Open to opportunities

Max Nakel

@maxnakel

Message

Staff software engineer building scalable, AI-enabled payment and analytics platforms.

United States

Message

What I'm looking for

I’m looking to build scalable, cloud-native systems for real-world payments or analytics, combining backend, frontend, and AI-driven capabilities, in an Agile environment where I can own architecture and mentor engineers.

I’m a Staff Software Engineer who builds global, high-throughput platforms that simplify complex operations and unlock international growth. At Stripe, I architected payment orchestration combining event-driven microservices with a core monolithic settlement service—improving transaction throughput by 45% and supporting 100M+ payment events daily.

I deliver reliable backend and frontend systems with measurable performance gains, including 99.99% uptime and 35% lower API latency, plus AI-driven fraud/anomaly detection that reduced fraudulent transaction rates by 25%. I’ve also built cloud-native infrastructure on AWS, automated CI/CD with Docker/Kubernetes/GitHub Actions (cutting release time by 60%), and mentored 7+ engineers through architecture and system design.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Staff Software Engineer

Current

Stripe

Dec 2019 - Present (6 years 6 months)

Built a global payment orchestration platform using event-driven microservices and a settlement service, improving transaction throughput by 45% while processing 100M+ payment events daily. Reduced API latency by 35% and improved reliability to 99.99% uptime; also lowered infrastructure costs by 20% and cut production release time by 60%.