Principal Backend Engineer | Platform Modernization & Reliable System Integration

I work on business-critical systems that need to change without disrupting customers or slowing product delivery.

That usually means finding the bottleneck in a legacy platform, defining clearer service and ownership boundaries, moving data safely between old and new systems, or making APIs, integrations, and event-driven workflows easier to operate. I work at architecture scope and remain hands-on when the migration or reliability work needs direct ownership.

I also work with SaaS founders before a defined MVP is built or when a rapidly built product needs production architecture.

Website · Experience · How I help founders · LinkedIn

• Helped scale Rush, a Shopify SaaS platform serving 1,500+ stores and 2M+ monthly customers.
• Helped move its backend toward a 14-service, domain-driven platform handling 200+ shipments per minute and 400GB+ of outgoing API traffic each month.
• Supported a 60% reduction in monthly AWS costs and roughly $50K in annual gateway savings.
• At Right Hand Cybersecurity, reorganized engineering into three domain-aligned teams and implemented a self-hosted LMS replacement that saved more than $50K annually.
• At GETTR, designed and delivered legacy data migration and synchronization workflows using resumable backfills, MongoDB change streams, Redis buffering, validation, and controlled release sequencing.

• SaaS architecture before an MVP is built or launched
• Backend platform modernization without high-risk rewrites
• Event-driven workflows with Apache Kafka, outbox, Debezium CDC, and CQRS read models
• Multi-tenant identity, permissions, data ownership, and operational boundaries
• APIs, gateways, webhooks, background jobs, integrations, and data synchronization
• Kubernetes-based delivery, observability, failure recovery, and cost-aware infrastructure
• Full-stack vertical slices when a product needs one owner across frontend, backend, and deployment

A small Next.js reference that covers tenant-aware routing, PostGIS geofencing through Prisma, and real-time updates with Socket.io. The repository includes focused tests for tenant lookup, geofence behavior, and event broadcasting.

My practical rulebook for modular application architecture: dependency boundaries, domain-first organization, test strategy, integration events, and automated architecture checks. It also includes a reusable Codex skill for applying the rules during implementation and review.

A React product-discovery experience built around a 4,000-item catalog. It normalizes inconsistent source data, uses an explicit, documented relevance model, and explains when in-memory search should give way to a real index.

• Start with the product workflow and the business risk.
• Keep the architecture as small as the current stage allows.
• Separate domain boundaries from deployment boundaries.
• Use events when they reduce coupling and make failure easier to handle.
• Prefer migration paths over rewrites.
• Design for the team that will operate the system after I leave.

Node.js, TypeScript, NestJS, Laravel, PHP, Python, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, Apache Kafka, Debezium, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, API gateways, CI/CD, and React/Next.js when the work includes a full product slice.

My website has the longer case studies and experience history. Founders who need an MVP architecture or production-readiness review can start with How I Help.