Rakesh PD
Dubai, UAE  |  Senior Backend & Distributed Systems

Rakesh PD

Senior Software Engineer (IC3)

Backend & Distributed Systems | Golang | Ruby on Rails | High-Scale Architecture | Fintech & Microservices

Core Technologies

Go
Gin
Ruby
Rails
gRPC
Pub/Sub
DigitalOcean
AWS
GCP
PostgreSQL
Redis
Docker
Kubernetes
Datadog
Grafana

Background & Core Expertise

Senior Software Engineer with 13+ years of experience building and scaling backend systems in Go and Ruby on Rails across the UAE, KSA, Bahrain, Singapore, and India.

Owns mission-critical billing, payments, and integration systems at HungerStation (Delivery Hero), supporting a platform processing an average of 600K orders per day. Experienced in taking complex systems end-to-end, from architecture and design through implementation, deployment, and production support.

My expertise spans distributed systems, Golang/Ruby microservices, high-performance APIs (REST, gRPC), event-driven architectures, and financial journal/ledger synchronization at scale.

Work Philosophy
"Clear communication, fast execution, ownership, and practical engineering. I focus on business impact, not unnecessary complexity."

Key Strengths & Capabilities

Building reliable backend systems in Go, Ruby on Rails
Designing scalable microservices & distributed workflows
API architecture (REST, gRPC), async services, event-driven design
PostgreSQL optimization, caching, data modeling, system reliability
Debugging production issues quickly with clarity & ownership
Collaborating with cross-functional teams to deliver real impact
Leading features and unblock teams during critical timelines

Career History

Senior Software Engineer @ HungerStation (Delivery Hero)
Mar 2020 – Present Dubai, UAE
  • Own payment infrastructure for a 20M-user platform processing ~600K orders/day, with ~1,100 order-creation per minute and ~1,000 authorization per minute. Payment volume is led by Apple Pay (70%), followed by cards (17%), wallets (11%), and BNPL methods including Tabby, Mukafaa and Tamara.
  • Led the payment core migration from monolith to microservices, integrating checkout.com, Tabby, Tamara, STC Pay, Mokafaa, and Apple Pay tokenized checkout via gRPC and event-driven architecture.
  • Built a payment failover and auto-disabling mechanism, lifting payment acceptance rate to 98% while sustaining ~1,000 RPM on authorization traffic.
  • Integrated Incognia for geolocation-based fraud detection, reducing fraudulent transactions.
  • Designed a new Journal service to ingest, reconcile, and synchronize financial journals from external parties; own vendor dispute resolution and invoicing to the global finance entity across a 75,000+ vendor base (25,000+ invoices per cycle).
  • Launched a subscription service enabling 2,000+ vendors to receive payouts faster, with projected ARR of ~SAR 3M.
Senior Software Engineer @ TryCarriage.com
Sept 2019 – Mar 2020 Kuwait City, Kuwait
  • Migrated approximately 7.1M users to the Talabat ecosystem, enabling a large-scale platform transition while maintaining service continuity.
  • Led Ruby on Rails upgrades and remediated 260+ security vulnerabilities, reducing technical debt and strengthening application security.
  • Led the development of a vendor dispute management system, improving vendor satisfaction scores by 16% through faster and more transparent dispute resolution.
Technical Lead @ IBS Software
Mar 2018 – Sept 2019 Kochi, India
  • Led migration of TravelMob 5M+ users to the HomeAway ecosystem through automated feed ingestion and integration workflows.
  • Maintained and enhanced the Singapore-based TravelMob platform supporting 14,000+ property listings.
  • Delivered production deployments, large-scale data migrations, and integration pipelines using TDD/BDD practices, while resolving daily production issues end-to-end.
Senior Software Engineer @ 7NODES
Jan 2016 – Mar 2018 Ernakulam, India
  • Built Ruby on Rails backend systems for enterprise applications and contributed to product architecture and technical planning.
  • Coordinated with UI/UX to scope requirements and ship end-to-end features; drove reliability through QA testing and fast fixes for critical issues.
Software Engineer @ Red Panthers
Aug 2015 – Jan 2016 Ernakulam, India
  • Developed backend features in Ruby on Rails and provided remote production support to clients.
Software Engineer – Ruby on Rails @ PIT Solutions
Sept 2014 – Aug 2015 Trivandrum, India
  • Implemented Rails modules for enterprise products, including the VirtualX online examination system, and built concurrency improvements that raised throughput.
Software Developer @ Centre for Social Computing & Information Society
Jul 2013 – Aug 2014 Wayanad, India
  • Delivered backend development and deployment support, owning production bugs through to resolution.

Key Projects & Platforms

HungerStation (Delivery Hero) 2021 – Present

HungerStation – Saudi Arabia Food Delivery Platform

Leading online food ordering platform connecting thousands of restaurants across Saudi Arabia & Bahrain. Processing ~600K orders/day with 98% payment acceptance rate failover, BNPL integration, Apple Pay tokenization, and Journal financial reconciliation across 75,000+ vendors.

Golang Ruby on Rails PostgreSQL gRPC Microservices
Centre for Social Computing (C4S) 2013 – 2014

PEECS – Government Engineering Entrance LMS

Kerala Public Engineering Entrance Coaching Scheme (PEECS) – Largest government LMS platform in India serving 400,000+ (4 Lakhs) student users across Kerala for entrance exam coaching.

Ruby on Rails EdTech Government LMS 400K+ Users
TryCarriage (Delivery Hero) 2019 – 2020

TryCarriage – Logistics & Food Delivery Service

Leading food delivery and logistics platform across Gulf countries. Successfully migrated ~7.1M users to Talabat ecosystem, resolved vendor disputes, and remediated 260+ security vulnerabilities.

Ruby on Rails Platform Migration Logistics Security
IBS Software 2018 – 2020

HomeAway & TravelMob – Vacation Rental Marketplace

Global vacation rental marketplace with >2,000,000 property rentals across 190 countries in 23 languages. Migrated 5M+ TravelMob users into HomeAway and Vrbo global ecosystems.

Ruby Grape Ruby on Rails CouchDB TDD/BDD
7NODES 2016 – Present

Circles.Life – Digital Telco Platform

Singapore-based digital mobile telco transforming regional communications. Built customizable mobile service features (voice, data, roaming) and real-time subscriber control APIs.

Ruby on Rails AngularJS REST APIs Digital Telco
PIT Solutions 2014 – Present

VirtualX – Online Examination System

Open-source automated examination management platform (LGPL license) supporting 12 question types (MCQ, Fill-ups, Drag & Drop, Matrix), candidate evaluations, and 5 graphical report formats.

Ruby on Rails Open Source (LGPL) EdTech MySQL
7NODES / Cocoon Venture 2017 – Present

Gain – Startup Crowdfunding Platform

Crowdfunding and investor platform for Cocoon Venture, enabling startup campaign tracking, real-time updates via ActionCable, and secure investment transactions.

Ruby on Rails Crowdfunding ActionCable PostgreSQL
7NODES / Cocoon Venture 2016 – Present

World Startup Expo – Exposition CMS

Content management system for Asia's largest startup exposition bringing together disruptive startups, C-level executives, VC funds, investors, and policymakers.

Ruby on Rails CMS Event Tech PostgreSQL
7NODES 2016 – Present

Eagle-Review – No.1 Hunting & Fishing Advisor

International travel review platform enabling outdoor sportsmen to evaluate shooting and fishing destinations worldwide through community reviews, media, and destination ratings.

Ruby on Rails Travel Tech MongoDB REST APIs
7NODES 2016 – Present

HashMyBag – C2B Retail Chat & In-Chat Payments

Customer-to-business messaging app featuring searchable merchant catalogues, private messaging, in-chat purchases, custom payment links, and ticket bookings.

Ruby on Rails AngularJS In-Chat Payment PostgreSQL
Centre for Social Computing (C4S) 2014 – Present

Arividam & C4S – Govt Educational Portal

Malayalam community educational portal for the Kerala Education Department (Wayanad district) and C4S web platform built for open information society initiatives.

Ruby on Rails EdTech Government Portal
7NODES / Independent 2013 – Present

Airmelive & CypressPark Portals

Interactive live media platform (Airmelive) and complete eco-friendly resort reservation portal (CypressPark).

Ruby on Rails Media Tech Eco-Tourism

Technical Skills

💻 Languages

Go Ruby Python SQL

Frameworks & Backend Technologies

Ruby on Rails Gin Django Sidekiq Express React REST gRPC Pub/Sub Event-Driven Design

🏗️ Architecture

High-Scale & Distributed Systems Microservices Asynchronous Services Domain-Driven Design

🗄️ Databases

PostgreSQL MySQL Redis Elasticsearch

☁️ Infrastructure & Observability

Digital Ocean AWS GCP Docker Kubernetes Datadog Grafana ArgoCD Jenkins CI/CD

🤝 Collaboration & Tools

Jira Trello Slack GitHub Bitbucket

Education

Degree

Bachelor of Computer Science and Engineering

Annai Mathammal Sheela Engineering College (Anna University Chennai)
CGPA: 7.3 · Namakkal, Tamil Nadu, India
2009 – 2013
Higher Secondary

Computer Science, +2

W.O.V.H.S.S Muttil (Kerala State Syllabus)
Grade: 74% · Muttil, Kerala, India
2007 – 2009
Secondary School

S.S.L.C

G.V.H.S.S Vakery (Kerala State Syllabus)
Grade: 84% · Sulthan Bathery, Kerala, India
1999 – 2007

Certifications

Certification

Honor Code Certificate for Linux

The Linux Foundation
Linux System Administration & Architecture
Certified
Certification

Node with React Fullstack Development

Udemy (UC-FZZX7CKQ)
Fullstack Node.js & React Ecosystem
Certified
Certification

Diploma in Dotnet

HCL Career Development Centre
Web & Windows Application Development
Certified

Awards & Recognition

Award

TeamChamp Award

IBS Software Pvt Ltd
Recognized for excellence in TravelMob platform migration & Vrbo platform rebranding.
Honored

Let's Connect

Always open to connecting with engineers, founders, and tech leaders worldwide.