James Westover

Senior Python Developer — FastAPI, Django, Docker, CI/CD, Distributed Systems, AI

Profile

Senior Python developer with 12+ years of production experience across FastAPI, Django, Flask, and Tornado. Physicist by training, production engineer by trade. I have built and operated backend systems at every scale — from startup monorepos to Uber's navigation platform serving 10M+ requests per second across thousands of nodes. Strong DevOps and infrastructure background: CI/CD pipeline design, Docker, Kubernetes, Ansible, and cloud-native architectures.

Currently building AI-powered production services at Westover Labs — FastAPI backends, PostgreSQL + pgvector data layer, TypeScript frontends, and a 12-persona autonomous AI agent team that ships code continuously via GitHub Actions.

Key Strengths for This Role:

Python at every level: Python 2.4 through 3.13 in production. Led Python 2→3 migrations at both Uber (400+ microservices) and Postmates (1M+ LOC monorepo with 3 coexisting Django versions).
CI/CD pipelines: GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Buildkite. Delivered 4x CI build time improvement at Postmates through distributed test execution on Kubernetes pods. Built automated deploy pipelines with Ansible.
Docker & containerisation: Docker and Kubernetes in production at Uber, Postmates, and current projects. ONNX Runtime ML inference containers, blue-green deployments via Envoy.
Cloud & infrastructure: AWS (Uber-era), Cloudflare Workers/Pages, Ansible infrastructure-as-code, Cloudflare Tunnels for zero-trust networking. Hands-on DevOps, not just “familiar with.”
AI experience: Production AI systems — ONNX Runtime inference, pgvector semantic search, autonomous AI agent orchestration, Claude API integration, knowledge graph with Bayesian reasoning.
Distributed systems at scale: Cassandra (80+ nodes, millions QPS), Kafka, Apache Storm, Elasticsearch. Built lambda architectures processing 250M+ events/day.
Fully remote, EU-based, available immediately.

Experience

Neher Data Systems / Westover Labs — Berlin, Germany

CTO, Neher Data Systems · January 2021 – Present

Founder, Westover Labs · February 2026 – Present

Full-stack production services in Python + TypeScript: FastAPI backends, PostgreSQL + pgvector data layer, React Native mobile apps, TypeScript frontends. Multiple apps shipped to App Store.
CI/CD & DevOps: GitHub Actions pipelines for a multi-service monorepo (10+ services). Ansible roles for automated deployment, systemd service management, Cloudflare tunnel provisioning. Zero-downtime deploys on push to main.
Docker: Containerised ML inference services (ONNX Runtime), blog platform (Ghost), API services. Docker Compose for local dev and production orchestration.
AI infrastructure: Built a knowledge graph service (PostgreSQL + pgvector + 384-dim embeddings), multi-LLM fan-out engine, Bayesian reasoning layer (PyMC), and a 12-persona autonomous AI agent team that ships production code via GitHub Actions — task routing, PR creation, Jira management, code review.
Observability: OpenTelemetry instrumentation, Netdata monitoring, custom tool usage analytics. Data-driven decision infrastructure.

Uber — San Francisco, CA / Remote

Staff Software Engineer (Navigation, Maps) · August 2021 – October 2022

Owned on-device map matching and off-route detection for Uber's navigation platform — tens of thousands of nodes per data center, rolling deploys taking a full week. Code runs on 30M+ driver devices serving every ride and delivery globally.
Off-route detection P95 was 5 minutes, P99 10 minutes. Led research effort: built Python simulation software scaling from 500 to 10,000 trips per run for data-driven algorithm evaluation before fleet deployment.
Cross-team collaboration across Maps, Location Platform, and engineers sourced through Uber's internal gigs system. Physics and statistics background directly applied to experiment design across billions of trips.

Staff Software Engineer (Eats / Core Identity) · February 2021 – August 2021

Designed cross-platform identity resolution for Postmates→Uber user migration. GDPR-compliant data deletion across multi-cloud distributed databases.

Senior Software Engineer (Python Platform, Office of CTO / UberAI) · Mid-2019 – May 2020

Founded the Python Platform team. Led Python 2→3 migration across 400+ microservices: analyzed full dependency graph, targeted top 200 deps covering 90%+ of production. Sole on-call for all of Python Platform.
Internal advocate for promoting Python to a supported language company-wide. Mentorship and architecture office hours across the engineering org.

Software Engineering Manager (Sensing & Perception / Location Platform) · February 2018 – Mid-2019

Founded Location Platform team from scratch. Made key hires — one grew to staff engineer leading teams over 8 years. Conducted thousands of structured interviews (3–7 per week).
Increased global GPS+sensor data ingestion success from ~80% to 97%+. Scaled Cassandra to 80+ nodes per DC, 2–10M QPS insert rate globally.
$30M+ annual savings from GPS anti-fraud program detecting location spoofing.
Built GDPR-compliant location pipeline (Project Highlander). Launched ShadowMaps: multipath GPS correction using building geometry.
Cross-functional DevOps: Mesos container management, Debian packaging for legacy OS support, Jenkins-based internal PyPI, beacon device hardware programs.

Postmates Inc. — San Francisco, CA

Staff-Level Software Engineer (Core Infrastructure) · June 2020 – February 2021

Core infrastructure engineer for a 1M+ LOC Python monorepo. Staff-level IC on a 5-person team. Completed Python 2→3 migration coordinating across 100+ engineers, managing dependency sequencing across 3 coexisting Django versions while production traffic ran.
Delivered 4x CI build time improvement (40–50 min → 10–15 min) through distributed test execution across Kubernetes pods. Built blue-green deployment infrastructure (Envoy) and OpenTelemetry observability.
Solo on-call 24/7 for 6 months keeping the entire Postmates backend alive after Uber sunsetted the platform during acquisition transition.

HERE Technologies — Berlin, Germany

Software Engineering Manager (Capture Systems, Highly Autonomous Driving) · April 2016 – February 2018

Built team from 2 to 14 engineers across backend, frontend, mobile, DevOps, and embedded. Coordinated with Intel, Nvidia, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz. Implemented ISO 9001 QMS.
Designed vehicle-to-cloud computer vision infrastructure: custom FPGA image compression, edge preprocessing, LTE uplink. Cloud architect for autonomous driving data pipelines.

Senior Software Architect · April 2015 – April 2016

Built Fleetvision Data: lambda architecture processing 250M+ GPS events/day using Kafka + Apache Storm + Elasticsearch + PostGIS. Real-time fleet analytics with React frontend.
Tornado-based Python microservices, PostGIS-backed route optimization, Kafka event pipelines.

Sonobi — Orlando, FL

Software Engineer · December 2013 – January 2015

Data warehousing pipeline processing 250M+ daily events (S3, Redshift, RabbitMQ). Probabilistic audience overlap with HyperLogLog/MinHash.
Led AWS-to-bare-metal migration: 10x cost reduction, cluster size to 1/4.

DevOps & Infrastructure Detail

Education

MBA, Business Administration — Quantic School of Business and Technology, 2017

PhD coursework, Physics (Quantum Chemistry, Condensed Matter) — University of Central Florida, 2009–2013. Published researcher.