Khalid Omar A.

Senior Backend Engineer (Ex-Google) | Building Scalable AI-First Infrastructure & Distributed Systems | Contract

London Area, United Kingdom

About

I architect the backend infrastructure and APIs that allow AI-first systems to work at scale. At Amazon, I led the backend architecture for their global AI vehicle inspection system, designing microservices for millions of users. At Google, I engineered core components for Search and AdSense, taking complex greenfield projects to production at billion-user scale. I bring a product-mindset to every architectural challenge, ensuring technical decisions serve the user. Currently open to remote or hybrid contract engagements.

Experience

  • Senior Backend Engineer | AI Infrastructure & Distributed Systems at Freelance
    May 2023 - Present · 3 yrs 3 mos

    Design and building scalable Infrastructure that power AI-first Applications for global clients.

  • Senior Software Development Engineer at Amazon
    May 2023 - Nov 2024 · 1 yr 7 mos

    • Designed and developed global-scale APIs for Amazon's AI vehicle inspection system. • Wrote comprehensive technical design documents. establishing clear system architecture guidelines. • Operated as the sole back-end engineer during the project's initial phase, laying the groundwork for future development. • Mentored and onboarded new engineers, promoting a collaborative team environment.

  • Sabbatical at Lifelong Learning
    Aug 2021 - May 2023 · 1 yr 10 mos

    • Focused on well-being while seeking out unfamiliar, challenging, and growth-oriented opportunities. • Travelled extensively in North America, Central America, Middle-East, and North Africa. • Worked on experimental projects such as building a no-code lightweight game engine (TS, Rust).

  • Google (2 yrs 10 mos)
    • Software Engineer • Android Google Search Application
      Jan 2021 - Jul 2021 · 7 mos

      • Member of a newly founded infrastructure team working on privacy and safety.

    • Software Engineer • AdSense • Infrastructure
      May 2019 - Jan 2021 · 1 yr 9 mos

      • Designed and implemented a greenfield messaging service for an AI hijacking detection system, enhancing security in user accounts. • Developed a distributed data pipeline to synchronise data from two internal customer databases, improving data integrity. • Created a monitoring system that alerts engineers on consecutive failures, speeding up response times to incidents

    • Software Engineer • Search • Google Go
      Oct 2018 - May 2019 · 8 mos

      • Implemented new search feature for local places of interest on Google Go, a lightweight search app for the NBU (Next Billion Users) in Brazil, Indonesia, Senegal, etcetera. • Optimised geo-based search results by adding a custom field to an internal API, saving up to 40% in mobile data.

  • Research Development Software Engineer at Self-employed
    Jul 2017 - Sep 2018 · 1 yr 3 mos

    • Worked on a robotics simulator prototype in Sarajevo, Bosnia (Summer 2017). • Awarded Guinness World Record for participating in the largest competitive hackathon (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia). • Contributed to open source retro games, crowd control app, and prototyping a programming language.