Karl Cassel
Backend & Infrastructure Engineer · SRE · San Francisco, CA
Summary
Engineer with 7+ years building internet-scale backend systems and distributed infrastructure for high-throughput, low-latency applications. Expert in architecting production-ready services from requirements through global deployment, with deep experience in Go, Python, and cloud-native architectures on AWS and GCP. Proven technical leader driving cross-team initiatives, mentoring engineering teams, and delivering reliable backend systems processing billions of requests daily.
Core Skills
Languages
Go · Python · Java
Cloud
AWS (EC2, ECS, Lambda, RDS, DynamoDB, CloudWatch) · GCP (GKE, BigQuery, Cloud Functions) · Azure
Infrastructure
Terraform · CloudFormation · Infrastructure-as-code
Containers & Orchestration
Kubernetes · Docker · Helm · ArgoCD · Service mesh
Streaming & Data
Kafka · Apache Flink · Event-driven architectures · Real-time analytics
Observability & CI/CD
Grafana · Prometheus · DataDog · Distributed tracing · GitHub Actions · Jenkins · GitLab CI
Experience
- Architected large-scale backend data pipelines processing billions of daily events using Kafka, BigQuery, and event-driven architectures, supporting ML training and real-time analytics
- Built high-throughput, low-latency backend services in Go and Python handling sub-second response times at internet scale with 99.9%+ availability
- Designed Kafka monitoring infrastructure including custom Grafana dashboards for tiered storage cache metrics, performance monitoring, and automated alerting
- Developed CI/CD automation tooling using GitHub Actions and ArgoCD, reducing deployment time by 40% while maintaining zero-downtime deployments
- Led cross-functional infrastructure standardization initiative, architecting unified Terraform CI/CD pipelines across 5+ engineering teams — improving developer velocity and deployment consistency
- Developed and maintained production backend services in Go: RESTful APIs, microservices, and distributed system components for MuleSoft's platform infrastructure
- Designed backend infrastructure for database and storage systems, achieving 90% reduction in database-related incidents via automated monitoring and failover
- Established infrastructure quality gates, security controls, and governance frameworks — reducing deployment errors by 30% and ensuring enterprise security compliance
- Coordinated complex multi-environment Kubernetes deployments across commercial and government cloud infrastructure, collaborating with compliance teams on regulatory requirements
Leadership & Mentorship
- Providing technical mentorship and career guidance to early-career engineers and students on software development best practices, system design, and professional development
Education
Certifications
- AWS Solutions Architect – Associate
- AWS Security Specialty