Full Stack Developer at an early-stage startup, responsible for architecting and building the core product infrastructure.
Architecture
Designed a fully serverless architecture on AWS:
- Compute: AWS Lambda functions for all backend logic
- API: API Gateway with custom authorizers
- Storage: DynamoDB for primary data, S3 for assets
- Search: OpenSearch for full-text search capabilities
CI/CD Pipeline
Built an automated deployment pipeline using GitHub Actions:
- Automated testing on every PR
- Infrastructure as Code with AWS CDK
- Blue-green deployments for zero-downtime releases
- Deployment time reduced from 45 minutes to 12 minutes (70% reduction)
Key Achievements
- Scaled the platform from 0 to 10,000 monthly active users
- Maintained 99.95% uptime over the entire tenure
- Reduced cloud costs by 40% through Lambda optimization and DynamoDB capacity planning
Lessons Learned
Serverless is excellent for variable-load applications but requires careful attention to cold start optimization and DynamoDB partition design. The biggest wins came from event-driven architecture patterns that eliminated unnecessary compute.