Ülgen Sarıkavak ulgens

Hey 🌻

I am a senior software engineer and curious human being with many hats 🎩

As a software engineer,

I’ve been working with Python/Django for last 10+ years. My main focus is backend technologies and I'm passionate about automation and developer experience.
I can design and implement
- Scalable and performant ReST/GraphQL APIs
- CI/CD workflows for linting, functional testing and deployment automations
- Monitoring systems
- Development flows that aims to minimize cognitive load and onboarding cost
I’ve worked with
- early-stage startups to design and create their initial products, bootstrap their teams and moved them to their first funding round
- mid-late stage projects to improve their infrastructure, API performance, overall reliability of services, developer tools and documents, add new features and redesign their legacy systems
I’ve created/supported multiple open source projects in the way,

As a creative technologist, or simply put, someone who enjoys playing with all kinds of technology,

I am experimenting with different creative coding/art tools, but currently the most of my focus is on TouchDesigner.
- I am brainstorming/experimenting around the development workflows in TouchDesigner projects and how to use existing Python-native development tooling to improve TouchDesigner developer experience.
I am interested in projects that has a unique approach to story telling and invoking emotions
I like the creative use of light and shadow.
And almost anything else that overlaps with new media arts.

As an open source contributor/maintainer/organizer,

I value healthy communication/contribution platforms and non-performative inclusion above all else.
I am an active member of following organizations:
- Django Software Foundation, individual member since December 2024. I’m also a member of Website Working Group and the Tech Co-lead for official website redesign.
I am also a member of Github’s maintainer community.
I am an active organizer in Python Istanbul user group.

Here are the projects I maintain / co-maintain:

ruffen-docs: Run ruff on Python code blocks in documentation files
uv-lock-check
django-click: Write Django management command using the click CLI library
drf-haystack: Haystack for Django REST Framework
strawberry-django-auth: Authentication system for django using strawberry
django-blasphemy: Opinionated Django project template/playground
renovate-presets: Renovate configuration preset for modern Python projects
graphene-django: Build powerful, efficient, and flexible GraphQL APIs with seamless Django integration. (retired)
python-anything (In progress)
itspython: It's Python, not something else.
pythoncompatability.com (In progress)
djangocompatability.com (In progress)

and here is a partial list of project I contributed to:

The full list can be found here.

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