Brian Jemilo II
I'm Brian Jemilo II, a senior software engineer in Illinois. I build Node.js and TypeScript backends, the APIs around them, and RAG systems in Python. I've been shipping production web software since 2014, all of it remote for the last six years, and I take contract work as well as full-time roles.
- Role
- Senior software engineer, 12 years
- Backend
- Node.js, TypeScript, Python, Postgres
- AI
- RAG, LangChain, LangGraph, MCP servers, Qdrant, Claude and OpenAI APIs
- Frontend
- React, Vue, Angular, Next.js
- Cloud
- AWS, Cloudflare, Docker, GitHub Actions
- Location
- Illinois, remote, Central Time
- Open to
- Contract, consulting, full-time
What I build
Most of my work falls into one of these four areas. Each has its own page with examples and the questions I get asked most.
Node.js and TypeScript backends
Fastify, NestJS, or Express on Postgres and Redis. I write the tests too.
RAG and LLM engineering
Chatbots and agents that answer from your own documents, with citations, and hold up in production.
API development and integrations
REST and WebSocket APIs, plus third-party integrations.
Web application development
React, Vue, Angular. New builds, or modernizing an older codebase.
Where I've worked
Twelve years of production software, most of it as a senior or lead engineer on contract.
ModernizeeSenior Software Engineer, contract
Built the deck generation service from scratch: live project data in, finished PPTX and PDF out. That includes the rich text to slide rendering pipeline and the whole download experience.
React, Fastify, Node.js, Python, Postgres, Redis, Docker, S3
Invent XStaff Software Engineer, contract
RAG for law practices, MCP tools that give agents live API data, LLM fine-tuning for internal knowledge bases. I also picked the stack (Vue, Django, FastAPI on AWS) and set up the Agile process.
Python, FastAPI, Django, Vue, LangChain, LangGraph, MCP, AWS
Shibiko AIFounder and CTO
My company. Image classification and generation for anime and manga products, custom diffusion models for enterprise clients, and fault tolerant inference across Salad Cloud, Runpod, and AWS.
Python, PyTorch, Stable Diffusion, React, Node.js, Postgres, Redis, Docker
SuprTEKSenior Software Engineer, contract
Feature lead on US Air Force planning applications, working directly with active duty users. Wrote the docs and automation that cut new engineer onboarding from two weeks to one day.
Angular, React, Node.js, C#, TypeScript
CashearLead Senior Software Engineer, contract
Spotify, Apple Music, and DistroKid integrations, automated artist onboarding, and a pipeline that handles tens of thousands of PDFs a week behind live revenue analytics.
Node.js, React, Puppeteer, MySQL, MongoDB, AWS
Health iPass / Sphere CommerceLead Senior Software Engineer
Led a team of ten on patient portals and internal healthcare apps. The portal redesign brought in $1.1 million a year. OCR and classification on insurance cards improved data accuracy.
React, Node.js, Postgres, Docker, AWS
VokalSenior Software Engineer, contract
Architecture for enterprise Vue, React, Node, and C# apps. Ran small teams at United Airlines and led delivery on state and federal government projects.
Vue, React, Node.js, C#, Docker, AWS
Epsilon / Conversant MediaSoftware Engineer
Five years in ad tech analytics. A proof of concept I built became a product worth $10 million a year, and replacing the legacy reporting tool saved $600,000 a year. Greenplum, Angular, and Postgres.
Angular, TypeScript, Postgres, Greenplum, Docker
Wava MediaWeb Director
My first job out of Startup Institute. Built and maintained client sites in PHP, Node, Express, and WordPress. Consulted with clients and worked the sales process, bringing in additional revenue.
PHP, Node.js, Express, WordPress, Nginx, JavaScript
Side projects
- MCP server for UmamusumeAn open source Model Context Protocol server for the Umamusume video game.
- Silenced: The HouseA horror visual novel I worked on. Released on Steam in 2018, later on PlayStation, Xbox, and Epic.
- Convention Foam FightingSite for a group that runs foam fighting events at conventions.
Skills
- Languages
- TypeScript, JavaScript, Node.js, Python, SQL, C#, PHP, Ruby, Lua
- Backend
- Fastify, NestJS, Express, Hapi.js, FastAPI, Django, Flask, Rails
- Frontend
- React, Next.js, Vue, Nuxt.js, Angular, Zustand, HTML, CSS
- AI and ML
- RAG, LangChain, LangGraph, MCP, Anthropic, OpenAI, Ollama, Qwen, PyTorch, HuggingFace, Stable Diffusion, ComfyUI, OCR, Nomic embeddings
- Data
- Postgres, Qdrant, Redis, MySQL, MongoDB, SQLite, DynamoDB, Firebase, Greenplum, GraphQL
- Events
- Kafka, RabbitMQ, WebSockets, Redis Lists, Salad Queue
- Cloud and delivery
- AWS, Cloudflare, Google Cloud, Azure, Vercel, Digital Ocean, Runpod, Salad Cloud, Docker, Podman, Traefik, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins
- Testing
- Node Test Runner, Jest, Mocha, Karma, RSpec, Selenium, Cucumber
- Automation
- n8n, Slack Bolt, Puppeteer, Workflow orchestration
About
I'm self taught. I ran the overnight shift at a McDonald's in Tinley Park for four years while learning to code, finished the Startup Institute program in Chicago in January 2014, started at Wava Media as Web Director the next month, and joined Conversant Media as a software engineer that August. I've been shipping production software ever since: ad tech analytics, healthcare portals, music industry integrations, Air Force planning tools, and legal AI.
In 2023 I started Shibiko AI, which does image classification and generation for anime and manga products. That's where most of my hands on model training and GPU infrastructure experience comes from.
I spent five years mentoring developers one on one at Hackhands and Pluralsight, a few hundred sessions, and I still enjoy teaching. If you hire me you get documentation, small pull requests, and a straight answer about trade offs.
Things people ask me
- What does Brian Jemilo II do?
- Senior software engineer in Illinois. Node.js and TypeScript backends, APIs, RAG and LLM systems in Python and TypeScript, plus React, Vue, and Angular front ends. Shipping production web software since 2014.
- Can you add an AI assistant or chatbot to our existing app?
- Usually without a rewrite. I put a retrieval layer over your documents or database, expose it through your current API, and connect it to the frontend you already have. I've done this for law practices, healthcare, and consumer products.
- Do you build RAG systems in TypeScript or Python?
- Whichever your team already runs. Python with FastAPI and LangChain, or TypeScript on Node.
- Are you available for contract or full-time work?
- Both. I take contract and consulting work, and I'm open to a full-time senior or staff role with a remote friendly US team.
- Where are you located and what hours do you work?
- Illinois, Central Time, fully remote. I overlap with every US time zone.
- Can you take over a codebase the previous developer left?
- That's how a lot of my contracts start. I get it running in Docker, add tests around what's about to change, and keep the product live while I work.
- How do I get in touch?
- The form below, or hit the button next to it to reveal my email and phone. Both are behind a quick bot check to keep them away from scrapers.
Contact
Tell me what you're building or what's broken. I answer within a business day, usually faster.