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Craig Roberts

@craigroberts

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Principal Engineer specializing in web and distributed systems, driving scalable, cost-efficient platform solutions.

Malaysia

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What I'm looking for

I’m seeking senior engineering roles where I can lead cross-team architecture, drive platform reliability and cost optimisation, mentor engineers, and deliver large-scale integrations.

I am a Principal Engineer with deep cross-stack experience in web and distributed systems, spanning JavaScript, TypeScript, PHP, MySQL, Docker, Kubernetes and system architecture. I have led technical programmes for national-scale platforms and multi‑million ARR backoffice systems, delivered long-horizon migrations, and triaged challenging production behaviour across multinational teams.

I build pragmatic, well-documented solutions—authoring libraries (for NestJS outbox patterns), replacing third-party integration platforms, and optimising platform spend by 50% while reducing integration errors by 85%. I mentor engineers, run Centres of Excellence, and collaborate with architects, SRE and vendors to make robust, secure systems that scale.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Principal Engineer

Current

Pickles Asia Sdn Bhd

Jul 2025 - Present (8 months)

Principal Engineer for the Efficiency tribe, bridging platform, SRE and architecture teams; built an outbox library for NestJS and led technical planning for a complex booking and scheduling system involving third-party vendors.

NestJS Distributed Systems Kubernetes Docker Kafka System Architecture

Staff Engineer

Pickles Asia Sdn Bhd

Mar 2024 - Jul 2025 (1 year 4 months)

Led replacement of Boomi iPaaS with an in-house integration system reducing integration errors 85% and drove infrastructure optimisations that cut annual spend ~38% ($400k to $250k AUD).

Integration Architecture Circuit Breakers Kafka Kubernetes CI CD GitHub Actions

Technical Lead

Pickles Asia Sdn Bhd

Apr 2022 - Feb 2024 (1 year 10 months)

Defined architecture for Boomi replacement, triaged performance and security issues across TypeScript microservices and Kafka event streams, and owned build and release management for Finance tribe services.

TypeScript Microservices Kafka Avro Release Management Performance Tuning Mentoring

Application Architect

FrogAsia

Oct 2018 - Mar 2022 (3 years 5 months)

Release PR owner for a multi-tenant SaaS platform serving 10,000 schools; maintained MySQL production databases, built Laravel bootstrap and DB session-sharing factories, and delivered cross-territory architecture guidance.

MySQL PHP Laravel DevOps Performance Tuning React CI CD

Senior Developer

FrogAsia

Sep 2015 - Oct 2018 (3 years 1 month)

Led development of a React Native mobile app with a Laravel microservice API and prototyped a distributed data platform for analytics using Hadoop and Ansible.

React Native Laravel MySQL Hadoop Ansible JavaScript CI CD

Web Application Developer

FrogAsia

Oct 2013 - Sep 2015 (1 year 11 months)

Developed PHP and JavaScript application features, delivered stability and bug fixes, and engaged with schools and stakeholders to inform product decisions.

PHP JavaScript Customer Engagement Testing

Web Application Developer

Frog Education

Mar 2013 - Jan 2014 (10 months)

Built applications and widgets using JavaScriptMVC and delivered the Timeline feature for a public product demo at Frog13.

Java MVC Frontend Development Collaboration

Software Engineer

Sky Betting & Gaming

Jul 2012 - Feb 2013 (7 months)

Developed HTML5 casino games with RequireJS/AMD and Node.js WebSockets, and fixed bugs and performance regressions in a Zend Framework application.

HTML5 RequireJS Node WebSockets Zend Framework

Open Source Developer

ownCloud

Oct 2011 - May 2012 (7 months)

Built a PHP parser for binary Git packfile data as an undergraduate thesis and contributed the work to ownCloud while maintaining a project blog.

PHP Git Internals Open Source Contributions Memory Management

Education

Degrees, certifications, and relevant coursework

Aberystwyth University

Bachelor of Science, Computer Science

2009 - 2012

Activities and societies: Undergraduate thesis project; maintained a project blog and contributed code to ownCloud.

Completed a Bachelor of Science in Open Source Computing with a thesis implementing a PHP parser for binary Git packfile data and contributing the work to ownCloud.