Arman Kolahan

Own platform and architecture for an org of 40–60 engineers: a shared Nx foundation, reusable libraries, and standardized tooling now supporting ~100 independently deployable applications across 10+ teams.

Drove architecture and migration strategy, consolidating five independently built apps and fragmented stacks into one scalable platform; documented service boundaries, GraphQL federation, and CI/CD trade-offs in ADRs, and improved onboarding so new engineers can contribute within their first week.

Designed a federated GraphQL architecture using Apollo Router on AWS Kubernetes, providing a unified API layer across independently owned domains and enabling teams to evolve and deploy backend services independently while maintaining consistent API contracts for frontend applications.

Designed and implemented the end-to-end release architecture with GitLab CI and Semantic Release, automating versioning, publishing, and deployment and enabling cross-repository testing across environments; cut full-release time from ~75 minutes to under 30 minutes (60% faster) and affected-change releases to under 10 minutes, covering unit, integration, e2e, performance, and contract tests, and enabling reliable releases multiple times per day.

Built developer-platform capabilities spanning code generation, shared libraries, automation, and developer tooling (including MCP integrations), reducing repetitive work so teams can independently build, test, release, and operate their applications.

Instrumented platform-wide observability with OpenTelemetry, improving incident diagnosis time across services.

Mentor 10+ engineers directly through code review and pair programming, with platform and tooling initiatives benefiting the broader 40–60 engineer org.

Led software architecture design for the company as part of a small (2–4 engineer) startup team, owning key technical decisions across the stack.

Designed and implemented backend services and integrations for financial products across web and mobile, using Nest.js and cloud infrastructure, integrating external systems including Stripe and DocuSign and supporting end-to-end product delivery.

Built the frontend and mobile clients (Next.js, React Native) on top of this backend, shipping both iOS and Android apps to production.

Set up CI with GitHub Actions and deployed on Google Cloud, and drove test coverage with Cypress, Jest, and React Testing Library to catch regressions before release.

Led architecture across a full-stack product as part of a 5–8 developer team, driving key decisions on Android app architecture (MVC/MVVM) and CI/CD design.

Built the Android, Android TV, and Fire TV apps from scratch, growing the product into a top-10 app in Italy; shipped live streaming, a Chromecast web app for live classes, and real-time chat via WebSockets.

Designed and built the backend in Java/Spring Boot and internal tools/admin dashboards in Vue, supporting both the app's core business logic and day-to-day operations.

Replaced manual, slow release processes by introducing GitLab CI/CD with automated deployments and a full integration/unit test suite, speeding up releases and reducing regressions as the app scaled.

Set up Firebase-backed infrastructure and multiple build configurations to support rapid iteration across Android, Android TV, and Fire TV.