Longyang Xu

About

Backend engineer with hands-on ownership of Python/Flask microservices and recommendation systems across edtech and telecom. Deployed and operated real-time personalization/recommendation platforms on AWS EKS with Jenkins-based CI/CD, GitOps-style declarative configs, and strong observability practices. Has migration experience moving legacy mixed environments to modern containerized Kubernetes and built Kafka pipelines feeding ML services while managing schema evolution.

Experience

Education

Key Strengths

• Owned end-to-end Python/Flask backend services for an education platform (auth, course/user/quiz management, recommendations)
• Designed and implemented hybrid recommendation engine; addressed cold-start with content-based fallback and collaborative filtering for returning users
• Built Kubernetes-based deployments on AWS EKS with Docker, standardized manifests, and production-grade observability (CloudWatch, Prometheus/Grafana)
• Improved incident/root-cause detection by standardizing liveness/readiness probes and implementing structured JSON logging with centralized dashboards
• Planned and supported migration from mixed on-prem/cloud to containerized AWS Kubernetes, including dependency mapping and service readiness work
• Built Kafka streaming pipeline feeding ML/recommendation services; handled schema evolution via CI validation and backward-compatible consumers

Reference Highlights

• Proficient Python backend engineer
• Builds scalable APIs
• Implements secure workflows
• Delivers reliable, production-ready systems
• Built recommendation engine supporting 2k+ users
• Ensured 99.9% system uptime
• Excels at designing and managing complex backend infrastructures
• Strong expertise in scaling services
• Strong at managing distributed workloads
• Ensures system reliability in production
• Performs exceptionally well on real-time data systems
• Hands-on experience designing distributed architectures for high-throughput streams
• Collaborates exceptionally well with teams
• Thrives in fast-paced/startup-style environments
• Proactive communication
• Technical leadership
• Adaptability
• Would be rehired without hesitation