russell.ballestrini.net/content/pages/cover-letters/2026-01-27-bluebird-kids-health-staff-software-engineer-russell-ballestrini.rst

Russell Ballestrini
===================

.. class:: center

**Staff Software Engineer | Bluebird Kids Health**

.. class:: center

russell@unturf.com | `russell.ballestrini.net <https://russell.ballestrini.net>`_ | `GitHub <https://github.com/russellballestrini>`_

----

To the Bluebird Kids Health team:

Python on AWS at staff level, connecting clinical workflows to modern patient-facing apps. That's a very specific combination, & it happens to describe a significant portion of my career. I have 15+ years of production Python building web applications with Pyramid, FastAPI, & Flask. Django is a close relative of Pyramid & I'm comfortable working in any Python web framework. At Remind, I built & maintained AWS infrastructure using EC2, ECS, RDS, SQS, Lambda, & CloudFormation supporting 30M users & 60+ microservices. At Coursemojo, I ran Python services on Fargate with auto-scaling for AI-powered educational tools serving 60,000+ public school students.

At Remind, the education communication platform handled massive spikes during COVID-19 lockdowns when distance learning demand exploded. Systems stayed up. I understand the reliability requirements when real people depend on your software to access critical services. The pattern of connecting different user types through a reliable platform is familiar territory. I built infrastructure for teachers, students, & parents. Healthcare adds compliance & data sensitivity requirements on top of that, & I've worked in SOC2/FedRAMP environments at Cofense & Mandiant where data handling, auditability, & security were first-class concerns.

I've bootstrapped four SaaS products where I owned every technical decision: Remarkbox (comment platform), Make Post Sell (e-commerce with crypto payments), unsandbox.com (code execution PaaS built in Elixir), & uncloseai-speech (real-time speech API in FastAPI). At larger companies like Remind, Cofense, & Coursemojo, I've led architecture initiatives & helped other engineers grow. Staff means setting technical direction & making others more effective. That's how I work.

Building reliable systems that connect patients with the care they need is meaningful work. I'd welcome the chance to discuss how my experience fits.

|

Russell Ballestrini