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James Harrison

@jamesharrison

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Senior Backend Developer specializing in scalable microservices architecture.

United States

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What I'm looking for

I'm looking for a role that challenges me technically and fosters innovation, with opportunities for mentorship and collaboration.

I'm a Senior Backend Developer with a strong focus on building scalable and efficient microservices. With a proven track record in leading complex projects, I have successfully decomposed monolithic applications into modern architectures, significantly improving deployment velocity and reducing incidents. My expertise in Go, combined with a deep understanding of cloud technologies, allows me to deliver high-performance solutions that meet the demands of today's fast-paced environments.

Throughout my career, I have led initiatives that have transformed backend systems, such as architecting a Universal Scheduling Engine that processes millions of tasks monthly and optimizing messaging layers for reliable distributed transactions. I take pride in mentoring junior engineers and fostering a collaborative engineering culture, ensuring that knowledge sharing and best practices are at the forefront of our work. My commitment to continuous improvement drives me to implement innovative solutions that enhance system observability and reduce recovery times.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Senior Backend Engineer

Current

GEPWORLDWIDE

Mar 2022 - Present (3 years 3 months)

Led the Core Logistics Modernization project, decomposing a 1.5M+ LOC C# monolith into scalable Go microservices, accelerating deployment velocity by 70% and significantly reducing release-related incidents. Designed and implemented a Universal Scheduling Engine, processing 3.2M+ tasks/month across distributed services, which reduced inter-service lock conflicts by 92% and improved scheduling thro

Go Microservices Kafka Kubernetes PostgreSQL Prometheus Grafana GitHub Actions DDD

Backend Developer

Vimeo

Mar 2019 - Feb 2022 (2 years 11 months)

Rebuilt the Media Delivery Pipeline, migrating from a legacy PHP stack to modular Go microservices, enhancing API performance by 62% for 1M+ Daily Active Users and cutting cold-start time by 45%. Created a Cloud Media Storage Layer using MinIO, managing over 4PB of video content while reducing retrieval latency by 28% and lowering storage infrastructure costs by 18% through dynamic replication str

Go Microservices Minio OAuth 2.0 JWT Redis WebSockets Prometheus Grafana REST APIs

Software Engineer

SPS Commerce

Oct 2017 - Feb 2019 (1 year 4 months)

Built and maintained 11+ microservices within the B2B Order Fulfillment Platform, handling over 9 million transactions per month. Transitioned the platform's order lifecycles from synchronous HTTP APIs to a Kafka-driven architecture, reducing critical system downtimes by 87%. Engineered a custom Message Reliability System using Kafka, cutting data inconsistency incidents by 96% through intelligent