Yura Pilguk — Principal Backend Engineer · Python, AWS, Data Engineering

20 yrs engineering/ 10 yrs at PowerToFly/ 15+ engineers led/ 200K+ users served

About

I'm a backend engineer who measures work in decades, not sprints. My toolkit centers on Python — Flask, FastAPI, Django — running on AWS, with deep experience in data engineering (PySpark, Airflow, DBT) and production AI systems: recommendation engines built on OpenAI models, agentic workflows with Anthropic Claude, embeddings, and MCP servers.

For over eight of those years I've led engineering teams, most of them distributed across continents and time zones. I hold a Master's in Artificial Intelligence, earned mid-career — before the current wave made it fashionable.

The work that fills most of my days is less glamorous than the architecture diagrams: reproducing a reported failure locally in Docker, reading server-side code someone else wrote in a language I did not pick, and reviewing other people's diffs. I have a particular fondness for the bugs a green test suite cannot catch — the ones that need production data volume, a second service, a different database engine, or a different browser engine to appear at all.

Experience

2006 — present

PowerToFly

2016 — present · 10 yrs

Joined when the platform served its first tens of thousands of users; now responsible for the architecture and the team behind it.

Principal Backend Engineer

2024 — present

Set technical direction for the backend and lead a team of 15+ engineers across multiple time zones. Own the architecture serving 200K+ active users and the AWS infrastructure it runs on. Recent work: a self-serve billing platform — Stripe checkout, webhooks, and an idempotent auto-renewal engine spanning four services synchronized over SQS/EventBridge, with OPA-based cross-service authorization — an OAuth2 provider with enterprise SSO (JWT/RSA), and the platform's AI adoption: an LLM job-enrichment pipeline with schema-validated structured output, a job recommendation system built on OpenAI models, automated screening of talent profiles, and multi-agent AI engineering workflows across the team.

Day to day that means production code, not diagrams: reproducing reported failures locally in Docker, tracing root causes across service and language boundaries — a Python API and a TypeScript frontend disagreeing about a wire contract, a query that only degrades at real data volume — and reviewing the team's backend diffs against a checklist I maintain. I also rebuilt the backend test infrastructure, cutting CI from ~20 minutes to ~4.5 with parallel runs and per-worker database isolation.

Python · TypeScript · React · Docker · pytest · Flask · FastAPI · SQLAlchemy · PostgreSQL · Redis · DynamoDB · OpenSearch · Stripe · OPA · OAuth2/SSO · OpenAI · Claude · embeddings · Lambda · SNS/SQS · EventBridge · Glue · MediaConvert

Backend Software Architect

2022 — 2024

Redesigned the platform architecture through 300% user growth — from 50K to 200K active users — without a rewrite. Established the AWS infrastructure standards the team still builds on and untangled integration across service domains.

System architecture · Lambda · SNS/SQS · EventBridge · RDS · ElastiCache · S3 · OpenSearch · Glue

Lead Backend Developer

2016 — 2022

Built and led the backend team through the platform's formative years: hiring, mentoring, coding standards, and a lot of shipped features. Translated business requirements into systems that didn't need rewriting.

Python · Flask · SQLAlchemy · PostgreSQL · Redis · AWS · agile delivery

Avaaz.org

2008 — 2015 · 7 yrs

Software Engineer

Seven years building one of the world's largest online advocacy platforms — from startup phase through scale to millions of members worldwide. High-load systems, campaign-driven traffic spikes, and a fully distributed international team.

High-load systems · platform engineering · scalable web applications

QArea

2006 — 2008 · 2 yrs

Software Engineer

Where the full-stack foundations were laid: client web applications, custom SugarCRM modules, a student testing system built on the then-new jQuery, and tree-structured database design.

JavaScript · jQuery · SugarCRM · CMS development · database design

Stack

Debugging & review: local failure reproduction (Docker Compose, LocalStack) · cross-service root-cause analysis · query-plan and memory profiling · regression bisecting · code review at team scale · reading unfamiliar server-side code · parallel test infrastructure (pytest-xdist)
Languages: Python · JavaScript · TypeScript · SQL · Bash · React · Node
Python: Flask · FastAPI · Django · SQLAlchemy · Celery · asyncio · multiprocessing · pytest
Data engineering: PySpark · Apache Airflow · DBT · Pandas · NumPy · ETL/ELT at scale
AI engineering: OpenAI API · Anthropic Claude API · agentic systems · agent orchestration · MCP servers · LLM extraction pipelines · embeddings · recommendation systems · scikit-learn
AI automation: talent-profile screening · workflow automation · AI-assisted code review · engineering process optimization
AWS: Lambda · S3 · RDS · DynamoDB · Glue · Kinesis · SQS · SNS · EventBridge · Step Functions · ElastiCache · Redshift · MediaConvert
Databases: PostgreSQL · MySQL · MongoDB · Redis · Elasticsearch · OpenSearch · Snowflake · BigQuery
APIs & streaming: REST · GraphQL · microservices · event-driven architecture · Stripe webhooks & billing · Kafka · real-time streaming
Security & identity: OAuth2/OIDC provider · SSO (JWT, RSA) · policy-based access control (OPA/ABAC) · RBAC · secrets management
DevOps: Docker & Docker Compose · container debugging · GitLab CI/CD · monitoring · logging · performance optimization

Education

2001 — 2021

Master's degree, Artificial Intelligence 2019 — 2021

Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics

Specialist, Computer Engineering 2005 — 2006

National Aerospace University — Kharkiv Aviation Institute

Bachelor's degree, Computer Science 2001 — 2005

National Aerospace University — Kharkiv Aviation Institute

Contact

One channel, always read. If you're hiring for senior backend, architecture, or engineering leadership roles — or just want to talk systems — reach out on LinkedIn.

linkedin.com/in/yurapilguk