End-to-End Python Automation

I am building a full-scale automation system that pulls data from the web, processes local files, and chains both into repeatable workflows. The core of the project must be written in clean, well-documented Python, structured so that future contributors can jump in without a learning curve. Alongside development, I will also need thorough debugging, unit and integration testing, plus assistance packaging and deploying the finished solution.

Key automation goals
• Web scraping: gather data from several public sites, respect robots.txt, and expose scraping rules in a config file so new sources can be added without touching the codebase.
• File processing: parse CSV, Excel, and PDF files dropped into a watch folder, normalise the contents, and feed them into the workflow.
• Workflow orchestration: coordinate scraping and file ingestion, then trigger downstream jobs.

Extra capabilities
• Email notifications at each major step, with templated messages.
• Detailed logging to both console and rotating log files.
• Secure data storage in a relational database so results are queryable later.

I prefer developers who are comfortable with popular scraping libraries (Requests, BeautifulSoup, Selenium), file-handling packages (pandas, PyPDF2, openpyxl), and orchestration tools such as Celery or Prefect. Experience building RESTful APIs or adding AI/ML modules for future smart features is a plus.

Proposed delivery structure
- Milestone 1: Project skeleton, environment setup, CI/CD pipeline
- Milestone 2: Web scraping module with tests
- Milestone 3: File processing engine with tests
- Milestone 4: Workflow orchestration, logging, and email layer
- Milestone 5: Database integration, final polishing, deployment and documentation

Please send back a brief timeline for these milestones, an estimated total cost with any assumptions, and the tech stack you intend to use. I value maintainable code—pep8 compliance, type hints, and docstrings are non-negotiable—so highlight any quality assurance practices you follow.

Looking forward to collaborating on a robust Python automation suite.