MJ Mohammad Jezzini

Senior Backend Engineer · Technical Lead

I build and rescue production backends.

10+ years building production backends with Go, Node.js, PHP, and Python. I owned the backend of a Steam multiplayer game with 100K+ registered players, and I restored a down, AI-written production system that no one on the team could explain.

Available now: remote, or hybrid/onsite in Lebanon.

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Mohammad Jezzini
Mohammad Jezzini Saida, Lebanon · Open to remote work
10+ years professional software development
100K+ registered players on a Steam game
1K+ peak concurrent players
4 inherited backends taken over

Case studies

Difficult systems, stated plainly.

Systems where I had real ownership, with the constraints and outcomes as they were.

01

Real-time multiplayer game · Steam

Owning the backend of a Steam multiplayer game

Backend Technical Lead · Nifty Craft Feb 2022 – Aug 2025 · Remote (Estonia)

A real-time multiplayer game needed one backend for gameplay state, farming, gathering, crafting, combat, inventory and equipment, trading and marketplace, matchmaking, leaderboards, and live communication, with many players acting on shared state at the same time.

What I did

  • Owned the complete backend: architecture, client-server communication, code, and operations.
  • Chose Nakama, Go, CockroachDB, and Redis for the core stack.
  • Handled concurrency with synchronization strategies, atomic operations, read/write locks, and Redis-backed coordination.
  • Ran Kubernetes deployments, CI/CD, and Prometheus and Grafana monitoring.
  • Load-tested the backend with a custom multi-threaded script simulating thousands of players and their in-game actions.
  • Reviewed code and mentored a junior developer.

Result

  • Released on Steam.
  • 100K+ registered players.
  • A peak of 1K+ concurrent players.
GoNakamaCockroachDBRedisWebSocketsgRPCKubernetesPrometheusGrafanaAWSFirebase
02

Arabic-first SaaS commerce · Gulf merchants

Building the backend of a SaaS commerce platform

Backend Engineer · Menasa.ai Project-based · Remote

An Arabic-first commerce platform for merchants in the Gulf needed its whole backend: stores on subscriptions, purchasing, payments, and the business workflows behind them.

What I did

  • Implemented all of the backend functions: APIs and cloud functionality for stores, subscriptions, purchasing, and payments.
  • Designed and built the database.
  • Built the commerce workflows behind merchant and purchase operations.

Result

  • Live in production as a SaaS platform for Gulf merchants.

Visit menasa.ai

Node.jsPHPFirebase
03

Gaming analytics platform · Production recovery

Bringing an AI-written production system back online

Senior Backend Engineer · Hakuro 2025 – 2026 · Remote

Production was down on a gaming analytics platform. The codebase had been largely generated with AI tools, was poorly structured, and no one on the team could explain how it fit together.

What I did

  • Mapped how the services, data stores, search, and AWS infrastructure actually connected.
  • Fixed the failing parts and put the platform back in order.
  • Kept improving the existing backend step by step instead of rewriting it.

Result

  • Production restored and stable again.
PythonFastAPICeleryRabbitMQRedisPostgreSQLClickHouseMeilisearchAWS ECSS3CloudWatch
04

LLM review analysis · Hakuro

LLM review analysis with cost and quality controls

Senior Backend Engineer · Hakuro 2025 – 2026 · Remote

Turn thousands of game reviews into structured insights without letting LLM costs or bad output get out of hand.

What I did

  • Built GPT-4 and embeddings workflows that extract keywords, detect duplicate reviews, and score sentiment.
  • Cut LLM cost by more than 50% by skipping duplicates before model calls, and used smaller GPT mini models where they were good enough.
  • Checked output quality with human review of up to ~1K results.

Result

  • Structured keywords, sentiment, and reports for the platform's review analysis.
PythonOpenAI GPT-4GPT miniEmbeddingsCeleryRabbitMQPostgreSQL
05

Online games · Backend takeovers

Two backend takeovers with no handover

Senior Backend Engineer · Falafel Games Feb 2019 – Feb 2022 · Beirut

Two games lost their backend developers suddenly, with no handover. Muluk, a 4X strategy game originally developed in China, had a Java backend nobody understood, and its maintenance and new features had stalled. Taqki Live, a real-time hosted-question competition, lost its backend developer too.

What I did

  • Muluk: learned the Java backend and delivered the full backlog of maintenance and new features, with a contractual penalty clause on the line.
  • Taqki Live: learned the codebase on my own and shipped many new features.

Result

  • Muluk's backlog delivered in 3 months, meeting the contractual deadline.
  • New features shipped on Taqki Live.
JavaGoNode.jsNakamagRPCCockroachDBMongoDBRedis
06

ERP for restaurants and manufacturing · Client names withheld

Odoo ERP for restaurants and factories

Project Manager · ItCherry Sep 2025 – Apr 2026 · Beirut

Operational businesses needed software that matched their physical work: POS and kitchen, inventory movement, manufacturing and packaging, accounting, and staff attendance, with real hardware in the loop.

What I did

  • Ran requirements analysis, solution planning, and delivery, as the link between clients and the technical team.
  • Led delivery of Odoo Enterprise 18 workflows for POS, menus, discounts, receipts, purchasing, accounting, inventory, manufacturing, packaging, and warehouses.
  • Coordinated hardware integrations: RFID employee login and attendance, kitchen and receipt printers, label printers, and POS scales.
  • Set up delivery-company invoicing and reconciliation, digital menus, and operational reporting.

Result

  • Complex business rules turned into ERP workflows running in production.
Odoo Enterprise 18POSInventoryManufacturingAccountingRFIDPrintersScale integrations

Smaller projects

A few smaller pieces of work.

Prototypes are labeled as such.

ERP data sync · Backend

Odoo Safe Database Sync

Remote-to-local Odoo synchronization with user caps, transaction reassignment, dependency-aware records, mapping, queues, and safety rules.

OdooPythonData sync

Game market intelligence · Prototype

signal-pulse

Go ingestion and Python workers with pgvector topic clustering. Cut unclassified reviews from 1,346 to 185 on a 2,219-review test set, with an LLM agent that answers questions grounded in the data.

GoPythonPostgreSQLpgvectorLLM agents

Experience

Hands-on engineering, leadership, and delivery.

Overlapping dates reflect part-time or project-based work alongside full-time roles.

  1. Aug 2025 – Present

    Senior Backend Engineer (Contract), then Freelance

    Hakuro · Remote

    Backend services, data pipelines, and LLM workflows for a gaming analytics platform; restored production after an outage.

  2. Sep 2025 – Apr 2026

    Project Manager, Technical Delivery (Part-Time)

    ItCherry · Beirut

    Led Odoo ERP implementations end to end for restaurant and manufacturing businesses, as the link between clients and the technical team.

  3. Feb 2022 – Aug 2025

    Backend Technical Lead

    Nifty Craft · Estonia (Remote)

    Owned the complete backend of a real-time multiplayer Steam game: 100K+ registered players, 1K+ peak concurrent players.

  4. Feb 2019 – Feb 2022

    Senior Backend Engineer

    Falafel Games · Beirut

    Backend microservices for multiple online games, including Muluk and Taqki Live, both taken over without a handover.

  5. Feb 2018 – Feb 2019

    Software Engineer

    Arcazur · Beirut

    REST APIs plus the Android and iOS apps that used them; took over a client project without a handover.

  6. Oct 2016 – Present

    Independent Software Engineer (Project-Based)

    Remote

    Client projects in commerce, payments, delivery, and real-time apps, including the complete backend and database of Menasa.ai and systems serving 10K+ users.

  7. 2015 – 2018

    Instructor

    Al-Massar and Fakhruddin Institutes of Technical Science · Sidon

    Taught algorithms, logic circuits, computer technology and maintenance, computer components, math, and Microsoft Office.

  8. Mar 2013 – May 2013

    IT Support Intern

    Saida Governmental Hospital · Sidon

    General IT support: computers, networks, software, and users.

Capabilities

Technologies grouped by the problems they solve.

Real-time and multiplayer

GoNakamaWebSocketsgRPCRedisCockroachDBMatchmakingLeaderboardsConcurrencyLoad testing

Data and analytics pipelines

PythonFastAPICeleryRabbitMQPostgreSQLClickHouseMeilisearchBigQuery

AI features

OpenAI GPT-4EmbeddingspgvectorRAGPrompt engineeringLLM evaluationLLM cost control

Cloud and operations

AWS ECSEC2LambdaS3DynamoDBRDSIAMCloudWatchDocker and Docker ComposeKubernetes (ingress)CI/CD with GitHub ActionsDev, staging and production environmentsSecrets managementCloudWatch logs and alarmsPrometheusGrafanaNginx load balancingLinux

APIs and product delivery

REST APIsNode.jsExpressPHPLaravelJavaNext.js pagesAndroidiOS

Leadership and delivery

Code reviewMentoringClient communicationOdoo ERP delivery

About

From mobile apps to production backends.

I started in mobile and client projects, then moved into backend work, where the hard problems live: shared state, data, infrastructure, and business rules. Since 2019 I've built backends for online games and a gaming analytics platform, and led ERP delivery projects.

A recurring part of my work: teams hand me systems nobody else understands, without documentation or a handover, and I make them work again. I prefer to understand a system first, then improve it step by step instead of rewriting it.

When I lead, I keep delivery practical: clear tickets, real code review, and fewer surprises in production.

Before that, I taught computer science for three years at the Al-Massar and Fakhruddin technical institutes in Sidon, after starting out in IT support at Saida Governmental Hospital.

Contact

Let's talk.

Open to senior backend, technical lead, and game backend roles, plus consulting and contract work. Remote, or hybrid/onsite in Lebanon.

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