Open to opportunities

John Merga

@johnmerga

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Backend-focused full-stack engineer building reliable APIs and scalable systems for startups and enterprises.

Ethiopia

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What I'm looking for

I’m looking for a role where I can own backend systems and APIs end-to-end—designing scalable microservices, improving reliability and observability, and shipping event-driven workflows with pragmatic engineering for startups or enterprise platforms.

I’m a backend-focused full-stack engineer with 4+ years building scalable systems for startups, ERP platforms, automation tools, and AI-powered products—grounded in APIs, system design, and reliability.

As a Lead Software Engineer (A.A, Ethiopia), I built ExpressJS and async FastAPI-based microservices for candidate ingestion, scoring, and workflow automation, improving recruiter selection speed by 4× and candidate registrations by 10×. I also integrated AI-based pre-screening pipelines to reduce initial interview time by 50%, improved search performance by 80% with Typesense and optimized PostgreSQL, and eliminated user-facing provisioning delays with a scheduler-backed async service. I strengthened reliability using automated Pytest coverage and consistent containerized deployments with Docker.

In backend roles across remote teams (USA, Slovenia, Kuwait), I developed scalable marketplace and in-game transaction services and improved active users by 30%. I resolved recurring API outages by addressing PostgreSQL connection exhaustion, improved fault tolerance and observability with ELK, enabled event-driven workflows with RabbitMQ, and delivered low-latency service communication via gRPC integrated with a legacy PHP core. Earlier, I supported automation for operational teams, including messaging bots and server configuration updates with Ansible, and built production-grade CI/CD and containerized deployments using Docker.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Backend Engineer

Real Gaming

Mar 2025 - Jan 2026 (10 months)

Developed scalable backend services for marketplace features and in-game transactions, increasing active users. Improved availability and observability by diagnosing PostgreSQL connection exhaustion, integrating ELK logging/monitoring, and building RabbitMQ messaging pipelines.

PostgreSQL SQLAlchemy Observability ELK Stack RabbitMQ gRPC Microservices Fault Tolerance

Backend Engineer

PRO-BIT PROGRAMSKA OPREMA d.o.o.

Sep 2025 - Dec 2025 (3 months)

Designed a centralized service registry for distributed microservices and implemented TTL-based heartbeats with automatic deregistration of unhealthy instances. Exposed service metadata and status endpoints for real-time health monitoring and dashboard visibility.

Lead Software Engineer

Mereb Technologies

Jan 2024 - Jun 2025 (1 year 5 months)

Designed ExpressJS and async FastAPI-based backend microservices for candidate ingestion, scoring, and workflow automation. Built a cloud-native platform using PostgreSQL, Redis caching, and event-driven processing to improve throughput, registrations, and system reliability.

ExpressJS fastAPI Python Async Programming Microservices Event Driven Architecture PostgreSQL Redis Message Queues Typesense Docker Pytest System Reliability

Backend Engineer

Sulala

Nov 2023 - Jun 2024 (7 months)

Built RESTful backend services and improved API latency by optimizing PostgreSQL schemas and indexes. Implemented Redis-backed Celery task queues with async workers and added production-grade automated testing using Pytest.

RESTful APIs PostgreSQL Redis Celery Async Workers Pytest Database Optimization

Full-Stack Engineer

Siinqee Bank

Jun 2023 - Jan 2024 (7 months)

Built internal automation tools and messaging bots to accelerate issuer resolution for operational teams. Automated server configuration and updates using Ansible and integrated location verification services with backend APIs for branch data management.

Automation Tools Ansible Backend API Integration Configuration

Junior Fullstack Developer

EagleLion SystemTechnology

Oct 2022 - Jan 2023 (3 months)

Containerized services with Docker and standardized CI/CD workflows to improve deployment reliability. Contributed to a role-based BI dashboard and added automated test cases integrated into the CI pipeline.

Docker CI CD Role Based BI Dashboards Automated Testing