About
I build production systems where backend, AI and product decisions meet.
I am Bilal Sharif, an AI and full stack engineer based in Lahore, Pakistan. Five years of Python, Django and Go backends, React and Next.js frontends, applied LLM systems, and the infrastructure that keeps all of it up.
Positioning
"The best engineering work is knowing which bottleneck matters, what should stay simple, and where the system breaks under pressure. Then owning all three."
I have owned production Django, DRF and Go backends at 10K requests per second, rebuilt a WebSocket layer for 50K concurrent connections, shipped agentic LLM systems on LangGraph and CrewAI, fine tuned small language models, self hosted FLUX and LTX video generation on RunPod, and replaced managed load balancing with a Caddy stack I wrote myself.
I also author open source: Cauli, a Rust and PyO3 task queue at 32.8 times Celery throughput, and fancydocx, a pure Python OOXML renderer with zero dependencies.
10K
requests per second at peak on the Django and Go core
50K
concurrent WebSocket connections after the Channels rebuild
300K
background jobs through fault tolerant async pipelines
30h+
analyst hours saved per month by a Pinecone and OpenAI RAG pipeline
How I work
Three habits that show up on every engagement.
Ownership
Full product ownership
No hand holding. No ticket honeymoon. I take the problem, not the ticket, and I take the on call that comes with it.
Leverage
AI assisted delivery
Claude Code in the loop. Subagents, git worktrees, custom workflows and QA driven through MCP. Faster execution without lowering the bar on judgment.
Range
End to end, then scale
Frontend, backend, QA, deploy and infra, plus the scaling work after it ships. The box it runs on is part of the job.
Where I have been
Recent roles and the kind of problems I owned.
Sep 2024 to now
DarkBytes · Lahore
Senior Software Engineer
Own the Django, DRF and Go backend behind ChatsX at 10K requests per second. Rebuilt the realtime layer for 50K sockets, shipped agentic LLM systems on LangGraph and CrewAI, self hosted FLUX and LTX video on RunPod, replaced managed load balancing with a Caddy stack, and mentor junior engineers through review.
Sep 2023 to Aug 2024
VinnyAndCo · Remote
Senior Software Engineer
Built a white label multitenant ecommerce platform on Django and React, an internal operations dashboard in React and Next.js, and a RAG pipeline over the product catalog that cut manual brand research by up to 70 percent.
Sep 2021 to Aug 2023
AurLab · Lahore
Software Engineer
Cut API query time 40 percent through N+1 elimination, composite indexing and query batching. Built a Pinecone and OpenAI RAG pipeline saving 30 analyst hours a month. Cut deploys from 25 minutes to 7 with GitHub Actions and containerised builds.
2021
Superior University · Lahore
BS Computer Science
Completed before the AurLab role, which is where most of the useful learning happened.
Want the long version?
The CV has dates and numbers. The case studies have the reasoning. The contact page has the shortest path to a reply.