akshay.dev

// software engineer & athlete

Akshay Kale

6+ years building systems at Amazon & 7-Eleven that handle millions of requests daily.

6+
Years
1M+
Daily API Requests
3
Top Companies

01. about

An Engineer & Athlete

6+ years building distributed systems that handle millions of daily requests. I specialize in high-throughput microservices, event-driven architecture, and performance engineering at scale.

Currently at 7-Eleven leading backend infrastructure for the 7NOW food delivery platform. Previously built logistics systems at Amazon impacting hundreds of thousands of sellers across 8 countries. Now targeting Senior Software Engineer roles where I can lead architecture and mentor teams.

recognition

★  Recognized by 7-Eleven · 2025

Donations · Split Payments · SNAP EBT · QSR Integration · Developer Testing Tools

education

MS Computer Science

University of Texas at Dallas · 2021

certifications
IN PROGRESS

Microsoft Applied Agentic AI

April 2026

Microsoft AI Engineer Program

August 2026

beyond the code

Ultimate Frisbee Athlete

Competed for UTD varsity sports team · 2019

World Championship Coach

Coached India Club Team at World Ultimate Club Championships · Cincinnati, Ohio · 2022

Mountaineer

Basic Mountaineering Course · A Grade · ABVIMAS · Indian Government Institution

02. experience

Where I've Worked

7-Eleven

Software Engineer II

May 2023PresentDallas, TX
  • Owned microservices handling 1M+ API requests/day with 99% availability
  • Rearchitected Cart, Checkout, Order services to integrate QSR → 10% revenue increase
  • Led AWS Lambda → Spring WebFlux on ECS migration → 30% higher throughput
  • Optimized APIs replacing sequential calls with caching/async → 70% latency reduction, 40% more conversions
  • Built event-driven order orchestration state machine
  • Designed split-payment architecture (SNAP EBT, Cashback, Card) → basket size $30→$60
  • Standardized observability via OpenTelemetry, CloudWatch, New Relic
  • Built AI-assisted internal developer tooling
  • Conducted 30+ technical interviews across US and India
tech stack
JavaSpring WebFluxAWS ECSDynamoDBKafkaSNS/SQSTerraformOpenTelemetry

03. skills

Technical Arsenal

core competencies

Distributed SystemsMicroservicesEvent-Driven ArchitecturePerformance OptimizationTechnical LeadershipSystem DesignFault-Tolerant SystemsObservabilityInfrastructure as Code
AI & Agenticlearning
LLM APIsAgentic AIRAGLangChainPrompt EngineeringAzure AIVector DBs
Languagesexperienced
JavaJavaScriptGolangPythonCC++Bash
Cloud & AWSexperienced
LambdaECSDynamoDBSNS/SQSS3KinesisCloudWatchRedshift
Frameworksexperienced
Spring BootSpring WebFluxKafkaReact.jsNode.jsFlask
Databasesexperienced
PostgreSQLCassandraMongoDBDynamoDBRedisSQLNoSQL
DevOpsexperienced
DockerKubernetesTerraformGitMavenGradle

04. insights

Engineering Insights

Learning from systems built at massive scale

Scaling LLM Inference

key ideas

  • LLMs are served through distributed inference clusters
  • Requests are batched to maximize GPU utilization
  • Scheduling layers prioritize latency-sensitive workloads
  • Horizontal scaling handles traffic spikes

↑ hover to expand

These patterns apply to any compute-heavy backend where batching and scheduling improve efficiency — not just AI.

Designing Idempotent APIs

key ideas

  • APIs must be safe to retry in distributed systems
  • Clients send an idempotency key with each request
  • The backend stores the request and response for that key
  • Retries return the cached response instead of re-executing

↑ hover to expand

This pattern prevents duplicate operations like payments or order creation — critical for any financial system.

Netflix

source ↗

Building Resilient Streaming Systems

key ideas

  • Microservices communicate through resilient service meshes
  • Circuit breakers prevent cascading failures
  • Chaos engineering validates system reliability
  • Services degrade gracefully instead of failing completely

↑ hover to expand

Fault tolerance is essential when operating globally distributed systems — design for failure, not against it.

Real-Time Dispatch Architecture

key ideas

  • Real-time location streams processed via distributed event pipelines
  • Kafka handles high-throughput event ingestion
  • Dispatch decisions rely on low-latency geospatial computations
  • Systems balance throughput with real-time responsiveness

↑ hover to expand

Event-driven architecture is essential for real-time systems where milliseconds determine user experience.

Cloudflare

source ↗

Edge Computing at Global Scale

key ideas

  • Edge networks run workloads close to the user
  • Global request routing improves latency and reliability
  • Stateless services allow horizontal scaling
  • Edge workers enable lightweight serverless compute

↑ hover to expand

Moving computation closer to users drastically reduces latency — a core principle of modern distributed systems.

The Tail at Scale

key ideas

  • Slow requests at the tail significantly impact overall user experience
  • Even rare slow responses can delay an entire request chain
  • Request hedging and replication reduce tail latency
  • Optimize for worst-case latency, not just average

↑ hover to expand

At scale, reducing tail latency is critical to consistency. A p99 problem affects millions of users daily.

05. projects

Things I've Built

1M+ req/day

Order Orchestration Engine

7-Eleven · 2024

Event-driven state machine orchestrating the full order lifecycle from placement to delivery. Handles 1M+ API requests/day at 99% uptime.

JavaKafkaDynamoDBSpring WebFluxAWS ECS
10% revenue ↑

QSR Integration Platform

7-Eleven · 2024

Rearchitected Cart, Checkout, and Order microservices to onboard Quick Service Restaurant chains, unlocking a 10% revenue increase.

JavaAWS SNS/SQSREST APIsTerraform
$30 → $60

Split Payment System

7-Eleven · 2023

SNAP EBT + Cashback + Card split-payment architecture enabling government benefit spending. Doubled average basket size from $30 to $60.

JavaPayment APIsDynamoDBSpring Boot
800K+ orders

Carrier Selection Engine

Amazon · 2022

Distributed carrier orchestration selecting optimal shipping partners based on cost, SLA, and capacity across 800K+ orders.

GolangJavaAWS LambdaDynamoDB
8 countries

Global Seller Onboarding

Amazon · 2022

Multi-country shipping charge configuration system for new marketplace launches. Scaled to 100K+ seller enrollments across 8 countries.

JavaPythonAWS EC2DynamoDB

06. contact

Let's Build Something

Open to senior SWE roles and interesting distributed systems challenges. Reach out directly or send a message.

email

akshaykbkale@gmail.com

linkedin

linkedin.com/in/akshaykbkale