Backend software engineer · Vaughan, ON

James E. Parker

I build microservices, REST APIs and event-driven data pipelines. Software engineer at SPS Commerce, a B2B SaaS platform, since 2022, and founder of Partec, building software for small businesses since 2020.

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role: backend engineer
stack: java, python, kafka, k8s
serving: 20,000+ customers/day
side: partec · since 2020

Selected work

4 projects

In production since 2020

Smart Scheduler

Weekly staff scheduling for a multi-location franchise. Managers build the week, save templates, and send the schedule to their team's Telegram group as an image.

  • Django
  • React
  • TypeScript
  • Telegram
  • Docker

Open Smart Scheduler →

Illustration of the Smart Scheduler week view.

SPS Commerce

Streaming data pipeline

Unified live Kafka streams with operational databases in a Databricks medallion architecture: event schemas, 7+ topics, Java source services and back-fillers, and a daily data-health dashboard.

  • Kafka
  • Databricks
  • Java
  • Python

SPS Commerce

GenAI attribute mapping

A proof of concept on AWS Bedrock that suggests product attributes by mapping customer taxonomies, reaching 70% top-1 and 95% top-2 accuracy.

  • AWS Bedrock
  • Python

Personal project

Docket Navigator Assistant

A TypeScript MCP server that connects an LLM to Docket Navigator and the USPTO API, mapping an expert's CV to patent classification codes to find ranked litigation leads and flag potential conflicts.

  • TypeScript
  • MCP
  • LLM
James Parker

Experience

  1. Software Engineer

    SPS Commerce · Sep 2023 – present

    • Owns the item management API and exports for the Assortment product, serving 20,000+ customers daily.
    • Led a streaming, event-driven medallion-architecture pipeline unifying Kafka streams with operational databases.
    • Scrum Master for two teams (8 engineers).

  2. Associate Software Engineer II

    SPS Commerce · May 2022 – Sep 2023

    • Designed and built greenfield EDI APIs in Java (Jersey).
    • Built a streaming import for item datasheets of 10 MB and more.
    • Delivered full-stack features across the TypeScript/React frontend and Java backend.

  3. Founder / Software Developer

    Partec · Aug 2020 – present

    • Sole developer of the Smart Scheduler, in production for a multi-location franchise since 2020.
    • Shipped bug fixes and UI tooling in Genfanad, a commercial video game.
    • Built cross-platform file-transfer automation for a law office.

York University · Business and Financial Economics, 2015–2018

Skills

Languages

  • Java
  • Python
  • Scala
  • SQL
  • TypeScript
  • JavaScript
  • C#
  • C++

Backend & APIs

  • Microservices
  • REST API design
  • Distributed systems
  • Jersey
  • Spring Boot
  • Django
  • Flask

Cloud & infrastructure

  • Kubernetes
  • Docker
  • AWS (ECS, RDS, Bedrock)
  • CI/CD (Azure Pipelines)
  • Terraform

Data & streaming

  • Kafka (Confluent Cloud)
  • Event-driven architecture
  • Databricks (Spark)
  • PostgreSQL
  • MySQL
  • Oracle
  • ActiveMQ

AI/ML

  • GenAI integration (AWS Bedrock)
  • Prompt engineering
  • AI-assisted development
  • Claude Code
  • Copilot

Frontend

  • React
  • HTML
  • CSS

Work with Partec

Partec is my software consultancy for small businesses.

Custom software

Web apps, internal tools and integrations, from requirements to deployment.

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Code review & debugging

Bug hunting, fixes and reviews in existing codebases.

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AI integration

LLM features, MCP servers and AI-assisted workflows, connected to the tools and data you already use.

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Contact

Get in touch

Questions about a role or a project? Send a message and I'll reply by email.