# NIK AFIQ

Tokyo, Japan
nik@nik4nao.com | github.com/nikafiq | nik4nao.com


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## PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

Backend engineer with 3 years of professional experience designing,
building, and operating distributed backend systems on GCP and AWS.
Strong in Go and Python, with hands-on production experience in
high-throughput event-driven services, Kafka-based pipelines,
Kubernetes, and cloud-native data platforms. Experienced in designing
systems with strict reliability, ordering, idempotency, retry safety,
and production-safe migration requirements. Applies AI/LLM tools with
deliberate guardrails in daily workflows. Trilingual in English,
Japanese (JLPT N1), and Malay. Strong typed-language foundation and
able to ramp quickly into Java backend development.


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## SELECTED HIGHLIGHTS

- Designed and operated a Kafka + GKE + Cloud Spanner backend pipeline
  for correctness-sensitive, high-throughput user data synchronization
  with per-account_id ordering, at-least-once delivery, and durable
  retry handling.

- Architected event-driven backend services under constraints including
  100–120 TPS steady load, 600 TPS burst, 1500 TPS downstream cap, and
  1500 TPS sustained Spanner read traffic across two production services.

- Achieved ~30% fewer duplicate downstream calls via singleflight
  coalescing; separately refactored a 1500 TPS Spanner read service
  (hashed phone number lookup, removed non-indexed searches), cutting
  CPU by ~30%.

- Built cloud-native platforms across GCP, AWS, and Azure using
  Kubernetes, ECS/Fargate, Lambda, Aurora, DynamoDB, and Kafka.

- Bilingual/trilingual engineer (EN/JA/Malay) with daily
  cross-functional communication across Japanese and overseas teams.


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## WORK EXPERIENCE

### 株式会社ホープス (Hopes Co., Ltd.) — Tokyo
**Backend Engineer** | Aug 2025 – Present

Dispatched to a major domestic telecommunications carrier as part of a
next-generation carrier messaging platform initiative. Designing and
operating a distributed GCP/GKE backend pipeline bridging high-volume
upstream message delivery with a downstream consent fulfillment API.

- Proposed and led adoption of a Kafka-based queuing architecture;
  designed the end-to-end pipeline with GKE, Managed Kafka
  (8 partitions keyed by account_id), and Cloud Spanner under a
  1500 TPS downstream global cap with strict per-account_id ordering
- Designed request coalescing with singleflight, reliable offset commit
  ordering (offsets committed only after durable Spanner writes),
  graceful shutdown, and a cronjob-based retry pipeline — achieving
  at-least-once delivery with no data loss on crash
- Refactored the user-info-fetch API (a separate Spanner read service
  accessed by the Gateway aggregator team at 1500 TPS): guided a junior
  engineer through initial implementation, then led a full refactor
  introducing hashed phone number lookup, removing non-indexed searches,
  and tuning indexes — cutting CPU usage by ~30% under sustained load
- Led Locust performance testing at 120 TPS steady and 600 TPS burst;
  used results to right-size GKE CPU and memory for stable production
  behavior
- Designed OpenTelemetry + Datadog + Wiz observability stack; built CI
  controls with semantic version tag enforcement and least-privilege
  Workload Identity
- Led TDD adoption, authored team dev guidelines, identified and
  escalated a 1-month deadline slip, and stepped up as informal tech
  lead during a leadership gap
- Applied AI tools (Copilot, Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT) in daily
  workflows with deliberate guardrails: output validated through testing
  and review, AI excluded from security-sensitive logic


### 株式会社ニッポンダイナミックシステムズ — Tokyo
**Full Stack Engineer, IT Solutions — Pharma Market Team**
| Apr 2023 – Jul 2025

Backend, cloud infrastructure, data platforms, and internal application
development for enterprise clients, primarily on AWS with some
Azure-based delivery.

- Built a scalable analytical DWH on Amazon Aurora for a pharmaceutical
  client, integrating Salesforce and multiple external sources via
  ECS/Fargate and Lambda ETL pipelines; designed for HA with Multi-AZ
  failover
- Constructed a SaaS data lake using AWS CDK, Glue, TypeScript, and
  Python, automating ETL ingestion across heterogeneous data sources
- Built a license authentication service using Node.js, Docker, Azure
  Web Apps, and Azure AD B2C; owned requirements definition through
  client delivery
- Automated monthly maintenance operations (AMI updates, patching,
  regression testing, blue/green deployments) via AWS CodePipeline and
  Azure Pipelines
- Mentored junior engineers on cloud architecture; functioned as
  bilingual (EN/JA) liaison between domestic and overseas engineering
  teams


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## SKILLS

| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| **Languages** | Go, Python, TypeScript/JavaScript, Java (learning; strong typed-language foundation) |
| **Backend** | Distributed systems, event-driven architecture, REST APIs, pub/sub, concurrency, retry design, idempotency, fault tolerance |
| **Cloud — AWS** | ECS/Fargate, Lambda, Aurora/RDS, DynamoDB, Glue, CDK, CodePipeline, Bedrock, Secrets Manager |
| **Cloud — GCP** | GKE, Cloud Spanner, Managed Kafka, BigQuery, Cloud Trace |
| **Cloud — Azure** | Web Apps, ADB2C, Azure Pipelines |
| **Data** | MySQL, Aurora, PostgreSQL, DynamoDB, Cloud Spanner, Kafka, Redis |
| **DevOps** | Docker, Kubernetes, ArgoCD, CI/CD, IaC (Terraform, AWS CDK, Ansible) |
| **Observability** | OpenTelemetry, Datadog, distributed tracing |
| **AI Tooling** | GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude — applied with guardrails: test-validated output, excluded from security-critical paths |
| **Security** | VPC, WAF, Security Groups, Secrets Manager, Workload Identity, Wiz |


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## CERTIFICATIONS

| Certification | Issued |
|---|---|
| AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (SAA) | Oct 2024 |
| AWS Certified Developer – Associate (DVA) | Dec 2024 |
| AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF) | Apr 2024 |
| 基本情報技術者試験 (FE) — IPA Fundamental IT Engineer | Aug 2024 |
| JLPT N1 — Japanese Language Proficiency | Dec 2022 |

*In progress: AWS Solutions Architect – Professional (SAP),
Applied Information Technology Engineer (AP)*


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## EDUCATION

**Tokai University** — Bachelor of Engineering
Major: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Minor: Information Technology
Graduated: March 2023


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## ADDITIONAL

- **Languages:** English (business), Japanese (business, JLPT N1), Malay (native)
- **Homelab:** Self-hosted k3s cluster, Gitea, Ansible/IaC, ArgoCD —
  gitea.nik4nao.com (mirrored to github.com/nikafiq)
- **Dev blog / personal site:** nik4nao.com