Sravani Pala — Backend Engineer & Indie Builder

01 — about me

The Story So Far

I'm a backend engineer with a growing obsession with AI — specifically, the part where you take a language model and make it actually useful inside a real product. That intersection of solid engineering and intelligent systems is where I want to spend the next few years.

At Prodify Software Solutions, I built production financial data systems — ingesting thousands of records, designing schemas across 20+ tables, and shipping an LLM-powered pipeline that categorized over 1,200 transactions reliably. Working with LLMs in a high-stakes domain taught me things no course does: how to structure prompts for consistency, how batch processing changes reliability, how to build around the unpredictable parts.

Right now I'm deepening my ML foundations and exploring a product idea — Opportiq — a platform to help people turn real collaboration into real career proof. It's in the research and planning phase, which I find genuinely exciting: getting the thinking right before writing a single line of code.

I'm looking for a GenAI or ML Engineer role at a startup where curiosity is an asset and there's room to grow into the full AI stack.

What excites me

The space where backend engineering meets AI — building systems that are both reliable and intelligent.

Where I'm headed

LLM applications and GenAI systems — I want to own AI features end to end, not just call an API.

What I bring

Real production experience with LLMs in financial systems — I know what works and what breaks under pressure.

Right now

Deepening ML fundamentals, planning Opportiq, and looking for a team to grow with.

02 — capabilities

Skills & Tools

Core Backend

Python FastAPI Pydantic SQLAlchemy REST APIs Async

AI & LLM Engineering

OpenAI API Gemini Prompt Engineering Sentence Transformers Semantic Search Multilingual Models Text Embeddings

Database & Storage

PostgreSQL Schema Design Indexing AWS S3 Presigned URLs

Infra, Tooling & Testing

Docker AWS EC2 Git Postman pytest Unit Testing Mocking

03 — work history

Experience

Prodify Software Solutions

Aug 2024 – Mar 2026

Full-time

Software Engineer

Built RESTful APIs with FastAPI for financial data ingestion pipelines, handling 1,000+ records per upload from Excel and PDF sources.
Engineered an LLM-powered transaction categorization system using batch processing, reliably handling 1,200+ transactions end-to-end.
Designed and optimized PostgreSQL schemas across 20+ tables — indexing strategies, normalization, and query performance tuning.
Implemented secure async file uploads via AWS S3 presigned URLs — designed for high throughput and zero blocking.
Contributed to monolithic system architecture using the Controller-Service-Repository pattern; maintained API documentation throughout.

04 — currently building

Opportiq

◎ Solo Founder · Product Research & Planning

"Turn time into experience, and experience into opportunity."

Opportiq is a product idea I'm developing — a collaborative platform for unemployed developers, fresh graduates, and career switchers who have skills but no verifiable, real-world experience to show for it.

The platform would let users join structured, team-based projects, contribute to real tasks, and build a proof-of-work profile — a verifiable record of what they actually shipped and how they collaborated, beyond a traditional resume or portfolio.

I've completed a full Business Requirements Document covering user flows, functional requirements, core features, KPIs, and a phased roadmap for future AI integration — skill matching, resume auto-generation, and a recruiter dashboard. Currently in the research and architecture planning phase before implementation.

Phase: Product research & planning · BRD complete · Architecture design in progress

Project Marketplace

Create & discover structured projects with defined roles — practice, portfolio, or startup-ready.

Team Formation

Role-based applications, owner approval, structured onboarding into real collaborative teams.

Contribution Engine

Task logs, peer feedback, activity scoring — verifiable proof of what each person actually did.

Proof of Work Profile

A public, recruiter-readable record of projects, roles, and contributions — beyond a resume.

Skill Matching

Smart project recommendations based on skills, goals, and availability — future AI layer planned.

Referral Layer

Top contributors get visibility and endorsements — turning good work into job opportunities.

05 — past work

Projects

PROJECT · 01

Financial Data Management Platform

Unified banking, investment, and loan data into a central asset/liability model. Built LLM-driven transaction categorization, personalized budgeting insights, and advisor-facing dashboards with real-time analysis.

Python FastAPI PostgreSQL AWS S3 LLM APIs

PROJECT · 02

AI-Powered Chat System

Real-time, multi-modal chat (text, image, voice) over WebSockets with multilingual support and conversation summarization. Built for low-latency streaming and concurrent user sessions.

Python FastAPI WebSockets LLM APIs Multilingual

PROJECT · 03

Text Embedding & Semantic Analysis

Semantic clustering pipeline using PCA and cosine similarity on large text datasets. Cross-lingual similarity matching via multilingual sentence transformers — built for grouping and insight generation at scale.

Python Sentence Transformers Semantic Search PCA

06 — the transition

Learning & Where I'm Going

My path into AI didn't start with a course — it started with a real problem. I was writing code to make LLMs categorize financial transactions reliably. That meant figuring out prompt structure, batch strategies, output validation — all the messy parts nobody teaches.

Now I'm going deeper — building the ML foundations I need to own AI features end-to-end. And with Opportiq, I'm learning what it means to think like a product person before writing a single line of code.

ML Fundamentals

Courses & hands-on practice · In progress

LLM

LLM Application Architecture

Prompt engineering, batching, output validation · Applied in production

NLP

NLP & Text Embeddings

Sentence Transformers, semantic search, clustering · Built in projects

GenAI Systems Design

Applying AI inside product backends · Opportiq future AI layer

Where I want to be in 5 years

Shipping AI products at a startup — not just integrating APIs, but owning AI feature development end to end.

Growing Opportiq into a platform that's genuinely helped people turn their skills into careers.

Bridging backend and AI — the engineer who understands both the infrastructure and the model layer deeply enough to make smart tradeoffs.

Building in public — writing about what I'm learning, what breaks, and what actually works when you put LLMs in production.

07 — credentials

Education & Certifications

B.Tech — Electronics & Communication Engineering

Gayatri Vidya Parishad College of Engineering for Women, Visakhapatnam

2021 – 2024 CGPA 8.13 / 10

Diploma — Electronics & Communication Engineering

Government Polytechnic for Women

2018 – 2021 CGPA 8.9 / 10

1.2K+Transactions via LLM

20+DB Tables Designed

1.5+Years Production Exp.

3AI-powered Systems

Certifications

Google Data Analytics

Coursera · Verified Certificate

AWS

AWS Cloud Virtual Internship

Amazon Web Services · Verified

08 — get in touch

Let's Build Something

"I'm a backend engineer moving deliberately into GenAI — and a solo founder building Opportiq. I'm looking for a startup where I can grow fast, ship real AI features, and work with people who care about the craft."

Open to ML Engineer and GenAI roles at startups. Also happy to talk about Opportiq, collaboration, or anything at the intersection of backend engineering and AI systems.

sravanipala433@gmail.com

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Phone

+91 6281157116

linkedin.com/in/sravanipala

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GitHub

github.com/sravani-pala-433

Shipping code, chasing curiosity.