About Mirza Ishraq
I'm a data and backend developer who has been building with Django since 2018. I help with code and architecture, data modeling and migrations, and generative AI, and I take products from idea to secure, reliable deployment.
Python · Django · FastAPI · Rust · Linux · Containerization · AWS · CI/CD pipelines · LLMs · Vector databases · RAG · AI integration
What I've built and led
- AI agents that act safely. A streaming Claude agent that lets San Diego Unified's roughly 13,000 staff and the public submit, track and update data requests in plain English. It confirms before it writes, rate-limits by IP, and only gets the tools a user's role allows.
- AI agents and RAG. I created RAGnetic, an open-source framework for deploying AI agents on your own servers, with multi-tenant security and observability dashboards.
- Backends for regulated data. GMP-compliant Django tools that deliver cryo-EM imaging data through AWS S3, with Celery for parallel processing and Docker for deploys.
- Login, roles and access. Microsoft Entra ID single sign-on with automatic role sync, and identity automation for 10k+ university accounts that cut processing time by 50%.
- Data migrations. Spearheading the discovery and planning to move a legacy SQL Server reporting system into a dbt and Prefect warehouse.
- Products, idea to production. Tradion, an AI platform for trading research, and Tide & Treats, a cake ordering site with an AI cake designer.
Experience
- 2026–now Software Programmer/Analyst, Data Analytics, San Diego Unified School District
- 2023–2025 Software Engineer, TrueCourse Biosciences (formerly NanoImaging Services)
- 2021–2023 Graduate Assistant, then Technology Support Specialist, San Diego State University ITS
- 2017–2021 Identity & Access Management Assistant, Cal State Northridge IT
Education
- 2023 M.Sc. Big Data Analytics, San Diego State University
- 2021 B.Sc. Computer Information Technology, California State University, Northridge
- 2019 Co-author of NetR and AttR, a bioinformatics paper in Genes
What I write about
I write about AI and machine learning, backend development, and cloud computing (mainly AWS). Python and Django show up a lot, and so do Claude and other LLMs. The Deploy, my newsletter, goes out every Sunday, and the Lab page has more of what I've built.
New here? These are good places to start.
- How to Build Your Own AI Assistant With Django Framework & Anthropic SDK (Step by Step)
- LLM Evals for My Claude Code Agent (Walkthrough + Prompts)
- Pinecone Vector Database: A Hands-On Python Tutorial
- I Tracked Claude Token Usage on Wasted Commands (Case Study)
Let's build something
Hiring, or building something? Email is the best way to reach me.