NIK AFIQ

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

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

Backend engineer with 3 years of professional experience building and operating Go-based distributed backend systems on GCP and AWS. Strong ownership mindset with end-to-end responsibility across architecture, implementation, deployment, production reliability, and continuous improvement. Known for mechanism-driven problem solving, clear technical documentation, and open knowledge sharing across teams. Hands-on production experience with high-throughput event-driven microservices, Kafka-based pipelines, Kubernetes, and cloud-native data platforms. Experienced in designing systems with strict reliability, ordering, idempotency, retry safety, security, and production-safe migration requirements. Applies AI/LLM tools with deliberate guardrails in daily workflows. Trilingual in English, Japanese (JLPT N1), and Malay.

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.
Trilingual engineer (English/Japanese/Malay) with daily cross-functional communication across Japanese and overseas teams.

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.

Designed system architecture and selected Kafka as the messaging backbone based on ordering, reliability, and scalability requirements under a 1500 TPS downstream global cap
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
Proposed and implemented hashed phone number lookup in Spanner to avoid access hotspots, eliminate non-indexed searches, and improve CPU efficiency under sustained load
Improved team development efficiency by optimizing GitHub Actions CI/CD workflows, scoping full test runs to pull requests, improving build cache usage, and reducing unnecessary image builds to shorten feedback cycles
Designed observability for distributed services using OpenTelemetry, Datadog, and tracing to improve production visibility and incident response
Authored architecture and design documents, including Kafka adoption rationale and request coalescing design, to align teams through clear written mechanisms
Strengthened security and compliance posture by designing logs to mask PII, implementing secure service-to-service authentication with Workload Identity, and enforcing least-privilege access controls
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

SKILLS

Category	Details
Languages	Go, Python, TypeScript/JavaScript
Backend	Distributed systems, event-driven architecture, microservices, REST APIs, pub/sub, concurrency, retry design, idempotency, fault tolerance, familiarity with Protocol Buffers and gRPC through personal projects
Cloud — GCP	GKE, Cloud Spanner, Managed Kafka, BigQuery, Cloud Trace
Cloud — AWS	ECS/Fargate, Lambda, Aurora/RDS, DynamoDB, Glue, CDK, CodePipeline, Bedrock, Secrets Manager
Cloud — Azure	Web Apps, Azure AD B2C, 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

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: Applied Information Technology Engineer (AP)

EDUCATION

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

ADDITIONAL

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

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