Hi, I'm Kareem

Senior Software Engineer based in Toronto. I design and build large-scale backend platforms in Go — notification systems, social features, and event-driven infrastructure serving 90M+ monthly users.

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About

I'm a backend engineer with 10+ years of experience building the systems behind consumer products at scale. For the last seven years I worked at Wattpad, where I led the rebuild of the notification platform — moving delivery off a PHP monolith onto Go services handling 1,700+ notifications per second — and drove the consolidation of comments, reactions, and trust & safety into a unified Social Platform.

Before that I was at Cisco Systems, where I received the 2018 Cisco Pioneer Award for core contributions to pyATS, Cisco's flagship network test framework.

I care about pragmatic architecture, mentoring engineers into leadership, and keeping production boring. Outside of work, you'll find me exploring Toronto's food scene, traveling, and geeking out about aviation. I'm always open to connecting — whether it's about technology, engineering culture, or just to chat.

Experience

Wattpad

2019 — 2026

Senior Software Engineer · Notifications & Social Platforms

  • Architected and led the rebuild of Wattpad's notification stack, replacing PHP monolith delivery with Go services (Kafka, gRPC/Protobuf) handling 1,700+ notifications/sec for 90M+ monthly active users, eliminating weekly incidents triggered by high-traffic story releases.
  • Built the notification scheduling engine (EventBridge, Lambda, DynamoDB) that enabled campaign-based marketing notifications for the first time, driving a 30% increase in campaign-driven engagement.
  • Led the consolidation of comments, reactions, and trust & safety logic into a unified Go-based Social Platform.
  • Migrated Social Feed infrastructure to Go services, driving a 40% increase in feed engagement.
  • Led technical mentoring for a team of 6, coaching intermediate engineers into project leadership.

Cisco Systems

2015 — 2019

Software Engineer III · Core Software Group

  • Awarded the 2018 Cisco Pioneer Award for core contributions to pyATS (Python Automated Test Solutions), Cisco's flagship test framework used globally for network device automation and validation.
  • Architected a Django web application that automated Cisco package distribution, reducing release processing time by 400% through automated validation, testing, and documentation generation.
  • Led development of Xpresso, an internal CI platform delivering end-to-end test execution, testbed management, and analytics, transitioning architecture from monolithic Django to cloud-based microservices.
  • Built a RESTful API gateway and real-time Kafka consumer services using Node.js and Express, enabling WebSocket-driven live updates and improved system scalability.
  • Developed 10+ reusable Angular components and visualization tools that transformed YAML configurations into interactive network graphs, significantly improving developer experience.

Ciena

2013 — 2014

Software Development Intern · Packet XC Development

  • Developed automation tooling and test frameworks for SONET/SDH packet transport systems using test-driven development and automated regression testing, improving system reliability.
  • Built log parsing and validation scripts that streamlined security analysis and debugging workflows for development teams.
  • Collaborated with engineers to identify and triage critical software defects discovered through automated testing.

Resume

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