Who I am

Akshay Kaushik

AI Full Stack Engineer · Django · Next.js · 3+ years production

I'm a full stack engineer with a production-first mindset, working at the intersection of Django backends, Next.js frontends, and AI integrations. I've been building with AI tools since GitHub Copilot's early access — not as a trend, but because it genuinely makes you faster and forces you to think about what code is actually for.

My path hasn't been linear. I spent time as an independent engineer building and growing a content platform to 4M+ annual visits — that taught me more about performance, SEO, and product thinking than any formal role could. A Google algorithm update ended it overnight. I kept building.

Right now I'm deepening my AI engineering work — building real retrieval systems, multi-agent pipelines, and AI-native products. Not wrappers. Systems that handle real load and real failure modes.


Work history

Experience

Software Engineer

Apr 2024 – Present

Mukul Consultants India Pvt. Ltd. · MrSolvo.com · Noida

  • Built a two-stage AI product search pipeline — Django backend, Google Embedding API for vector similarity, Gemini LLM as a second-pass contextual reranker. Connected to a Next.js frontend.
  • Designed zero-gap invoicing covering 4 transaction types: platform fees, provider payouts, user refunds, and multi-scenario edge cases. Fully audit-ready ledger.
  • Implemented JWT edge authentication on CDN — role-based route protection and post-login redirects for high-traffic routes.
  • Built internal ops console (React Router) covering KYC, payments, refunds, ledger, and bookings with IP-allowlist access.
  • Led technical interviews and onboarded new engineers through their first delivery milestones.

Founder / Independent Engineer

Aug 2021 – Jan 2024

Self-directed · Remote

  • Bootstrapped and grew a content platform to 4M+ annual visits from zero — full stack, no team.
  • Handled everything: Core Web Vitals optimization, CDN configuration, technical SEO, PageSpeed tuning, and ad/affiliate monetization.
  • Platform was hit by Google's Helpful Content Update — killed overnight traffic that took years to build. I learned more about algorithmic risk and dependency than any job could have taught.
  • Used GitHub Copilot from its early access days. This was my entry point into AI-assisted development — I've been building with AI tools continuously since.
  • Took freelance web development work throughout this period to stay in production code.

Backend Developer

Jun 2019 – Apr 2020

Bdsharma Consulting Pvt. Ltd.

  • Built a document digitization ETL pipeline processing thousands of offline bank inspection reports (PDF and Word) from multiple empanelled banks.
  • Used regex-based extraction to parse report IDs, dates, locations, and bank names across format variants.
  • Loaded structured records into Django backend; async batch jobs via Celery + Apache Spark for volume. Deployed on DigitalOcean.

Context

On the Independent Years

Between August 2021 and January 2024, I wasn't employed at a company. I was building one — or rather, building for myself. I grew a content platform from zero to 4M+ annual visits using modern web fundamentals: Core Web Vitals, CDN architecture, technical SEO, PageSpeed, and ad/affiliate monetization. Then Google's Helpful Content Update hit and eliminated the traffic I'd spent years building.

I don't present this as a gap. I present it as one of the most formative periods of my career. I learned what it means to be accountable to your own systems — no team to catch failures, no manager to escalate to. Just you, the code, and the consequences.

Throughout this period I was also using AI tools actively — GitHub Copilot from its earliest access, then progressively more capable tools like Codex, Claude Code, Cursor as they arrived. That early, hands-on relationship with AI tools is part of why I can work with them effectively today: I didn't adopt them as a trend, I grew with them.


Technical domains

Technology

AI & LLMs

Google Embedding APIGemini APILangChainLangGraphOpenAI GPT-4oOpenSearchRAG SystemsVector EmbeddingsStructured Outputs

Backend

PythonDjangoDjango REST FrameworkFastAPIPostgreSQLMySQLRedisCeleryApache Spark

Frontend

Next.jsReactTypeScriptTailwindCSSMUISWRWebSocket

Infrastructure

DockerAWS (EC2, S3, Amplify)NginxGunicornVercelGitHub ActionsLinuxCloudflare

Right now

What I'm Building

CareerLens — An AI-native career intelligence platform that uses LangGraph multi-agent architectures, GPT-4o, OpenSearch, and reflection loops to help people understand their career trajectory. Production-grade. Real reasoning. Not a chatbot wrapper.

Read the architecture breakdown

Get in touch

Connect

Open to senior engineering roles, AI consulting, and interesting technical conversations. If you're building something hard, I want to hear about it.

[email protected]GitHubLinkedIn