Nia Willis

Full‑stack engineer
building production AI.

Currently an AI Engineer Apprentice in Flatiron School’s 19‑month immersive, combining hands‑on full‑stack development with machine learning and a concurrent paid apprenticeship. I ship responsive React frontends, secure Flask backends, and deploy ML‑powered features using modern MLOps.

Work Experience

Building full‑stack and AI solutions, backed by years of secure infrastructure engineering.

AI Engineer Apprentice

2026 – Present

Flatiron School

  • Building full‑stack web applications with React, Python, Flask, SQL, Flask‑SQLAlchemy, REST APIs, and JWT authentication – all deployed in cloud environments.
  • Training machine learning models with Scikit‑Learn (classification, regression, clustering, PCA) and architecting deep neural networks (CNNs, RNNs, Transformers) using Keras.
  • Applying NLP, time‑series analysis, and generative AI: fine‑tuning large language models, prompt engineering, and deploying with open‑source MLOps tools.
  • Processing large‑scale data with PySpark and building AI‑enhanced dashboards; actively applying these skills in a concurrent 20‑hour/week paid apprenticeship.

System Administrator

03/2026 – 05/2026

Northwest Alabama Mental Health Center

  • Orchestrated enterprise software integrations, aligning technical architecture and backend environments with organizational requirements.
  • Architected data redundancy and disaster recovery systems utilizing on-premises servers, ensuring high availability—a core principle for resilient backend applications.
  • Configured Identity and Access Management (IAM) workflows for a ~500‑user organization, applying strict authentication and authorization principles.
  • Executed large-scale infrastructure migrations, transitioning unmanaged network devices into standardized, policy‑driven secure environments.
  • Evaluated system security postures, emphasizing secure configuration practices and strict HIPAA data protection compliance.

Search Engine & AI Evaluator

08/2022 – 06/2025

TELUS Digital

  • Applied strict technical rubrics to evaluate search engine algorithms and AI models, ensuring data integrity and output accuracy.
  • Monitored system outputs against standardized SLAs, identifying data anomalies and escalating process exceptions for review.

IT Technician

04/2021 – 12/2021

Bevill State Community College

  • Managed configuration and deployment protocols across 200+ network endpoints, utilizing continuous change management strategies.
  • Audited system availability against rigorous security baselines prior to production handoff.

Core Strengths

Full‑Stack Engineering

Building end‑to‑end applications with React frontends and Python/Flask backends, integrated with relational databases and cloud deployment.

AI & Machine Learning

Training models with Scikit‑Learn, building neural networks with Keras, fine‑tuning LLMs, and deploying ML pipelines with open‑source MLOps.

Cloud & Security Mindset

Deep IAM and infrastructure background ensures every feature I ship runs on a secure, well‑architected foundation – from AWS to on‑prem.

Technical Skills

Frontend

  • JavaScript (ES6+)
  • React
  • HTML5 / CSS3

Backend & Data

  • Python / Flask
  • SQL / Flask‑SQLAlchemy
  • REST APIs / JWT Auth

AI & ML

  • Scikit‑Learn / Keras
  • NLP / LLM Fine‑tuning
  • Pandas / PySpark

Infra & MLOps

  • AWS / Cloud Deploy
  • Open‑source MLOps
  • Docker / Git / CI/CD

Education

M.S. Information Technology Management

07/2025 – 01/2026

Western Governors University

B.S. Information Technology

02/2025 – 05/2025

Western Governors University

A.S. Computer Science

08/2020 – 05/2022

Bevill State Community College

Certifications

CompTIA Security+

CompTIA

CompTIA A+

CompTIA

AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

ITIL v4 Foundation

ITIL

CompTIA Network+

CompTIA

Linux Essentials (LPI)

Linux Professional Institute

About Me

Personal background, perspectives, and who I am beyond the code.

Hello, my name is Nia, I am a Transgender, LGBTQ+ software developer. I am passionate about programming, and I dedicate myself to learning programming from the ground up.

I am proud to learn Software Engineering by hand and challenge myself to become great at what I do in any environment. I can meet your needs, whether you run an AI powered development team, or use no AI at all.

I prioritize business needs and outcomes, leveraging the business acumen from my Master's in IT management, I see the bigger picture and flow of a project from beginning to end.

In my spare time, I enjoy tinkering with Linux as my daily operating system, and reading.

Nia Willis

@niabytes

  • Location: United States
  • Focus: Full-Stack & ML-OPS
  • Status: Open to Roles

Let's Connect

Open to full‑stack engineering and AI‑focused roles. Let’s discuss how I can bring secure, AI‑enhanced full‑stack solutions to your team.