Douglas Okolaa
Senior Software Engineer
I design, build, and operate the systems behind products that customers actually depend on. My day usually moves between architecture decisions, infrastructure, code review, and the kind of tier-3 problems that need the engineer who wrote the system in the first place. I take fuzzy product ideas, break them into pieces a team can ship, and stay with them through production.
I have spent the past seven plus years on production engineering across SaaS, CRM, support tooling, and regulated platforms. I have architected compliant backend systems for ISO, GDPR, NDPR, SOC 2, and CASA environments, hardened Linux fleets behind high-traffic applications, and stood up CI/CD that engineers trust. On the same platforms, I have sat as the named tier-3 escalation engineer, working through the production traces nobody else wanted to open.
Languages and frameworks are tools. I pick what fits the problem. I have shipped production code across web, data, and platform stacks: backend services, distributed jobs, front-end applications, message queues, container orchestration, and the cloud plumbing that holds it all together. When the right move is to direct a coding model to draft the first pass and then review what it produces, I do that too. My job is shipping the right system, not winning a language debate.
Selected results
- I owned tier-3 escalation engineering on a regulated SaaS platform, working through dozens of critical production incidents.
- I cut average support ticket response time by 75%, from twelve hours to seven, by fixing recurring bugs at the code level instead of in tickets.
- I provisioned and hardened Linux server fleets that held 99.9% uptime behind high-traffic applications.
- I stood up server provisioning and database backup automation that removed roughly 60% of the manual maintenance load from the team.
- I have shipped backend systems compliant with ISO, GDPR, NDPR, SOC 2, and CASA.
- I built and maintain a Micro-SaaS that holds consistent 5-star ratings on CodeCanyon.
What I actually do
- I architect first. I draw the boundaries before I write the code. Where the data lives, what crosses the network, what fails first under load, what the rollback looks like. That work pays for itself every time.
- I own projects end to end. Discovery, scoping, technical design, build, deploy, monitoring, and the awkward conversation when scope is slipping. I do not hand off and hope.
- I lead without needing the title. I mentor junior engineers, pair when it helps, write the documentation nobody else wants to write, and unblock other people before I unblock myself.
- I run the infrastructure. AWS, Linux, Docker, Kubernetes. CI/CD that engineers trust, environments that resemble production closely enough to catch the bugs that matter, observability so failures surface before customers do.
- I hold the line on tier-3 support. The hard tickets land on me. Production traces, database forensics, race conditions, regressions across services. I write the fix and the short post-incident note that keeps it from coming back.
- I take compliance seriously. I have shipped systems under ISO, GDPR, NDPR, SOC 2, and CASA. I treat regulatory requirements as part of the design, not a checklist tacked on at the end.
- I direct AI to extend my reach. I treat modern coding models the way a staff engineer treats a sharp junior: I scope the task, give it the right context, review the output, and refuse the wrong suggestions. The leverage compounds when I know what I am asking for.
How I work
I keep changes small and reversible. I prefer boring technology where it is appropriate, and interesting technology where the problem actually asks for it. I write things down so the next person, who is often me six months later, can pick up the thread. When I am wrong, I am direct and quick to say so.
If you are hiring for senior engineering, staff-level ownership, technical leadership, or a serious tier-3 seat,let's talk.