From Engineer to Architect: A Decade of Building Scalable Systems
After ten years of transforming complex technical challenges into elegant solutions across multiple continents and industries, I’m excited to announce my transition into consulting as a Software Architect and fractional Chief Technology Officer. My journey from crafting simple HTML pages to orchestrating distributed systems processing millions of events has equipped me with the battle-tested expertise that modern businesses need to scale.
01.
Fintech Innovation – SafeBoda
02.
Helium Health – Healthcare Digitization
03.
Retail Solutions – SmartMart
The Foundation Years: Where It All Began
My technology journey began in 2013 as a web designer, where I learned the fundamental importance of user experience and clean, maintainable code. Working with HTML, CSS, and PHP on small websites taught me that every line of code matters, and every architectural decision has long-term consequences. These early experiences shaped my philosophy: technology should solve real problems, not create new ones.
Building at Scale: The Evercam Years - Revolutionizing CCTV Management
In 2015, I joined Evercam.io as a Ruby on Rails Engineer, where I truly learned what it means to build systems that scale. Evercam was pioneering cloud-based CCTV camera management, working with major manufacturers like Hikvision to bring traditional surveillance systems into the modern cloud era.
During my tenure at Evercam, I led several transformational initiatives that fundamentally changed how the company operated. I spearheaded the complete rewrite of our Ruby Sinatra API to Elixir Phoenix with GraphQL and comprehensive Swagger documentation, resulting in a 10x performance improvement. But perhaps my most significant contribution was leading the architectural shift from a monolithic application to a microservices architecture, separating business logic from camera operations—a move that allowed the company to scale from handling hundreds to thousands of concurrent camera streams.
One of my proudest technical achievements was implementing hot code deployments in Elixir using Distillery and Ansible, ensuring zero-downtime updates for critical surveillance infrastructure. I documented this journey in my Medium article, “Hot Upgrades Whaaaaaaaat?”, where I used Harry Potter analogies to explain complex deployment concepts—making the magic of zero-downtime deployments accessible to developers worldwide. This article (https://medium.com/@junaid_16874/hot-upgrades-whaaaaaaaat-29bad102795e) has since helped countless teams implement seamless production updates.
I didn’t stop at backend transformations. Recognizing the need for modern frontend solutions, I migrated our Ruby on Rails application to NuxtJS (VueJS), creating a seamless, reactive user experience while maintaining backward compatibility. This full-stack perspective, working with both VueJS and React throughout my career, has become one of my key strengths as an architect.
One of my most innovative contributions was building the Snapshot Extractor, a sophisticated tool using RabbitMQ’s fan-out topology in Elixir with Oban, GenServer, and BroadwayRabbitMQ. This system could process millions of snapshots daily from thousands of CCTV cameras with minimal resource consumption—a testament to the power of choosing the right architecture for the right problem.
Infrastructure and DevOps Excellence
Understanding that great software requires great infrastructure, I expanded my expertise into DevOps and system administration. At Evercam, I set up and maintained Seaweedfs clusters for handling massive volumes of camera snapshots, implemented RAID configurations with Nagios monitoring on Hetzner servers, and pioneered those hot code upgrades that became the subject of my popular Medium article.
My work with AWS services (Elastic Beanstalk, Amplify, EC2, S3, Route53, Lambda) and database technologies (PostgreSQL, Firebase, MongoDB, Redis) has given me a comprehensive understanding of cloud architecture and data management at scale. I’ve built systems that handle thousands of concurrent connections using WebSockets and Phoenix PubSub, implementing real-time JPEG streaming from CCTV cameras that remains responsive under heavy load.
Case Studies: Innovation in Action
Discover real-life examples of how we’ve partnered with organizations to solve complex challenges, build scalable systems, and deliver measurable impact.
Fintech Innovation: SafeBoda - Building Africa's Digital Payment Future
Helium Health - Digitizing African Healthcare
Ready to Transform Your Business?
Let’s build solutions that drive growth, innovation, and impact—together.
Truely - Revolutionizing Global eSIM Technology
At Truely (https://truely.com/), a cutting-edge eSIM provider, I developed two game-changing features that became core differentiators in their market:
Unlimited Data Plans: Architected and implemented the entire unlimited data plan system in Elixir, handling complex billing logic and real-time usage tracking
Pause and Resume Functionality: Built the sophisticated pause/resume feature that allows users to temporarily suspend their data plans—a first in the eSIM industry that required careful state management and billing integration
These features, built with Elixir Phoenix backend and React frontend, helped Truely stand out in the competitive telecommunications market.
Diverse Industry Experience: From Healthcare to Telecommunications
Nectarine Credit – Bridging the Credit Gap
Working with Nectarine Credit, I helped build their digital platform that creates a seamless triangle between vendors, credit seekers, and credit providers. Using Elixir and React, we created a system that could handle complex financial workflows, credit scoring algorithms, and multi-party transactions—all while maintaining the security and reliability that financial services demand.
Yolo – Advanced Search and Analytics
At Yolo, I implemented sophisticated search capabilities using Elasticsearch and OpenSearch, enabling real-time analytics across massive datasets. This work in Elixir and VueJS demonstrated my ability to handle big data challenges and create responsive, searchable interfaces for complex data sets.
Whippy – AI-Powered Communication
Contributing to Whippy (https://www.whippy.ai/), I worked on their AI-powered communication platform using Elixir and React, helping businesses automate and optimize their customer communications. This experience added AI integration and real-time messaging systems to my architectural toolkit.
GreyScout & Catalx – Diverse Technical Challenges
Through engagements with GreyScout and Catalx, I’ve tackled everything from complex third-party integrations (Netsuite, API Deck) to microservice orchestration, always using the Elixir/Phoenix and React/VueJS stack to deliver scalable, maintainable solutions.
The Technology Stack That Powers Innovation
Throughout these diverse projects, I’ve consistently worked with:
Backend: Elixir Phoenix, Absinthe GraphQL, Ruby on Rails
Frontend: React (with Apollo GraphQL), VueJS/NuxtJS
Real-time: WebSockets, Phoenix PubSub, Phoenix LiveView
Message Queuing: RabbitMQ, Kafka, Broadway
Databases: PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, Firebase
Search: Elasticsearch, OpenSearch
Infrastructure: AWS, Seaweedfs, Docker, Ansible
Monitoring: Nagios, Application Performance Monitoring tools
The Path Forward: Your Technology Partner
Today, with a decade of hands-on experience building, scaling, and maintaining systems that power businesses across the globe—from African healthcare digitization to global eSIM services, from CCTV management to AI-powered communication—I’m ready to help organizations navigate their most complex technical challenges. As a Software Architect and fractional CTO, I offer:
Strategic Technology Leadership: I help companies make informed decisions about technology stacks, architectural patterns, and scaling strategies based on real-world experience across multiple industries.
Transformation Expertise: Whether you’re migrating from monolith to microservices, implementing hot code deployments (yes, like Harry Potter magic but for production systems!), or building real-time data processing pipelines, I’ve been there and can guide you through the journey.
Industry-Proven Solutions: My experience across fintech (SafeBoda, Nectarine Credit), healthcare (Helium Health), telecommunications (Truely), IoT (Evercam), and AI (Whippy) means I bring cross-industry insights and battle-tested patterns to your specific challenges.
Full-Stack Mastery: Equally comfortable with Elixir backends and React/VueJS frontends, I understand how to build cohesive systems where every layer works in harmony.
Innovation Mindset: From implementing industry-first features like pause/resume for eSIM plans to zero-downtime deployments for critical infrastructure, I bring creative solutions to complex problems.
Let's Build Something Extraordinary
Whether you’re a startup looking to build a solid technical foundation, a scale-up facing growing pains, or an enterprise seeking to modernize your technology stack, I’m here to help. My approach combines strategic thinking with hands-on expertise, ensuring that architectural decisions translate into working, scalable systems.
The technology landscape is constantly evolving, but the principles of good architecture remain constant: scalability, maintainability, performance, and alignment with business goals. These principles have guided my work from those first HTML pages to distributed systems processing millions of events, and they’ll guide our work together.
If you’re ready to take your technology to the next level, let’s talk. I’m excited to learn about your challenges and explore how my experience can help you build systems that not only work today but scale for tomorrow.