Rust Saiargaliev
Lead Engineer focused on reliable Django platforms, operational reliability, and developer tooling.
Summary
Lead Engineer with 10+ years of experience building and operating Python/Django systems at startup and scale-up companies. Experienced in backend architecture, data platforms, integrations, open source, and technical leadership. Maintainer of Model Bakery, one of the most widely used testing libraries in the Django ecosystem.
Experience
Lead Engineer @ voiio
June 2021 – present · Lead Engineer since July 2024; previously Senior Engineer
Building and evolving a B2B employee-wellbeing platform supporting employees and their families across hundreds of German companies.
- Led technical direction across platform reliability, infrastructure, integrations, analytics, and AI initiatives within a small engineering team
- Led ongoing performance work across the stack: frontend profiling and rendering fixes, Django query optimization, dependency cleanup, and faster startup/CI feedback loops
- Drove infrastructure cost optimization by reducing monitoring noise, removing unused services, right-sizing Heroku resources, and moving Metabase to a faster, lower-cost setup
- Reworked company analytics by introducing business-oriented materialized views, scheduled refreshes, and indexing, improving dashboard performance and reporting reliability
- Implemented a video-on-demand pipeline on AWS infrastructure (MediaConvert, Lambda, CloudFront), turning daily live events into searchable platform recordings
- Built a prompt-to-agent deployment pipeline for LLM assistants, turning prompt changes into a repeatable release process
Maintainer @ Model Bakery
2018–present
Maintaining a popular Django fixture library — 1.4M+ monthly downloads, listed in the official Django ecosystem.
Senior Engineer @ thermondo
March 2016 – May 2021 · Senior Engineer from April 2019; previously Software Engineer
Owned backend systems powering heating-system offers and field workflows for hundreds of technicians and thousands of customers.
- Integrated Salesforce into business processes in under 3 months by building the backend-to-Salesforce API layer from scratch
- Created a bidirectional sync microservice for CRM communication (Salesforce+Close.com)
- Introduced architectural decision notes, post-mortems, and regular maintenance practices to make decisions traceable, reduce repeat incidents, and keep maintenance debt visible
- Maintained a well-tested codebase through strong automated test coverage and continuous upgrades of internal and external dependencies
- Bootstrapped a Slack bot to share feedback between team members
- Built an incident monitoring tool for 3rd party services
Web Developer (volunteering) @ MKCorp
November 2014 – March 2016, 1.5 years
With a bunch of creative people around the world, we were building an indie MMORPG game. Lack of time and any funding stopped us from going any further than a basic prototype.
- Bootstrapped a website
- Developed a fully functional game forum from scratch
- Started building a payment system integrated with the game API
Web Developer @ SMENA
October 2013 – December 2015, 2 years
Built and maintained various websites and complex web services for external clients.
- Built a backend for Boostframe crowdfunding platform
- Maintained food delivery website and CRM
- Created API libraries and various automations to work with advertising networks Yandex.Direct and Mail.Ru Target
Security Engineer @ Bashneft
February 2013 – October 2013, 9 months
Security administrator in charge of the corporate antivirus and antispam security systems covering 20,000 users.
Engineer's degree @ UUST (ex USATU)
2008 – 2013, 5 years
Thesis: "Innovations in a corporate network security infrastructure"
Skill set
- Backend & APIs — Python, Django, DRF, FastAPI, Flask, Celery, Dramatiq
- Frontend — htmx, Lit, Svelte, Vue, React, jQuery
- Data & storage — PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, Redis, Metabase, Heroku Connect
- Infrastructure & CI — Docker, AWS (Lambda, S3, SES, etc.), Heroku, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI
- AI & integrations — LLM pipelines, Salesforce, OpenAI
- Testing & quality — pytest, automated testing, continuous delivery practices
- Team leadership — mentoring, technical interviewing, onboarding, engineering process improvement
Extra
- Languages — English (fluent), Russian (native), German (intermediate)
- Open Source — active OSS contributor, see github.com/amureki
- Community — moderated and founded Python/Django communities with 10,000+ combined members; co-organized and spoke at Berlin Python and Django meetups
- Hobbies — jogging, photography, video games
- Fun fact — known to turn ordinary team events into survival challenges