Backend & APIs
Designing application services, APIs, and asynchronous request flows.
ENGINEERING · EXPLORATION · BUILDING
Thoughtful software.
Real-world impact.
I’m Shazin, a software engineer with a long-standing interest in backend engineering, distributed systems, and the creative edge where software meets hardware.
Curious by nature. Builder by choice.
01
A little about me
I like understanding how things work—and then making them work better.
My work and side projects span Java and the Spring ecosystem, data stores, event-driven systems, and hands-on IoT experiments. I’m especially drawn to problems that reward careful design, clear trade-offs, and a willingness to learn by building.
I also write about the ideas behind the code: architecture, concurrency, reactive programming, and the occasional hardware project.
01Backend
engineering
engineering
02Distributed
systems
systems
03Connected
devices
devices
02
Areas of expertise
Data & messaging
Exploring persistence choices, event streams, and decoupled architectures.
IoT & prototyping
Connecting microcontrollers, sensors, and software into useful experiments.
03
Work experience
Apr 2026 — Present
Engineering Manager — Engineering
Oct 2022 — May 2026
Associate Architect
Worked directly with a US Fortune 100 client on-site, gathering and shaping requirements.
Jan 2020 — Oct 2022
Lead Consultant
Worked in Enterprise Integration Services for a US-based insurance client, building cohesive, loosely coupled software.
Jun 2019 — Dec 2019
Technical Lead
Led iOS, QA, and business analyst teams on an education project for a Japanese client. Designed REST services with Spring Boot, Spring Security OAuth, and MySQL, plus an AngularJS administration console.
Dec 2018 — May 2019
Associate Tech Lead
Jul 2015 — Nov 2018
Associate Tech Lead
Developed and supported software for Immoweb, a leading property search portal in Belgium, using Java EE, Spring, QueryDSL, MS SQL Server, and Jersey REST.
Jun 2013 — May 2015
Software Engineer
Developed, configured, and tested software including MyResults, an outcome-based budgeting system for the Government of Malaysia.
Jul 2012 — Jun 2013
Senior Engineer — Technology
Promoted after one year and received the Personal Excellence Process award in 2011 for adherence to software engineering processes.
Jul 2011 — Jun 2012
Technology Engineer
Joined as a Top Talent and contributed to software for Iron Mountain, supporting corporate document archiving.
May 2010 — Aug 2010
Google Summer of Code — Student Participant
Redesigned, redeveloped, and retested the OpenMRS Module Administration page to improve starting, stopping, and reloading modules.
Oct 2007 — May 2010
Trainee Software Engineer
Developed Java SE software for telecommunications billing and mediation.
04
Education
2007 — 2011
BSc (Hons), Software Engineering
First Class Honours. Batch Representative, 2007–2010; activities included Sports Meets and Stage Craft Drama.
2007 — 2011
BSc (Hons), Software Engineering
First Class Honours.
1991 — 2005
G.C.E. (A/L), Commerce
Member of the Interact Club.
05
Publications
BOOK · PACKT PUBLISHING · 2018
Spring Boot 2.0 Projects
Build production-grade reactive applications and microservices with Spring Boot
A hands-on guide to building real-world projects with Spring Boot, including reactive services, microservices, and asynchronous applications.
View on Amazon
06
Selected work
Experiments & engineering explorationsBACKEND · ARCHITECTURE01 / 04
Microservices with Spring Boot
A small service-based example exploring independently deployable components, asynchronous messaging, and RabbitMQ.
View projectDATA · SECURITY02 / 04
Spring Security ACL + Neo4j
An exploration of a graph-database backend for ACL data, including a comparison with a relational approach.
View projectIoT · EVENT STREAMS03 / 04
Sensor data with MQTT & Kafka
A connected-device prototype sending illumination readings from Arduino through MQTT and Kafka to a Raspberry Pi.
View projectBACKEND · STREAMING04 / 04
Reactive APIs with Spring
A practical investigation into composing asynchronous data flows with RxJava and Spring MVC.
Read the write-upNo projects in this category yet.
07
Learnings
Learning in public, one project and one question at a time.
Browse the blog
PERSONAL FINANCE · INTERACTIVE LEARNING
Investment Compound Calculator
Explore how monthly contributions and compound growth can build over time with this interactive calculator.
HOME · VISUAL STUDY
Bathtub
A stock-and-flow sandbox: the tap is the inflow, the drain is the outflow, the water is the stock.