Alex Seif

Software Architect & Principal Software Engineer

[email protected]+201004006332Cairo, Egypt (Contract / Hybrid / Remote / Relocation)linkedin.com/in/alexseifgithub.com/alexseifalexseif.com

Software Architect and Technical Partner with over 20 years of experience designing and maintaining mission-critical digital infrastructures. Proven track record in scaling systems from initial MVP to national-scale government operations serving 40 million+ users. Expert in decomposing and refactoring high-debt legacy systems into decoupled, resilient, and modern Symfony/PHP environments. Specialist in high-concurrency architecture, financial transaction routing, and sovereign-grade data security.

Core Competencies

  • People first: Systems are built for humans by humans, diligent design for systems, grace laws for humanity.
  • High-Concurrency Systems: Architecting transactional engines for the Fintech and airline industries, capable of handling extreme, continuous loads with zero-latency requirements.
  • Enterprise Architecture: Expert in multi-tenant, high-availability, and headless architectures, including Drupal and Symfony-based enterprise solutions.
  • Legacy Data Remediation: Proven ability to salvage corrupted, fragmented, or undocumented legacy databases, refactoring them into clean, normalized, and performant relational schemas.
  • DevOps & Infrastructure: End-to-end management of deployment pipelines, server hardening, and disaster recovery planning, including work within air-gapped, high-security intranet environments.
  • Strategic Roadmapping: Translating complex business needs into precise, scalable technical specifications, bridging the gap between non-technical stakeholders and engineering teams

Technical Stack Inventory

Software Architect

  • System Design & Architecture: Monolithic-to-Microservices Evolution, Headless Architecture, Legacy-to-Cloud Migration, Relational Schema Normalization, Design Principles.
  • Domain Modeling & Complex Systems: E-Commerce & Marketplaces (headless custom solutions, payment integrations), ERP System Integration, Advanced Booking Engines (High Concurrency, Tour/Package, Subscription, Calendar Sync, Multi-Currency/Language/Payment).
  • AI Engineering & Orchestration: LangGraph, Multi-Agent Workflows, Append-Only Data Reducers, Cyclic Graph Topologies, RAG Pipelines, Semantic Text Chunking, Embedding Models, Vector Storage Interfaces, Python. (Active Learning)

Principal Software Engineer

  • Core Languages & Frameworks: PHP (Symfony, Laravel, Drupal Enterprise, WordPress Core), TypeScript / JavaScript (Node.js, React.js, Vue.js), Go (Active Learning).
  • Frontend Foundations: Tailwind CSS, HTML5, CSS3, SCSS, Responsive Layout Architecture.
  • Data & API Layer: MySQL / MariaDB, Database View Optimization, Asynchronous Task Queues, Webhooks, RESTful API Design & Integration, API Security & Documentation.
  • Engineering Practices: Test-Driven Development (TDD), Behavior-Driven Development (BDD), Performance Optimization.

DevOps & Team Leader

  • Cloud & Infrastructure: Acquia Cloud Platform, AWS (EC2, S3, RDS, IAM), DigitalOcean, Linux System Administration.
  • Performance & Deployment: Varnish Edge Caching, High-Availability Load Balancing, Docker Containerization.
  • Team Management: Agile/Scrum facilitation, Code Review, Mentorship, Cross-functional alignment, Technical Debt Management.

CTO

  • Strategic Leadership: Budgeting, Talent Management, Positive Leadership, Technology Strategy, Technical Partnership, Requirements Elicitation. Prototyping vs Actual builds.
  • Governance & Compliance: Compliance by Design, Governmental-grade infrastructure and workflows, Security-first design, PCI DSS Compliance, Mission-critical and high-availability systems.

Computer Engineer (Discipline / Foundational)

  • SCADA Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, embedded systems real time data monitoring for oil transport in Egypt.
  • Technical Background: Java, C++, bash, O.S. Design, O.S. implementation, Bash, Python, Algorithms, Database Design, OOP.

Professional Experience

Senior Independent Systems Architect & Technical Partner

Independent Consultancy & Retainers
January 2014 – Present

Provide requirements elicitation, Solution architecture & design, design principles, full-stack development, database optimization, AI systems integration, devops automation, and infrastructure management for commercial enterprises, digital media agencies, and state public institutions.

AI & Data Pipeline Implementations:
  • Production Agentic Workflow Engineering: Designed and deployed autonomous text-scraping and system-monitoring topologies using LangGraph. Implemented append-only state channels via operator.add data reducers and persistent SQLite/PostgreSQL checkpointers, ensuring state safety and eliminating memory leaks across cyclic multi-worker execution loops.
  • Enterprise RAG Pipeline Architecture: Engineered document ingestion pipelines to transform unstructured historical records into structured, queryable knowledge archives. Developed semantic text chunking algorithms with overlapping character windows and configured localized vector storage engines to map text embeddings alongside relational metadata tags.
  • Ajel.sa (Mass Media Network): Served as Technical Partner for 2–3 years managing the infrastructure for the #2 news outlet in Saudi Arabia. Maintained a hyper-scale enterprise Drupal environment hosted on Acquia Cloud, implementing Varnish edge caching and optimizing relational indexes to absorb traffic spikes during major breaking news cycles. Managed automated, asynchronous background ingestion pipelines to pull and parse content feeds from global networks like the BBC.
Public Sector & Digital Infrastructures:
  • Egyptian Ministry of Interior (MOI) - Traffic & Aman Portal: Architected a customized enterprise Drupal infrastructure and high-concurrency routing engine to schedule services across facilities and mobile units, servicing a population scale of 40M+ citizens.
  • MOI Egypt Blind Deployment Execution: Built automated shell scripts to run complex Git path updates, dependency updates, and database schema migrations seamlessly on air-gapped intranet networks without direct developer access.
  • Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization (SASO PTI): Led a 3-year migration of a monolithic enterprise Drupal portal into a highly available Headless architecture. Built state-preservation and fail-safe queue mechanics to handle data payloads securely during external transaction timeouts.
  • Dubai Police Department - Enterprise Training Network: Configured compliance workflow engines and background tracking loops inside an isolated government cloud environment to monitor student progress.
  • Salama Portal (KSA): Engineered a state-subsidized cooperative insurance gateway using Drupal Enterprise CMS, deploying a high-concurrency transaction engine and secure data exchange layers to synchronize policy classifications with national enforcement agencies.
Commercial & E-Commerce Implementations:
  • Agazat Masr (Tourico): Co-engineered a custom dynamic travel package assembly catalog and transaction engine. Built an asynchronous, email-driven booking queue that scaled the client to become a leading domestic tourism provider in Egypt, maintaining database integrity during intense search concurrent load. Supported and upgraded the codebase continuously for 3 consecutive years.
  • Esorus Ecosystem: Designed a highly scalable database schema using Symfony to pivot a design content platform into a commercial B2B marketplace, indexing 15,800+ products, 1,200+ architects, and 300+ suppliers.
  • Desoky & Soda: Built decoupled backend structures and high-elasticity relational schemas using the Symfony framework to support database modifications during agile sprint cycles.
  • Svelto: Deployed a decoupled product personalization and print configuration engine utilizing an optimized WordPress and WooCommerce core architecture, handling secure payment gateway loops and asynchronous webhook hooks.
  • Misfits LLC: Architected a lightweight web catalog resulting in 6+ consecutive years of zero-maintenance uptime with zero code edits or structural patches required post-deployment.
  • North South Consultants Exchange (NSCE): Normalized fragmented, multi-lingual database models and built indexed custom taxonomies and geospatial mapping systems for international donor projects (UN, GIZ, EU).
  • bndko.com: Deployed a custom mobile-first front-end layout optimized for low SpeedIndex scores, connecting asynchronous form capture hooks directly to background outbound email marketing automation suites.
  • Alexander Restaurant: Deployed a zero-bloat digital interface using custom lightweight base themes, optimizing asset compression and mobile caching layers for instantaneous page execution.

Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

Wallety (Fintech Platform)
December 2009 – July 2015

Managed backend software engineering, transaction processing pipelines, and cloud security compliance for a high-volume travel ticketing application.

  • Core Ledger Scaling: Engineered the backend asynchronous transaction routing systems that successfully processed over 33% of all domestic air travel ticketing throughput nationwide across Egypt.
  • State Machine Hardening: Built a defensive transactional state machine that safely cached, retried, and committed atomic financial ledger updates during banking gateway or network dropouts.
  • Security & Auditing: Engineered data-at-rest encryption pipelines and multi-region tokenization frameworks to pass strict security audits and achieve full PCI-DSS compliance verification using Test-Driven Development (TDD) and Behavior-Driven Development (BDD).

Senior Software Engineer & Systems Analyst

MitchDesigns & Freelance Engagements
November 2007 – 2009 & 2014 - 2015

Executed full-stack web application development, custom coding, framework migrations, and local server management for regional businesses.

  • Bouri Center (Legacy ERP Integration): Modeled and decoupled an e-commerce database to function independently as an isolated branch node, bypassing uncooperative legacy corporate ERP blocks. Built an ingestion gateway to sanitize corrupt vendor data streams before web production deployment.
  • Resort Choice (Multi-Tenant Yield Engine): Codified rental contract terms into validation logic within custom database views to enforce linear booking limits and completely prevent cross-channel double-booking race conditions.
  • Infrastructure Custody: Responsible for on-premise provisioning, localized staging builds, automated production deployment loops, and disaster recovery (DR) protocols.
  • Egyptolution (Custom Media Portal): Built a high-velocity custom MVC Content Management System (CMS) optimized for low latency and high-volume media distribution.

Credentials & Background

  • Computer Engineering Curriculum Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (AASTMT) Completed all core engineering coursework and technical syllabus up to the final graduation semester.
  • Verified Project Uptime: 20+ years of active technical experience maintaining live software systems processing millions of records and servicing national populations across 3 countries and enterprise solutions across regional and international jurisdictions (Egypt, KSA, UAE, EU, Russia).