Headline

Building Agents, Systems, Culture & Scaling Startups | Ex-Blinkit/Zomato, Park+ | Backend • Infra • DevOps • Distributed Systems | Helping Founders & Engineers Grow

About

Hi, I’m Vikas Pal ⚙️🚀 I’m a Senior Backend Engineer with 5+ years of experience building and scaling backend systems that don’t just work — they fly. I specialize in turning chaos into clean architecture, building products from zero to production, and ensuring they scale seamlessly under pressure. From writing clean Golang microservices to designing distributed systems, leading high-performing teams, and owning infra at scale, I bring a builder's mindset and an operator’s obsession for uptime. I’ve worked across the full stack of backend and DevOps — ✅ Built & scaled core platforms handling millions of requests ✅ Led 8+ engineers across product pods and platform initiatives ✅ Conducted 100+ interviews to hire and mentor top talent ✅ Owned critical systems in production — debugging, tuning, and making infra cost-efficient & resilient 🛠️ Tech I play with: 💻 Languages: Go, Python, JavaScript, C++ ⚡ Frameworks: Gin, Django, Flask, Node.js, Mux, TypeScript 🗄️ Databases: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, DynamoDB, Trino, Pinot, ElasticSearch 🔄 Streaming & Async: Kafka, RabbitMQ, Celery ☁️ Cloud & Infra: AWS, GCP, Docker, Kubernetes, Jenkins, Terraform, GitLab CI/CD 🏗️ System Design: Microservices, REST APIs, Event-driven architecture, HLD/LLD, Design Patterns I’m passionate about crafting high-availability, low-latency systems, automating everything, and writing code that makes both users and engineers happy. I love diving deep into infra bottlenecks, squeezing performance, and mentoring others to level up the backend game. When I’m not building, I’m usually experimenting with new tech, contributing to open source, or catching up on the latest in system design, distributed systems, and AI infra. 📬 Reach out: vikaspalbackenddev@gmail.com Let’s build something world-class.

Location

Gurugram

AI stack

anthropic apis

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Work experience

Engineering at Freehand, May 2026 - Present · 4 mos

Worker at Level Up Engineers, Sep 2024 - Present · 2 yrs, Creating Tech Content + Helping Founders and Students/Engineering Professional

Software Development Engineer II - Flash at Blinkit, Mar 2025 - May 2026 · 1 yr 3 mos, Gurugram, I'm currently working as a Tech Lead building Flash, a multi-tenant, microservices-based quick-services platform that enables technicians (MSTs) to resolve store-level and consumer-facing issues efficiently, significantly improving operational responsiveness and customer experience. Responsibilities & Achievements: - Led a team of 6 engineers as Tech Lead, owning technical direction, execution, and delivery of the Flash platform. - Designed and built the end-to-end backend architecture for a multi-tenant Flash platform, supporting multiple business tenants and use cases across stores and consumer fronts. - Reduced issue resolution time from ~72 hours to ~1 hour by streamlining technician workflows, real-time issue tracking, and faster service orchestration. - Architected scalable microservices-based systems, improving platform reliability, fault isolation, and performance under peak operational loads. - Collaborated closely with business, operations, and leadership stakeholders to translate on-ground operational challenges into impactful technical solutions. - Enabled seamless coordination between technicians, stores, and support teams through well-defined APIs and backend workflows. - Improved platform stability and observability by integrating monitoring, logging, and alerting best practices, ensuring high availability and faster incident resolution. - Drove strong cross-functional collaboration across product, mobile, infra, and operations teams to ensure smooth rollout and adoption at scale. Tech Stack: Go, Microservices, Kubernetes, Kafka, AWS, Grafana, Datadog

Software Development Engineer II - Nexus at Blinkit, Oct 2024 - Feb 2025 · 5 mos, Gurugram, Haryana, India, I currently work as a Lead Backend Engineer building Nexus, a platform service that enables Store Managers (SMs) and Cluster Managers (CMs) to receive real-time alerts, trace operational metrics, and gain actionable, mobile-first visibility to drive faster and more effective on-ground decision-making. Responsibilities & Achievements: - Led the end-to-end design and development of the Nexus backend platform, owning HLD, LLD, and core architectural decisions to ensure scalability, reliability, and extensibility. - Implemented the service using Go Clean Architecture and industry-standard design patterns, ensuring strong separation of concerns, testability, and long-term maintainability. - Built reusable backend components using Go-kit, enabling faster development and consistency across multiple services. - Designed and managed Kubernetes service manifests, enabling reliable production deployments and seamless horizontal scaling. - Integrated security, observability, and reliability best practices, including structured logging, metrics, and distributed tracing for full end-to-end visibility. - Integrated Jumbo Insight Service as the first tenant across Blinkit, enabling unified querying across multiple data sources via gRPC, without maintaining direct database or service connections. - Improved system decoupling, scalability, and security by abstracting data access behind a gRPC-based insights layer, significantly reducing tight coupling with underlying data stores. - Enabled faster and more reliable insights consumption for downstream services while maintaining clear ownership boundaries between platform and data layers. - Collaborated closely with product, operations, and business stakeholders to align platform capabilities with real operational needs and measurable business outcomes. Tech Stack: Go, Go-kit, gRPC, Kubernetes, Apache Pinot, Grafana, Loki, Datadog, AWS

Software Development Engineer II - Merchant at Blinkit, Jun 2024 - Sep 2024 · 4 mos, Gurugram, Haryana, India, I worked as a Backend Engineer focusing on building scalable, data-driven backend systems to improve operational efficiency and merchant experience. Responsibilities & Achievements: - Automated the end-to-end franchise payout workflow, reducing manual intervention by 96% and enabling faster, accurate, and reliable settlements at scale. - Built and enhanced backend systems for Supply Metrics and Merchant Services, enabling real-time visibility into key operational metrics. Integrated real-time analytics using Apache Pinot, empowering merchants with actionable insights for informed decision-making and effective manpower planning. - Collaborated closely with product, operations, and business teams to translate operational requirements into scalable backend solutions. - Designed services with a strong focus on reliability, performance, and observability to support business-critical workflows. Tech Stack: Go, Python, Postgres Apache Pinot, Kafka, AWS, Grafana, Kibana

Software Development Engineer II - Founding Engineer at Park+, Apr 2023 - Jun 2024 · 1 yr 3 mos, Gurugram, Haryana, India, 🏠 Built Dynamic Homepage for B2C app (9M+ users), boosting revenue by 60% across products and reducing bounce rate by 20%. (Golang) 📩 Integrated SMS pipeline into the notification service, reducing failure rate by 40%. (Golang) ☁️ Migrated CI/CD Jenkins pipeline and Apache Kafka cluster from AWS to GCP, improving scalability and cost efficiency. 🎯 Revamped streak-based quiz platform with rewards, transforming it from a content service to a social community. Implemented timer-based logic using Redis pub-sub, driving DAU growth by 60% (50K → 120K). 🛒 Developed recommendation engine from scratch, with random shuffle, co-viewed, co-purchased, and similar-item logic. Improved product visibility by 80% and conversion by 20%. 👨‍🏫 Mentored 4 SDE interns into full-time SDE-1 roles by reviewing PRs, leading sprint planning, architecture discussions, and system design sessions. 🔑 Owned critical services: Homepage, User, Notification, Recommendation Engine, ensuring scalability, reliability, and ongoing improvements. 💡 Skills: Go (Programming Language) · Python (Programming Language) · MongoDB · REST APIs · Django · MySQL · Redis · PostgreSQL · Elasticsearch · Apache Kafka · AWS · GCP · K8S

Software Development Engineer I - Founding Engineer at Park+, Jul 2022 - Mar 2023 · 9 mos, Gurugram, Haryana, India, ⚡ Developed and optimized Django APIs powering Mobile & Web apps with 1M+ daily active users, ensuring reliability and performance in production. 🔄 Implemented cron jobs & automation scripts for tasks like image uploads to SMTP servers and notification workflows, reducing manual overhead. 🚀 Boosted API performance from 3s to 300ms by introducing caching, async flows, and redeveloping APIs from scratch for new product releases. 🤝 Collaborated with Product, Mobile, and Frontend teams to deliver new features and support ad-hoc requirements in fast-paced releases. 🧩 Contributed across multiple microservices including Vehicle, Valet, and Users, ensuring seamless integration and scalability. 💡Skills: Go (Programming Language) · Python (Programming Language) · MongoDB · REST APIs · Django · MySQL · Redis · PostgreSQL · Elasticsearch · Apache Kafka · AWS · GCP · K8S

Software Development Engineer Intern - Founding Intern at Park+, Aug 2021 - Jun 2022 · 11 mos, On-site, ⚡ Optimized API endpoints in User Service by implementing caching, reducing average response time from 1.2s to 250ms and improving system throughput. 🚗 Built Vehicle Service from scratch, developing endpoints for vehicle search and management, enabling seamless integration across platforms. 🔗 Integrated multiple partner services for vehicle owners (insurance, RC validation, etc.), enhancing product offerings and user experience. 🧪 Implemented unit and integration testing across Vehicle Service, ensuring high test coverage, reliability, and faster release cycles. Skills: Go (Programming Language) · Python (Programming Language) · MongoDB · REST APIs · Django · MySQL · Redis · PostgreSQL · Elasticsearch · Apache Kafka · AWS · GCP · K8S

Open Source Participant at GirlScript Summer of Code, Mar 2021 - May 2021 · 3 mos, ☞ Implemented Port Scanner Application to identify the open-port. ☞ Shifted the code-base from flask to Django, for scalability. Tech stack : Django, Python.

Education

Bachelor of Technology - BTech, Computer Science, Kurukshetra university

High School Diploma, Computer Science, GBN Govt Polytechnic Nilokheri