0199.98% uptime
KPay — Payment Gateway
Payment GatewayPayment infrastructure for Ethiopian banks, wallets and merchants. A secure, scalable gateway with multiple integrations.
LaravelGoPostgreSQLDockerKafkaAPIs
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SOFTWARE ENGINEERBACKEND & SYSTEMS
I build the systems
behind products.
Backend engineering, APIs, payment infrastructure and enterprise software. I build resilient systems in Go, Laravel, and NestJS with strict emphasis on deterministic idempotency, data integrity, and high availability.
CLEAN CODE
RELIABLE SYSTEMS
REAL IMPACT //
MELAKE SISAY // SYSTEMSADDIS ABABA (UTC+3)
AVAILABLE FOR REMOTE ROLESPROD-READY
01/
SELECTED WORK
02Concept → Production
EthioDev (ETDevHub)
Developer Ecosystem & Headless CMSTurning scattered developer knowledge into a living community. An edge-rendered community platform and headless CMS built for Ethiopian software engineers under real-world connectivity constraints.
TanStackReactPostgreSQLTailwind
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0340+ corporate deployments
ERP System
Enterprise Business SystemsEnterprise resource planning software for SMEs and businesses, managing inventory, accounts, invoices, and procurement.
LaravelLivewireMySQLAWSGitLab
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04Sub-50ms gateway latency
Payment Integrations
Financial IntegrationsIntegrations with multiple banks and wallets with secure transaction processing, cryptographic signatures, and fallback routing.
GoPostgreSQLREST APIsWebhooksSecurity
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02/
ABOUT
I'm a software engineer
from Ethiopia.
“I work where software stops being a demo and starts having consequences — payments, data, integrations, failures and systems that need to keep working anyway.”
Most of my work sits behind the interface — APIs, databases, integrations, payment flows, authentication and the infrastructure that keeps applications running.
I enjoy turning complex requirements into systems that are understandable, maintainable and reliable. My engineering methodology emphasizes strict data integrity, predictable error boundaries, and defensive architecture.
MELAKE SISAY // SOFTWARE ENGINEERADDIS ABABA, ET
EDUCATION
Gondar University
Gondar, EthiopiaBachelor Degree in Information Systems (B.Sc.)
Graduated from Gondar University with a Bachelor of Science in Information Systems. This program provided a solid foundation in coding and programming, as well as a comprehensive understanding of IT solutions, system design, and project management. Equipped with the technical skills and knowledge necessary to develop and optimize complex software systems and applications.
HOW I BUILD
01PRINCIPLE
Idempotency First
Every mutating financial call must safely withstand network retries without duplicate side effects.
02PRINCIPLE
Predictable Boundaries
Explicit data schemas, defensive error handling, and type-safe API contracts across all microservices.
03PRINCIPLE
Immutable Ledgers
Strict double-entry bookkeeping and tamper-evident audit logs for financial records.
04PRINCIPLE
Measured Observability
Structured JSON logging, telemetry, and distributed tracing over guesswork.
EXPERIENCE
Ellatech
CURRENTBackend Developer / Node.js (NestJS) Heavily
I design, build and maintain the backend for Ellatech's hotel booking and hospitality platform. It is a set of NestJS microservices (admin, booking, business, core, customer) that talk to each other over gRPC and store data in MongoDB. I've taken features from the Jira ticket all the way to production: booking, pricing, payments, settlements and complaints.
- ▸Built the core booking engine: validating and registering booking requests, group bookings across several room types, counting rooms against capacity, checking availability, and showing alternative rooms when a booking is rejected.
- ▸Designed room inventory and pricing: named pricing rules, recurring discounts (weekly and date-range), and prices that depend on how many guests share a room.
- ▸Integrated Stripe card payments. This covered three checkout flows (including Stripe Elements), automatic refunds, replacing an unfinished card attempt when the guest tries again, and a currency exchange-rate endpoint. I also added a guard so cancelled or completed bookings can't be charged.
- ▸Built the settlement system that works out what the platform owes each hotel and what each hotel owes the platform. It handles commission rates, weekly settlement periods, ETB/USD exchange rates and the Ethiopian (EAT) calendar, and comes with a settlement dashboard for hotels.
- ▸Enforced cancellation policies, deciding whether a refund is due based on each hotel's rules, and made sure refunded bookings are settled correctly.
- ▸Built the complaint system end to end. Guests and hotel admins can both file complaints, which types are allowed depends on the booking's status, and admins resolve them with notes and attachments.
- ▸Hardened role-based access control (RBAC). I found and fixed several ways one hotel could see another hotel's data and tightened who can view settlements, rooms and audit logs.
- ▸Set up observability with Grafana, Prometheus, Loki and Tempo: dashboards, email alert rules and service-down alerts. I also wrote the monitoring runbook for the team.
- ▸Added real-time notifications for bookings, payouts and settlements across email, push and in-app channels.
- ▸Fixed production bugs such as audit-log pagination, currency mix-ups in totals and schema/DTO mismatches. I also wrote docs for each module so the team shares the same picture of the system.
Tibeb Technology PLC
Full Stack Developer / Laravel Heavily
Designed, developed, and maintained web applications utilizing the Laravel framework for backend development and various frontend technologies. Integrated database schemas (MySQL, PostgreSQL) to ensure data integrity and efficient retrieval.
Kegeberew Technology Solutions
Fintech Manager / Payment Gateway Manager
Designed and implemented software architecture for fintech solutions, enhancing payment gateway efficiency and regulatory compliance. Achieved significant business growth by leveraging microservices and data analytics in agile project management.
PurposeBlack Eth
Backend Developer
Successfully enhanced client satisfaction by resolving operational issues and integrating third-party APIs, improving payment processing efficiency. Developed secure, scalable cloud-based architectures and reusable code libraries, optimizing user experience across web platforms.
Hikel Technologies LLC
Full Stack Software Developer
Enhanced user experience by implementing responsive designs and developing robust backend systems while integrating third-party APIs and payment gateways. Improved software performance through code reviews, debugging, and contributions to scalable cloud-based solutions.
CORE STACK
Runtime & Frameworks
GoLaravelNestJS
Data & Messaging
PostgreSQLRedisKafka
Infrastructure & Cloud
DockerKubernetesAWS
03/
WRITING & ESSAYS
Thoughts on engineering,
systems and products.
Published on EthioDev and syndicated here via the Website API — covering backend systems, payment infrastructure, and team collaboration.
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