About

About

Hi, I’m Usama Sadiq, Principal Software Engineer, Open edX Core Contributor, and hands-on Python/Django + DevOps specialist with over 6 years of experience in building and scaling modern web infrastructure.

I bring a unique combination of backend engineering expertise, cloud-native DevOps practices, and open-source leadership to every initiative I work on.

🌱 My Journey

Coming from a humble background, I began my journey as a factory worker and assistant. With the help of scholarships, mentorship, and community support, I earned my degree in Computer Science from Information Technology University, Lahore.

What started as curiosity became a career of purpose. From freelancing and research internships to leading open-source initiatives and enterprise deployments, I’ve grown by solving real-world problems with code.

🚀 What I Do

  • Backend Engineering: I design scalable APIs using Python, Django, and Django REST Framework.
  • Cloud and DevOps: I work extensively with AWS services (ECS, Lambda, RDS, CloudWatch, S3), CI/CD automation, Docker, and Kubernetes.
  • Open edX Leadership: I am a recognized core contributor and community leader in the Open edX ecosystem, regularly involved in strategic upgrades, migration efforts, and process standardization.

🛠️ Technical & Soft Skills

  • Languages & Frameworks: Python, Django, Django REST Framework, Pandas, NumPy, React.js
  • Cloud & DevOps: AWS (ECS, Lambda, RDS, CloudWatch, S3, IAM, Secrets Manager), Docker, GitHub Actions, Kubernetes, ArgoCD, Jenkins, GoCD, Ansible, Datadog, Splunk, NewRelic
  • Soft Skills: Technical documentation, mentorship, cross-team collaboration, public speaking, project leadership, community engagement

👥 Leadership in Open edX

Over the years, I’ve played an active role in improving the developer experience and ecosystem stability for Open edX:

  • Community Leadership: Championed platform-wide upgrades and modernization projects. Led by example and supported contributors across time zones.
  • Speaker & Advocate: Delivered technical talks at Open edX conferences, presenting tools, best practices, and sharing behind-the-scenes of high-impact efforts.
  • Mentorship & Onboarding: Helped onboard new contributors by documenting workflows, simplifying tooling, and guiding them through their first PRs.
  • Standardization & Automation: Built codemods, scripts, and bots to automate repetitive tasks like PR creation, version bumps, and repository tracking.

🔧 Highlight Projects

🐍

Python 3.12 Platform Upgrade

Led the Python 3.12 migration across 10+ critical Open edX services and internal tools.

  • Audited dependencies, submitted patches to incompatible upstream packages, and tested under new runtimes.
  • Rebuilt Docker images to support Python 3.12, ensured backward compatibility, and upgraded CI workflows accordingly.
  • Managed risk across distributed teams by coordinating test freezes, staggered rollouts, and fallback strategies.
  • Used CI runners and codemods introduced in earlier projects to accelerate the migration effort.
📊

Real-Time Analytics Dashboard

Architected a real-time analytics system by integrating RESTful APIs, leveraging Pandas for transformation and computation, and deploying compute logic using AWS Lambda.

  • Configured AWS CloudWatch to monitor application metrics and set up alerts for anomalies.
  • Designed data flows that minimized latency and supported on-demand insights for stakeholders.
  • Collaborated with frontend developers to expose meaningful data visualizations for operational decision-making.
  • Acted as a performance lead to trace bottlenecks and optimize Lambda cold start impact.
☁️

Serverless Data Pipeline

Led the design and deployment of a fully serverless, event-driven data pipeline using AWS Lambda, S3, and Secrets Manager.

  • Embedded robust error handling and monitoring with CloudWatch logs and custom metrics.
  • Integrated API responses with data transformation logic using Pandas, achieving scalability under fluctuating workloads.
  • Authored modular Lambda functions reusable across Open edX monitoring tools and data ingestion components.
  • Shared this design pattern with the team to inform best practices for other AWS-native projects, including the CI autoscaler and health dashboards.
🐳

Containerization and Environment Unification

Migrated over 8 monolithic or script-based services into standardized Docker containers.

  • Unified development, staging, and production environments to eliminate "works on my machine" issues.
  • Refactored legacy Ansible scripts into clean Dockerfiles and docker-compose configurations.
  • Reduced onboarding time for new developers by introducing a self-contained dev environment.
  • Coordinated with QA and DevOps to build GitHub Actions-based integration pipelines.
📈

Open edX Repo Health Dashboard

Created the Repo Health Dashboard, a pivotal internal tool to surface real-time insights across 150+ Open edX repositories.

  • Visualized repository health, Django upgrade status, stale PRs, CI failures, and contribution trends.
  • Integrated data scraping, transformation, and S3-hosted frontend as part of a scalable pipeline.
  • Presented this tool at the Open edX Conference 2024, promoting it as a community alignment enabler and modernization compass.
  • Extended the dashboard to auto-fetch GitHub data using scheduled workflows on GitHub Actions.
🧩

Coordinated Django Upgrade Across Open edX

Spearheaded the ecosystem-wide transition to modern Django versions.

  • Established a baseline version matrix for 150+ repos and created automation to track upgrade status.
  • Reviewed, refactored, and merged dozens of PRs from community contributors, ensuring consistency.
  • Developed codemods and reusable upgrade scripts used by multiple teams.
  • Triaged CI failures with custom test matrices and Docker runtime adjustments, working closely with CI and infrastructure teams.
🔄

CI/CD Revamp and GitHub Actions Migration

Transformed the CI/CD architecture by replacing legacy Jenkins, CircleCI, and Travis CI pipelines with GitHub Actions.

  • Set up autoscaling GitHub runners on AWS EKS using Kubernetes, HPA, and cluster-autoscaler integrations.
  • Authored shared GitHub Actions consumed across internal and community repositories to ensure consistency.
  • Documented the full CI stack migration to help onboard Open edX community members.
  • Reduced CI cost and improved reliability, unlocking faster feedback cycles for developers.

Thanks for reading. I’m always open to connect, collaborate, or share ideas.