal AI tooling, infrastructure automation, and analytics. Implemented REST APIs for React dashboards, asynchronous processing with containerized microservices, CI/CD, and production observability with Prometheus and Grafana.

Python Django fastAPI REST APIs React Message Queues Microservices Docker Kubernetes Helm GitHub Actions Jenkins ArgoCD CI CD Prometheus Grafana

Software Engineer

Cisco

Jul 2014 - Jan 2021 (6 years 6 months)

Developed scalable backend services using Python and Django, delivering REST APIs and microservices for enterprise collaboration platforms. Built event-driven messaging/notification systems, migrated to Docker/Kubernetes microservices, and implemented secure authentication/authorization and CI/CD pipelines.