Meezaan-ud-Din Abdu Dhil-Jalali Wal-Ikram
Verified Expert in Engineering
Solutions Architect and Software Developer
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Toptal member since July 27, 2022
Meezaan-ud-Din is a hands-on technical leader and strategist with entrepreneurial flair and 20 years of technology experience across architecture and engineering. He has real-world experience in multiple technology stacks and major hyperscale and alternate cloud providers and an in-depth understanding of the web and mobile industries. He has built startups and driven digital and cultural transformations at enterprises like Emirates, Giffgaff, O2, Panasonic, and MasterCard.
Portfolio
Experience
- PHP - 18 years
- Web Development - 18 years
- Software Development - 18 years
- CI/CD Pipelines - 8 years
- Amazon EKS - 5 years
- Kubernetes - 5 years
- NGINX - 4 years
- Kong - 4 years
Availability
Preferred Environment
Vim Text Editor, PhpStorm, IntelliJ IDEA
The most amazing...
...experience and learning I've had are building and maintaining open-source services and a CDN under the Islamic Network used by millions of people globally.
Work Experience
Founder
Mamluk
- Developed a rapid API Development Kit (ADK) called Kipchak for quickly building production-ready, scalable APIs.
- Built a Bring Your Own Load Balancer (BYOLB) utility for managed Kubernetes clusters, including Amazon EKS, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).
- Developed a geographical domain name system (GeoDNS) utility to define GeoDNS records with Zilore DNS declaratively.
Founder
7x
- Built a React application that uses OIDC/OAuth and interfaces with CouchDB to allow users to manage their API keys.
- Completed a GitOps upline to provision API consumers and keys across globally distributed clusters.
- Designed and coded all the APIs currently available through the 7x marketplace.
- Configured the infrastructure, Kubernetes clusters, and DNS and database clusters to distribute the API ecosystem across three continents.
Co-founder
Flarum BV
- Developed the entire GitOps and CI/CD ecosystems to seamlessly deploy customer instances of the SaaS platform onto Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
- Built cloud-neutral CI/CD pipelines to switch between Linode Kubernetes Engine (LKE), Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), and AKS with a configuration change and a re-run of the pipelines within minutes.
- Developed and implemented our multi-cloud strategy to achieve cost savings and efficiencies for internal and external applications.
- Defined our single sign-on (SSO) strategy and implemented Red Hat's Keycloak to deal with multi-instance user requirements.
- Addressed and configured the issue of scalability and auto-scaling, so we deploy the same codebase with a different configuration that auto-scales and changes based on traffic to each SaaS instance, whether serving 2 or 500 users at a time.
- Attended venture capitalist sessions to raise money. Ultimately, the co-founders decided to self-fund the business.
Principal Architect & Head of API Strategy
Emirates Airline
- Completed the move from on-premise to public cloud (AWS), from monolith to microservices, and built the blueprint to move from OpenShift to geographically distributed Kubernetes (using Amazon EKS) at Emirates.
- Overhauled the digital portfolio as part of the agile transformation. Tasked with setting and rolling out the medium-term strategy for how digital, customer identity and access management (CIAM), and online payments should evolve.
- Defined the microservices and containerization strategy and led the implementation of our microservices component framework to Bootstrap microservices in hours and days instead of weeks and months.
- Led the strategy and boilerplating of code to break the monolithic online booking application into microservices. This application generates a large percentage of the group's revenue, making it one of the region's largest eCommerce websites.
- Redefined the strategy and implementation for customer identification, authentication, and authorization across the digital estate so customers can have a seamless experience across all web and mobile applications.
- Challenged existing processes and architecture daily and continuously tried to bring about a cultural change by being the change itself.
- Chaired and led a task force for API and event-streaming economy initiatives to normalize the usage of millions of events and API calls across the ecosystem and leverage existing data and functionality to deliver real customer value.
- Defined a GitOps and automation strategy for digital across a complex mix of technologies, authentication challenges, and diverse skill sets.
Technical Solution Architect
Giffgaff
- Led the development and migration of the UK's largest community platform from Khoros to open-source Flarum.
- Developed several microservices as candidates to start the journey of breaking down a 10-year-old monolith into microservices with micro front ends.
- Started the first implementation of event-driven architecture in the web and mobile space at giffgaff.
- Developed the GDPR utility to clean all Oracle, MySQL, and PostgreSQL databases and comply with GDPR's right-to-be-forgotten mandate.
Principal Digital Architect
O2
- Rebuilt the infrastructure and content management system (CMS) with Drupal and Acquia that powers the o2.co.uk website for desktop and mobile experiences.
- Headed two development teams to implement Drupal as part of O2's omni-channel strategy.
- Implemented extreme programming (XP) practices with the development teams to improve the quality of work.
Senior Software Engineering Consultant
Mastercard UK
- Developed and enhanced the APIs used by retail credit card terminals to get firmware and software updates worldwide. These could generate up to 4,000 requests a second.
- Collaborated with the integration team to integrate multiple payment gateways under one as the Mastercard payment gateway service.
- Implemented CI/CD for our own APIs and applications and integrated them with the larger gateway CI/CD builds to ensure seamless deployments across 1,700 applications which, for legacy reasons, were coupled together.
Principal Engineer
Springer Nature
- Modernized and upgraded more than 30 Nature Publishing Group's LAMP stack websites and applications to the latest technology stack at the time with CI/CD pipelines.
- Worked diligently to incorporate XP and CI practices throughout the development lifecycle.
- Coached and worked alongside the head product management and scrum masters to refine and better implement an Agile approach for all LAMP development.
Chief Technology Officer
Vesica
- Assisted in raising the initial funding for this startup to build a pure SaaS-based offering for museums and galleries to digitally manage and exhibit their collections.
- Built software and infrastructure teams based in Pakistan and Serbia, developed the architecture, and delivered the application on time and within budget.
- Defined the overall business strategy and product roadmap. In 2015, we decided to wind up the business because we could not gain a sufficient number of large clients to sustain the quality and pace of the product we wanted to offer.
Lead Developer
Home Office
- Delivered multiple multi-million-pound projects to enable the Home Office to better meet the security needs of the government.
- Introduced and led the implementation of multiple automation techniques and XP practices across another slow-moving culture.
- Mentored and trained the team I worked in to better understand how code is productionized, including setting up and hardening Linux servers.
Senior Developer
Open University
- Co-authored the Open Design Studio module for Moodle, a Pinterest-equivalent built into Moodle courses for general release into the Moodle community.
- Authored the alert plugin, a reporting system to track and manage abusive content across Moodle courses and modules for general release into the Moodle community.
- Wrote first major unit tests for the Open University's contributed modules using Moodle's new PHPUnit integration to deploy test-driven development (TDD) across all development teams.
Senior Developer
TripAdvisor
- Developed and deployed back-end tools to help the customer service and finance staff administer holidaylettings.co.uk.
- Designed enterprise-level architecture for applications with RESTful services to use across multiple departments, organizations, and platforms across TripAdvisor.
- Developed a suite of end-to-end integration tests to ensure customer interactions flow into the back-end systems and vice versa.
Senior Developer
NHS Digital
- Drove project management and architecture of new development for critical Pathways directory-of-services (DoS) system used by 999 and 111 services across England.
- Rewrote existing and developed new accurate search and data extraction algorithms to deal with patient symptoms and redirect them as soon as possible over the phone.
- Mentored and trained the existing NHS team on Linux, virtualization, and the LAMP stack.
Technical Director
Vesica Interactive
- Hired and built an in-house software team with a mix of onshore and offshore developers.
- Established relationships with various data centers and infrastructure providers for highly scalable client applications.
- Managed and delivered projects for international clients like Panasonic, Hotcam, RokPool, and boutique agencies like Walden Page Ballard and Bull Rodger.
Systems Accountant
Travelport
- Streamlined a monthly financial close process between multiple systems, currencies, or countries.
- Developed various Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and Excel applications to communicate with Hyperion and SQL Server.
- Wrote procedure documents and SQL queries to import and export data from the IBM AS/400 to JD Edwards, Hyperion, and Oracle Financials.
Managing Partner
Ingenium Partners
- Worked with various clients to design solutions and software architecture based on open-source applications.
- Managed client relationships and offshore development teams in India and Pakistan.
- Developed web and software applications and user interfaces to assist offshore teams and ensure projects were completed on time.
Financial Controller
TAEUS
- Oversaw the accounting department of four accountants and the company's overall financials of up to $12 million.
- Managed global forecast, budgeting, and project delivery on the budget for clients like HP, Sony, LG Electronics, and Dolby.
- Developed architecture for an in-house project management application upgrade on FileMaker.
Information System Lab Instructor | LMS Developer
University of Colorado – Colorado Springs
- Analyzed requirements of a new website and prepared requirement specification documents to get approval for the new website and Moodle-based learning management system (LMS).
- Collaborated with a co-developer, program director, and faculty to design, code, and implement the new website and intranet.
- Conducted classes to instruct and train students on using Microsoft technologies and basic web development.
Experience
Linode LKE Auto-scaler
https://github.com/meezaan/linode-k8s-autoscalerThe project only has a provider for Linode but can be extended to support DigitalOcean, Vultr, AWS, etc.
Islamic Network
https://islamic.networkThe various projects and libraries have hundreds of starts and forks on GitHub.
Until 2022, I have been the sole developer of the Islamic Network. Other community members are getting involved as we start work on our mobile apps.
AlAdhan API
https://aladhan.com/prayer-times-apiEducation
Bachelor's Degree in Information Systems and Accounting
University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) - Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
Certifications
Certified Scrum Product Owner
Scrum Alliance
Certified SAFe Agilist
Scaled Agile Academy
Certified Scrum Master
Scrum Alliance
Skills
Libraries/APIs
jQuery, OpenID, OpenAPI, Node.js, React, Apigee, OpenSSL, OpenLDAP, Google Maps API, GeoIP
Tools
Amazon EKS, Kong, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), GitHub, Git, Helm, Apache, Docker Compose, IntelliJ IDEA, NGINX, Docker Swarm, Grafana, Terraform, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR), Amazon CloudFront CDN, Jira, Confluence, ELK (Elastic Stack), Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Vim Text Editor, Varnish, Concourse CI, Keycloak, Graylog, Packer, Ansible, Jenkins, Gatling, Amazon ElastiCache, Rally, CircleCI, Webistrano, Vagrant, Sencha UI, Moodle, JD Edwards, Peachtree Accounting Software, Capistrano, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), VPN, Redmine, SolarWinds, Google Workspace, Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), GitLab, AWS Fargate, Splunk, Prisma, Vault, RabbitMQ, Puppet, AWS CLI, AWS IAM
Languages
PHP, PHP 5, PHP 7, JavaScript, TypeScript, SQL, Java, Bash, HTML, CSS, Excel VBA, GraphQL, Bash Script
Frameworks
Slim, OAuth 2, JSON Web Tokens (JWT), NestJS, Zend Framework, Laravel, Symfony, Apache Velocity, Symfony 3, Ext JS, ASP.NET, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Spring Boot, Next.js
Paradigms
DevOps, Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Delivery (CD), API/Services Architecture, Microservices Architecture, DevSecOps, Event-driven Architecture, Test Automation, Microservices, Continuous Development (CD), DDoS, Serverless Architecture, Scrum, Agile, Azure DevOps, Automation
Platforms
Kubernetes, Docker, Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), DigitalOcean, Amazon EC2, LAMP, Red Hat OpenShift, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Ubuntu, Windows, AWS Lambda, Harbor, Linode, Percona, Apache2, Debian Linux, Flarum, Oracle, Apache Kafka, Linux, CentOS, Drupal 8, Acquia Cloud, WordPress, Drupal, cPanel, OpenERP, New Relic, Google Cloud SDK, Amazon Lightsail, OpenShift, AWS ALB
Storage
Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Memcached, MySQL, Google Cloud, Database Performance, Google Cloud SQL, Amazon Aurora, Couchbase, PostgreSQL, Azure SQL Databases, Elasticsearch, Datadog, CouchDB, Redis, Azure Active Directory, On-premise, Oracle Cloud, Google Cloud Storage, Microsoft SQL Server
Industry Expertise
Retail & Wholesale
Other
Web Development, Software Development, Amazon RDS, CI/CD Pipelines, DNS, Architecture, Cloud Architecture, Solution Architecture, eCommerce, Container Orchestration, API Design, Load Balancers, Scalability, Containerization, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), RESTful Services, System Administration, IT Infrastructure, Web Servers, Software Architecture, IT Operations Management (ITOM), DevOps Engineer, Cloud Infrastructure, Control & Cost Analysis, Back-end Performance, Software Engineering, Team Leadership, Technical Documentation, Technical Leadership, API Integration, Omnichannel Marketing, Sales & Channel Enablement, Channels, Leadership, Content Delivery Networks (CDN), OpenID Connect (OIDC), Okta, OAuth, Identity & Access Management (IAM), API Gateways, Security Policies & Procedures, Amazon Route 53, AWS Cloud Architecture, RESTful Microservices, Full-stack, Orchestration, Web Application Firewall (WAF), Cloud Security, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Enterprise Architecture, SMTP, Containers, Kubernetes Operations (kOps), Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), SSL Certificates, SSL Configurations, VM, Identity, Cloud Engineering, TCP/IP, Performance Tuning, ECS, Monitoring, Virtual Machines, Strategic Planning, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Mobile Payments, Payment APIs, Solace, Quay, GitOps, Prometheus, Galera Cluster, Redis Clusters, Amazon Kinesis, Cordova, Geographical Domain Name System (GeoDNS), GitHub Actions, HAProxy, Clustering, Venture Capital, Seed Fundraising, Cloudflare, QuickBooks Advance Reporting, Hyperion Financial Management, APIs, AWS DevOps, Akamai, Full-stack Development, Azure Virtual Networks, ServiceNow, High Availability Disaster Recovery (HADR), AWS NAT Gateway, Data Engineering, Data Analytics, Security, Networking, Google Cloud Functions, Service Mesh, Policy as code (PaC), SIEM, Argo CD, Performance Analysis, Cloud, JSON Web Key Set (JWKS), Strapi, JD Edwards CNC
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