Chinedu Okotu

Mid-level software engineer with 4 years of experience designing and shipping production-grade web systems in Python and Django. Specialises in RESTful API architecture, async task pipelines, and cloud deployment across fintech and SaaS products. Comfortable owning the full backend — from data model design through to CI/CD — and collaborating with frontend teams to deliver integrated, well-tested systems.

Backend Engineer at Vurex Technologies (2023-01 – Present)

• Architected a multi-party escrow engine in Django handling payment capture, conditional fund release, and dispute resolution via Paystack's split-payment API and webhook infrastructure.
• Designed a role-gated permission model (Buyer / Vendor / Admin) enforced at the Django view layer, eliminating client-side trust for all financial state transitions.
• Built a Celery-based auto-release scheduler with Redis as the broker, reducing manual admin intervention for timed fund disbursements by 90%.
• Containerised the full stack with Docker Compose and deployed to AWS EC2 behind an Nginx reverse proxy; reduced environment parity issues across dev, staging, and production.
• Integrated Terminal Africa's shipment API for real-time logistics booking and tracking reference generation tied to transaction state machine transitions.

Django Developer at Freelance / Contract (2021-06 – 2022-12)

• Delivered RESTful APIs for four client SaaS products using Django REST Framework, including JWT auth flows, nested serializers, and per-object permission scoping.
• Reduced average API response time by 40% on a high-traffic e-commerce backend by introducing Redis caching for product catalogue endpoints and paginating queryset-heavy views.
• Set up PostgreSQL schemas with optimised indexing strategies; wrote raw SQL for complex reporting queries that ORM could not express efficiently.
• Configured GitHub Actions CI pipelines with automated test runs and Docker image builds on every pull request, cutting regression cycles from days to minutes.
• Maintained above 80% test coverage across core business logic modules using pytest-django.

Junior Python Developer at Softworks Digital (2020-09 – 2021-05)

• Maintained and extended a Django-based CMS serving regional media clients, adding user role management and content scheduling features.
• Migrated legacy SQLite data models to PostgreSQL and wrote Django migration scripts with zero downtime.
• Collaborated with a React frontend team to design and document API contracts using Postman collections, improving cross-team delivery velocity.

B.Sc. in Computer Science – University of Benin