Micheal Macaulay

London, United Kingdom · Employed · early-stage UK company · remote from Lagos

Lead the backend for a hiring platform, working with a distributed team across several time zones. I own the API surface, the data model and the deployment path.

• Designed and built the REST API in NestJS and TypeScript, with the PostgreSQL schema and access patterns behind it.
• Cut p95 latency on the heaviest endpoints by about 25% by replacing N+1 relation loads with indexed joins.
• Implemented JWT and OAuth 2.0 authentication covering user sessions and payment-related flows.
• Reached 95% test coverage with Jest and Cypress across unit, integration and end-to-end suites.
• Documented every endpoint in Swagger, which is how new contributors get productive without a walkthrough.
• Set up the CI/CD path and the release process, using Prisma for schema changes and migrations.

Remote · Independent contracts · clients in Germany, France, India and the UK

Backend contracts for international clients: email infrastructure, third-party API integrations, data ingestion and AI-assisted features. Most engagements were one to three months, delivered solo against someone else’s existing codebase.

• Cut memory use on a set of Node.js endpoints by around 65% by moving from buffering whole payloads to streaming them.
• Built an IMAP-to-Elasticsearch email sync service with Socket.io for realtime updates, containerised with Docker.
• Integrated OAuth 2.0 flows against third-party APIs, including token refresh that survives expiry without user action.
• Reached Top Rated on Upwork within two months of starting.

Lagos, Nigeria · Fashion e-commerce

Built and maintained the backend for a fashion e-commerce store — catalogue, orders, checkout and the payment gateway integration behind it.

• Built the store backend with Node.js, Express.js and MongoDB.
• Integrated the payment gateway and rebuilt the checkout path; both conversion and page weight improved measurably.
• Refactored the backend architecture into clearer service boundaries, which made the order flow testable.
• Worked directly with the frontend team on the API contract and the shape of the data they consumed.

Lagos, Nigeria · Two-month programme, not employment

Led the backend squad on the capstone build — PayEase, a payments service for small businesses — and mentored less experienced developers on the cohort.

• Built the PayEase API against the Paystack API for invoicing and payment collection.
• Implemented the authentication and authorisation model, and the transaction integrity rules around it.
• Ran code review for the squad and set the testing conventions the cohort worked to.
• Mentored junior developers through their first production-shaped codebase.

Obafemi Awolowo University · Ile-Ife, Osun, Nigeria

• Research assistant on an orthosis robotic arm project.
• Backend developer intern during the industrial work experience placement (SIWES).

Digital Witch · Lagos, Nigeria