Based in Brighton · open to Sussex, London, hybrid & remote

I build backends
that hold up in production.

I'm Callan Jackson, a backend & software engineer with a First-Class BSc in Computer Science. I went from 36,000 feet as easyJet cabin crew to shipping real-time, containerised web apps. Same calm under pressure, new altitude.

0yrs degree, while working full-time
0production-shaped projects
0live projects, deployed & running

From the cabin to the codebase

For the last few years I've worked as cabin crew for easyJet at Gatwick, a safety-critical, high-pressure environment that runs on procedure, teamwork and staying calm when things go sideways.

Alongside full-time shifts, I taught myself to build software and earned a First-Class Honours BSc in Computer Science with the University of London (academic direction by Goldsmiths). Not toy projects, but production-shaped systems: a containerised music-recommendation platform with real-time search, a multi-role learning platform with live chat and a REST API, and a live analytics dashboard built on data from the airline industry.

My core stack is Python & Django, backed by PostgreSQL, Redis, Celery, WebSockets and Docker, and I also ship C#/.NET services on Azure — AI-agent workflows, regulated financial calculation engines, and infrastructure as code. I care about code that's tested, readable and actually deployed, not just demoed.

Now I'm looking for my first full-time engineering role. I bring reliability, a genuine work ethic, and a drive to keep reaching new heights in work I'm truly passionate about.

What I build with

Languages

  • Python
  • C#
  • TypeScript
  • JavaScript
  • SQL

Backend & Real-time

  • Django
  • Django REST Framework
  • .NET 8 & 10 / ASP.NET Core
  • Channels / WebSockets
  • Celery
  • React 19
  • Node.js

Data & Infra

  • PostgreSQL
  • Redis
  • DuckDB
  • Docker
  • Azure SQL
  • Azure & Bicep
  • Git & CI/CD

Analysis & ML

  • pandas
  • NumPy
  • scikit-learn
  • TensorFlow
  • Experiment design
  • Resampling statistics

Things I've shipped

Live

ImplicitLab

An implicit association testing platform, from single trial to client deck — the reaction-time method consumer-neuroscience agencies use to measure brand associations people won't self-report. The browser captures millisecond latencies (stimulus onset from a nested requestAnimationFrame, responses from event.timeStamp) and the backend computes the Greenwald (2003) D-score with its data-quality exclusions. A cohort Studio takes a raw 500+ respondent panel dump through validated ingestion, participant screening with a live exclusion funnel, audience segmentation, and group inference — t-tests on log RTs and permutation tests, bootstrap intervals, Benjamini–Hochberg correction — with sliders that re-score every respondent live. It exports a five-tab Excel workbook and a nine-slide PowerPoint deck built from the same function as the dashboard. A vectorised scorer is tested against the reference implementation to nine decimal places; 115 tests.

  • Python / FastAPI
  • NumPy / pandas / SciPy
  • openpyxl / python-pptx
  • Chart.js
  • Docker / Render
Live

easyJet Operations Intelligence

An end-to-end analytics dashboard on real UK Civil Aviation Authority punctuality data: ETL → DuckDB → machine learning → a published interactive dashboard. Built on data from the airline industry.

  • Python
  • DuckDB
  • scikit-learn
  • Plotly
  • GitHub Pages
Live

Fennel & Fetch

A dog-grooming studio site with a working online booking system and staff dashboard: slot availability that respects opening hours, per-service durations and double-booking rules, in dependency-free vanilla JavaScript.

  • JavaScript
  • HTML / CSS
  • GitHub Pages

More work

  • SwitchPoint

    FCA-compliant pension switching and transfer analysis for UK advisers: decimal calculation engines, Monte Carlo cashflow, auditable PDF/Word reports. 366 tests.

    C# / .NET 10 · React · Azure SQL Code ↗
  • IncidentPilot

    Cloud incident root-cause and remediation agent: failure fingerprinting, an AI diagnostic workflow with a deterministic fallback, Bicep IaC and OIDC deploys.

    C# / .NET 8 · Semantic Kernel · Azure Code ↗
  • NextTrack

    Content-based music recommendation with audio features extracted by librosa DSP, an adaptive feedback loop and real-time WebSocket search.

    Django · Channels · Celery · Docker Code ↗
  • Lernova

    Full-stack learning platform with role-based access, per-course real-time chat, Celery notifications and a REST API.

    Django · DRF · WebSockets · PostgreSQL Code ↗
  • Evolving Climbing Creatures

    Genetic algorithms evolving virtual creatures to climb procedural terrain in a physics engine, with a stability fitness function to beat reward-hacking.

    Python · PyBullet · NumPy Code ↗

Let's build something.

I'm looking for a junior / graduate backend or software engineering role. If you think I could help, or you just want to say hi, my inbox is open.

callan38jackson@gmail.com