José Padilla
Staff Software Engineer at Okta
Hartford, Connecticut, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolJosé Padilla is a Principal Software Engineer with 16 years of experience building mobile and web applications, currently leading architecture and technical direction for Auth0 Fine-Grained Authorization at Okta. He combines deep backend expertise in Python/Django and Node.js with frontend experience in Ember.js, and a strong focus on application security, DevOps, and distributed systems performance. José is an active open-source maintainer — notable contributions include pyjwt and django-rest-framework-jwt where he improved cryptographic handling, cross-version compatibility, and packaging for downstream users. He co-founded multiple startups and product-focused consultancies (including FilePreviews), giving him hands-on product and operational experience from idea to production. Colleagues describe him as a technical leader who builds clarity and trust on teams while tackling hard authorization and scalability problems that power permission-aware AI and enterprise search. Based in Hartford with roots in Puerto Rico, he blends entrepreneurial grit with a pragmatic engineering mindset.
16 years of coding experience
14 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Science (BS), Computer Science, Bachelor of Science (BS), Computer Science at Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Bayamon
Spanish, English
Github Skills (45)
api-rest10
pytest10
python10
api-design10
restful-api10
django10
testing10
rest-framework10
web-token10
configuration-management10
django-rest10
authentication10
user-authentication10
pyjwt10
api10
Programming languages (20)
Github contributions (5)
jpadilla/django-rest-framework-jwt
Jan 2014 - Aug 2019
JSON Web Token Authentication support for Django REST Framework
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:10 releases, 215 commits, 69 PRs in 5 years 7 months
Contributions summary:José primarily focused on fixing bugs and improving the functionality of the Django REST Framework JWT authentication library. Their contributions involved addressing failing tests across different Django and DRF versions, ensuring compatibility and stability. They updated the project's dependencies, like PyJWT, and made improvements to the code base to enhance its performance. Furthermore, they set up wheel distribution support, streamlining the release process of the package.
pythondjango-rest-frameworkdjangotokenauthentication
jpadilla/django-project-template
Sep 2012 - May 2021
Project template layout for Django 3.0+
Role in this project:Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:8 reviews, 92 commits, 21 PRs in 8 years 9 months
Contributions summary:José primarily contributed to the project's structure, settings, and deployment configurations within a Django environment. They established the initial project layout, modified settings files, and integrated tools like Fabric for deployment. The user also updated configurations for different environments (development, staging, production) and addressed Django 2.0 and 3.0 compatibility issues, demonstrating a focus on backend development and DevOps practices.
herokutemplatepythondjango-3django
Find and Hire Top DevelopersWe’ve analyzed the programming source code of over 60 million software developers on GitHub and scored them by 50,000 skills. Sign-up on Prog,AI to search for software developers.