Software Architect • Independent Consultant

Senior architect for startups that need reliable systems, shipped fast.

Independent software architect and Toptal top 3% engineer. I help founders and CTOs ship Python and Django platforms, build data pipelines, fix slow databases, and make sound architecture decisions.

Discuss a project View case studies
“He was super responsive with issues, and extremely productive throughout my work with him. Communication is excellent.”
Philip Reynolds, VP Engineering, Workday Read more reviews →
10 Years Engineering Production systems since 2015
Top 3% Talent Vetted by Toptal
20+ Products Shipped SaaS, eCommerce, Fintech, Real Estate
Trusted by Leaders Engineering leads at Google & Workday
Services

How I can help

Python & Django Development Web apps, APIs and marketplaces built end to end, from MVP to scale. Learn more → React UI Development Fast, accessible React interfaces for dashboards, marketplaces and admin tools. Learn more → Backend Architecture Consulting System design, API and data-model reviews, and scaling plans. Learn more → Data Pipeline & Web Crawling Engineering Distributed crawlers, ETL and data lakes that keep running. Learn more → PostgreSQL & Database Performance Tuning Fix slow queries and dashboards with plans, indexes and schema changes. Learn more → AI & LLM Integration Cost-controlled LLM workflows: extraction, content, human review. Learn more →
Proven Results

Selected Case Studies

Business problems solved with pragmatic architecture, resilient data pipelines, and clean execution.

Consulting / Lead Architecture Single-handedly delivered the complete core application from scratch

The Good Trends

B2B Wholesale Food Marketplace Platform
Problem & Context

The business needed to go from concept to a production-ready marketplace that could handle multi-tenant store onboarding, live POS inventory synchronization, real-time volume discounts, and investor diligence on a fast timeline.

My Role & Approach

Architected a modular Django and React application backed by PostgreSQL and AWS. Implemented an event-driven pricing engine capable of evaluating complex tier discounts and bundles in real-time under high concurrency (1,000+ events/sec). Built automated CSV ingestion and POS integrations so store owners could sync catalog items seamlessly.

“We worked with Aakash for 1 year building the core of our application at The Good Trends. Aakash was extremely knowledgeable, a pleasure to work with and he delivered most of the code that got us started. Would highly recommend him for any project.” — Victor Mithouard, CEO & Founder, The Good Trends
PythonDjangoReactPostgreSQLAWSDockerSass
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Consulting / Backend Architecture Reduced crawl cycle time from 12+ hours to under 20 minutes for 40

E-crawl

High-Throughput Distributed Web Crawler
Problem & Context

The client was experiencing severe order cancellation rates and unhappy customers because supplier websites frequently changed stock status without notifications. The existing scraping scripts took over 12 hours to run, failed mid-cycle, and caused expensive out-of-stock orders.

My Role & Approach

Engineered a distributed crawling cluster utilizing Python, Celery task distribution, and PostgreSQL for state synchronization. Designed an intelligent scheduler with exponential backoff, checkpoint resumption from points of failure, and adaptive rate-limiting to avoid IP bans.

“I had a great experience. Aakash is very hard working, and went above and beyond to make sure the project was excellent.” — David Iyoka, Founder & Client, eCrawler
PythonDjangoPostgreSQLDockerAWSCeleryReact
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Consulting / Cloud & Data Architecture Architected scalable data lake processing tens of gigabytes of monthly utility telemetry seamlessly.

Inibii Technology

Commercial Utility Data Lake & Energy Analytics
Problem & Context

Commercial clients had meters and billing records fragmented across dozens of independent power boards, natural gas suppliers, and municipal water utilities. Ingesting and reconciling gigabytes of heterogeneous time-series telemetry each month required a scalable data architecture.

My Role & Approach

Constructed a secure, event-driven data lake on AWS. Established automated SFTP pipelines to ingest utility partner dumps, custom parsing microservices to validate and normalize heterogeneous CSV data, and serverless AWS Lambda triggers for event-based time-series ingestion into PostgreSQL.

“I worked closely with Aakash when he helped our team set up AWS infrastructure and develop Inibii's Auth server as well as Data Lake back-end. He has a strong understanding of business process in addition to his strong technical background. He was a team player and loves to wear multiple hats to get the job done. He was very innovative as well as dedicated to his project and team. I'd like to work with him again.” — Moshiul Arefin, Founder, Inibii Technology
PythonDjangoPostgreSQLAWS LambdaAWS S3Docker
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Consulting / Full-Stack & API Architecture Maintained continuous multi-year engineering collaboration spanning 3+ years of reliable deliveries.

HS Sales GmbH

Multi-Marketplace ERP & Inventory Platform
Problem & Context

The company was managing listings and orders manually across multiple European channels (Amazon, eBay, Rakuten). Without centralized inventory and serial-number tracking, stock mismatches occurred frequently, and barcode printing for warehouse shipments was inefficient.

My Role & Approach

Built a centralized Django and React platform integrating eBay, Amazon, and Rakuten APIs. Designed a comprehensive serial-number tracking system, automated barcode PDF generation, retail outlet manual checkout workflows, and automated product description templating.

“I have been working with Aakash for more than 3 years now in various IT projects (in the real estate and e-commerce sector) and I am absolutely amazed. Aakash's implementation speed, quality and communication are always on a very professional level. I especially appreciate the fact that he understands the applications and focuses the users. Aakash always has a solution for any problems that may arise. He has always kept to our agreements and completed all tasks on time and accurately. I appreciate our cooperation and look forward to further projects. Highly recommended! Greetings from Munich” — Michele Santo, CEO, HS Sales GmbH
PythonDjangoReactPostgreSQLDockerAWS
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Real Estate & PropTech

Homesy

German Real Estate Syndication & Inquiries Platform

Brokers had to manually upload listings and monitor lead inboxes across multiple portals (ImmobilienScout24, Immowelt, etc.), causing slow lead responses and lost tenant deals.

PythonDjangoReactPostgreSQL
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Developer Tools & Security

SourceBox

Automated Source Code Escrow & Vault

Investors and corporate stakeholders required automated, secure source code backups from active developer accounts without giving broad administrative access or relying on manual zip transfers.

PythonDjangoReactPostgreSQL
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Data Science & NLP

Interest Miner

Academic Research & Topic Correlation Analytics

Researchers lacked an automated way to combine formal scholarly publications with informal social discourse to detect emerging topic shifts and academic collaboration opportunities.

PythonDjangoReactPostgreSQL
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Customer Support & Messaging

TASS

Unified Support Ticket Aggregation Hub

Customer service agents were context-switching between email, web forms, and third-party platforms, leading to slow response times and duplicated replies.

PythonDjangoReactPostgreSQL
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eCommerce & Recommerce

Toredo

Consumer Device Trade-In & Valuation Engine

Device condition grading requires complex step-by-step user evaluation while maintaining high checkout conversion and rapid quote generation.

PythonDjangoReactPostgreSQL
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Travel & Metasearch

TripYork

Multi-Source Travel Metasearch Engine

Aggregating real-time rates from third-party travel providers requires rapid geolocation detection, high-speed cached queries, and resilient database indexing.

PythonDjangoReactPostgreSQL
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Client Feedback

What clients say

From engineering leaders and founders I have worked with directly.

Engagement Process

How I Work With Clients

Reduce uncertainty, choose sustainable architecture, and leave your team able to run it.

01

Discovery & Business Alignment

Before writing a line of code, we examine the underlying business problem, user workflows, technical bottlenecks, and constraints.

02

Pragmatic Architecture

I design architectures built around battle-tested patterns: robust data models, clear API contracts, decoupled service boundaries, and performant indexing.

03

Disciplined Delivery & Testing

Execution happens in focused, verifiable milestones.

04

Mentorship & Seamless Handoff

A successful consulting engagement leaves your team stronger.

Career & Practice

Experience

A decade of enterprise engineering and startup delivery.

Staff Software Engineer @ ServiceNow Enterprise Engineering

Lead platform engineering and system architecture within ServiceNow's core product ecosystem. Partner daily across Product Management, UX Design, QA, and Technical Documentation. Handle critical customer escalations, lead architectural design reviews, mentor senior engineers, and shape engineering best practices across teams.

• Employer role; proprietary architecture and internal systems omitted in compliance with confidentiality.
2019 – Present
Full stack engineer & Consultant @ Toptal & Private Consulting Independent Client Consulting

Advising and building end-to-end web architectures, high-throughput data pipelines, and full-stack applications for venture-backed startups and growing businesses worldwide. Ranked in the top 3% of global freelance developers through rigorous Toptal technical screening.

2018 – Present
Senior Product Engineer @ Loyalty Juggernaut Inc Enterprise Product Engineering

Architected enterprise loyalty and customer engagement platforms for global brands. Designed resilient backend microservices handling high-frequency reward transactions and partner integrations.

2018 – 2019
Full Stack Engineer @ ReportGarden Inc SaaS & Analytics Engineering

Engineered data ingestion pipelines, automated reporting tools, and marketing analytics dashboards. Optimized complex SQL queries and database schemas, slashing high-volume reporting dashboard load times by ~10 seconds.

2017 – 2018
Software Engineer @ Josh Technology Group Core Engineering

Built scalable web applications, designed relational database schemas, and developed high-performance REST APIs across consumer and enterprise domains.

2015 – 2017

Core stack

Backend & Architecture

PythonDjangoNode.jsRESTful APIsMicroservicesEvent-Driven Architecture

Frontend & Performance

ReactJavaScript (ESNext)Semantic HTML5Modern CSS / SassCore Web Vitals Optimization

Databases & Storage

PostgreSQLMySQLRedisFirestoreNoSQLDatabase Indexing & Query TuningData Lake Modeling

Cloud, DevOps & Tooling

AWS (Lambda, S3, RDS, ECS)DockerCI/CD PipelinesGitCloudflare PagesLinux Administration

AI & LLM Engineering

LLM APIs (OpenAI / Gemini / Anthropic)Google Gemini APIPrompt TuningContext Management & Token TrackingOCR Pipelines
Get In Touch

Let's Discuss Your Project

Whether you need technical architecture for a greenfield venture, an audit and optimization of an existing system, or senior full-stack execution, I am happy to connect.

Direct Email aakashjsr@gmail.com
LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/aakash94
Toptal Verified top 3% profile
1:1 Sessions Codementor · 70 five-star reviews
Typical Response Time Within 24 Hours

Send a Direct Note

Email me a few lines on your project, current stack, and timeline. I will reply within 24 hours.

Email aakashjsr@gmail.com

Independent engagements are separate from my employment and never involve my employer’s products, customers, or confidential information.