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MUSTAFA SHAIKH Senior Backend Engineer
Senior Backend Engineer · Distributed Systems

I build backend systems that stay correct when the network doesn't.

Event-driven services, offline-first sync, and data models that survive real production load. Six years across fintech, B2B marketplaces, and restaurant infrastructure.

View Selected Work ↓ Download Résumé (PDF) ↘ Contact Direct →
// LOCATION Islamabad, Pakistan · Remote (UTC+5)
// PRIMARY FOCUS Distributed Systems, Event Streams, Data Integrity
// CORE LANGUAGES TypeScript / Node.js, Java (Spring), Go
// RECENT DEPLOYMENT NoreOS · Live at noreos.com
MESH TOPOLOGY // SERVICE GRAPH
[PARALLAX]
NODES: 28 EDGES: DYNAMIC INITIALIZING...
Devices in Prod #PROOF
500

Kitchen displays & POS hardware served by SSE real-time order delivery.

Load Tested #PROOF
10K

Concurrent SSE/WebSocket connections verified under simulated peak stress.

Test Gate #PROOF
80%

Mandatory coverage gate on NoreOS across 535 frontend + 396 E2E flows.

Solo Architected #PROOF
100K+

Lines of code across Flutter, React, and PostgreSQL in NoreOS core.

Years in Production #PROOF
6

Engineering mission-critical systems across FinTech, B2B, and hospitality.

01

Selected Work

Production Systems & Case Studies
01 Founder & Solo Architect
80% COVERAGE · 396 E2E FLOWS

NoreOS — Offline-First Retail Operating System

"A store should never lose a transaction when the internet drops."

// THE PROBLEM

Retail POS systems in unreliable-connectivity markets lose sales, corrupt state, or stall when the network fails.

// CORE ARCHITECTURAL CONTRIBUTIONS
  • ▹ Engineered offline-first POS engine with local durable queues and conflict-safe reconciliation.
  • ▹ Designed strict schema-per-tenant isolation ensuring physical data separation across retail businesses.
  • ▹ One unified core supporting vertical-aware workflows, 10 script-correct locales, and multi-currency calculation.
  • ▹ Backed no-data-loss guarantee with 287 Flutter + 248 React tests and 396 end-to-end API flows under an 80% coverage gate.
  • ▹ Orchestrated entire build using agentic AI engineering workflows: code knowledge graphs, sub-agents, and checkpointed loops.
TypeScript Flutter React PostgreSQL Offline-First Multi-Tenant Agentic Engineering
LIVE DEMO ↗ DEEP DIVE SPEC →
02 Senior Backend Engineer
~500 HARDWARE DEVICES · 10K CONNS

AIO — Real-Time Order Delivery & Data Integrity

"At-least-once real-time dispatch with zero financial drift under continuous hardware failure."

// THE PROBLEM

Orders had to reach kitchen displays reliably across multi-instance nodes, with deterministic recovery after outages and no closing-balance drift.

// CORE ARCHITECTURAL CONTRIBUTIONS
  • ▹ Designed and shipped at-least-once real-time kitchen order delivery using BullMQ persistence, Redis Pub/Sub routing, SSE, and device ACK.
  • ▹ Engineered 6-hour auto-recovery with exponential backoff (max 10 retries); load-tested to 10K concurrent connections.
  • ▹ Unified 4 fragmented device-status stores into an AWS IoT Core → SQS → Redis heartbeat pipeline with DynamoDB DR snapshots.
  • ▹ Rewrote legacy Giftcard service end-to-end in ~10 days (POS sell/transfer/redeem + reporting) using SOLID boundaries and clean ERD.
  • ▹ Fixed critical financial-accuracy defects: zero-tip card payments, cash drawer closing-balance reconciliation, and 1-cent rounding tolerance.
NestJS TypeScript PostgreSQL Redis BullMQ SSE AWS IoT DynamoDB
DEEP DIVE SPEC →
03 Software Engineer / Frontend Engineer
REGULATED FINTECH · MONOLITH MIGRATION

Fintech & B2B Platforms — High Stakes Systems

"Decomposing monoliths, automating compliance masking, and scaling regional delivery."

// THE PROBLEM

Scaling cross-border payments across regional language variants while preventing dispute deadlocks and securing PII in high-volume trade.

// CORE ARCHITECTURAL CONTRIBUTIONS
  • ▹ Contributed to decomposing a monolithic money-transfer platform into microservices and micro-frontends at Small World Financial Services.
  • ▹ Architected centralized i18n translation engine serving multiple regional variants, accelerating localized time-to-market.
  • ▹ Established engineering best practices through systematic code reviews across an 8-member core development team.
  • ▹ Built automated dispute management and serverless PII chat masking at Dastgyr, mitigating direct merchant conflicts.
  • ▹ Engineered an in-house surveys platform with nested branching logic and gamification for business intelligence.
Microservices Node.js PostgreSQL i18n Serverless Payments Security
DEEP DIVE SPEC →
02

Engineering Principles

How I Design and Operate Systems

Correctness over cleverness.

I'm a product-minded backend engineer who cares about failure modes, observability, and data integrity. I've worked across fintech, B2B marketplaces, and restaurant infrastructure — usually on the parts where correctness matters and retries are not optional.

When hardware disconnects, queues back up, or duplicate transactions flood an edge node, you cannot rely on optimistic assumptions. Systems must be engineered with explicit recovery paths.

Read Full Background, Stack & Principles →
  1. 01

    Correctness over cleverness

    Boring, deterministic transaction boundaries always outperform exotic abstractions that fail unpredictably under load.

  2. 02

    Observe everything; recover automatically

    Telemetry without automated backoff and self-healing is just a spectator log. Systems must converge back to healthy state.

  3. 03

    Make boundaries explicit

    Explicit schema contracts, tenant separation, and bounded contexts prevent cascading failures across services.

  4. 04

    Prefer boring, measurable systems

    Proven primitives (PostgreSQL, BullMQ, Redis) configured correctly beat unverified trendy technology every time.

  5. 05

    Use AI as leverage, not a substitute

    Harness code knowledge graphs, sub-agents, and autonomous loops for velocity, while keeping human judgment strictly on architecture.

03

Technical Writing

Notes on Distributed Systems & Architecture
NOTE 03 7 min read

Designing for the six-hour outage

What happens to order streams when an edge kitchen loses power for six hours? Building heartbeat telemetry, exponential backoff ceilings, and disaster-recovery snapshots.

Heartbeat Pipelines AWS IoT Core DynamoDB Snapshots
Read technical note →
View all technical notes & system analyses →
// AVAILABLE FOR IMPACT

Have a hard backend problem?

I'm open to senior backend and distributed-systems roles, remote or relocation-friendly. Let's discuss event architecture, offline resilience, or data integrity at scale.

Email Mustafa Shaikh → Full Channels & Coordinates ↗