Pegasus News
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November, 2009 - Present
I work as a back-end developer on the Pegasus News and The Daily You websites, built on Django. I work on the Python server-side code, JavaScript client-side code, and Linux infrastructure that powers the site. We also have two front-end developers that handle markup, style, graphics, and JavaScript - though I sometimes cross over into their realm. I also handle the system administration for their development and production servers.
When I started with Pegasus, they were exclusively in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. I developed a new deploy process and refactored their configuration and hosting structure so that they could more easily support numerous cities and eliminate repetitive and error-prone manual work. When the increased traffic began to stress the servers and cause timeout errors, I completely overhauled their web stack to dramatically increase efficiency. I moved them from a stack based on Perlbal, Lighttpd, and Apache to a more lightweight stack consisting of Nginx and uWSGI. The site went from slow response times and frequent timeout errors to quick responses, CPU load averages consistently less than 1, and gigs of free memory on each web node.
I continue to help them develop new features, such as their 'Deals' section which leverages the PayPal Payflow Pro API to enable transactions, and an upcoming section of the site to manage assignments freelance writers.