txNick Babaei

Technical Lead @ Gemaxiom · open to senior roles

Fourteen years shipping production software. Lately, with a fleet of agents.

Senior Full-Stack Engineer and Technical Lead — React, TypeScript, Node.js and Python across fintech, healthcare, rail, European e-commerce and AI data platforms, for teams in the US, UK and the Netherlands.

Read the 14-day storyRésumé
~/tntfx.io

$ status

nameHossein (Nick) Babaei

roleTechnical Lead · Gemaxiom

sinceFeb 2012 · 14+ yrs in production

baseIstanbul, Turkey · remote

open tosenior full-stack & tech-lead roles

permanent or contract

$ last 14 days @ gemaxiom

~300 PRs · 1,100+ commits · 135 releases

$ ▍

Shipped for: Gemaxiom, super.AI, Helical AI, Zanders, GrandVision, PassionatePeople, NS Railways, INFO, Sadad, Vesta Boot, Infotech, TETA

§01Impact

Numbers that shipped.

Measured outcomes from production work — each one traceable to a specific role below.

Faster frontend runtime
42%
React Compiler, no migration overhead@ Zanders
Revenue increase
24%
Optimizely A/B testing workflows@ GrandVision
Faster barcode scanning
65%
React Native camera module@ NS Railways app
Less type-sync work
~60%
Kubb codegen from FastAPI OpenAPI@ super.AI
Less publish overhead
~70%
Monorepo unifying 5 products@ Zanders
Dead lines deleted
311k
Each verified unreferenced first@ Gemaxiom

§02Now · Technical Lead

Fourteen days at Gemaxiom.

A live multi-tenant SaaS with no tests, no infrastructure-as-code, no environments and no pipeline. I was hired to make it production-ready.

Full case study
Pull requests merged
~300
Commits
1,100+
Versioned releases
135
Automated checks, from zero
~6,650
Sep 16 → Sep 29, 202614 days

  1. Sep 16First commit

  2. Sep 16–22First week: Terraform dev environment, CI/CD, 0 → 91 tests

  3. Sep 20–28React migration: 42,465-line monolith → ~40 routes behind parity tests

  4. Sep 28GitHub Actions stops starting jobs — spending limit reached

  5. Sep 29Full CI gate rebuilt locally; 5 releases reach dev in 3 deploys

The arc — each step made the next one safe

  1. Audit→
  2. Dev environment & CI/CD→
  3. Tests→
  4. Monorepo & dead code→
  5. Local dev→
  6. React migration→
  7. AI agent features→
  8. Staging next

One process, every PR, every agent

  1. Issue→
  2. Worktree→
  3. Semver bump→
  4. Independent reviewer model + self code-review→
  5. Full test suite→
  6. Merge→
  7. Watch the deploy

Many Claude Code sessions in parallel — 30 git worktrees at the peak — each on its own branch. When GitHub Actions hit its spending limit on day 13, the full CI gate was running locally by the next morning.

§03Experience

The log, newest first.

From ERP modules in 2012 to making an AI-built SaaS production-ready in 2026.

  1. Sep 2026 – Present

    Remote

    now

    Gemaxiom — Technical Lead

    Multi-tenant strategy / decision-intelligence SaaS · Arc.dev contract

    • ▸Ran a production-readiness audit of a live multi-tenant SaaS — 55 tracked findings across security, infrastructure, architecture and testing.
    • ▸Built the AWS development environment entirely in Terraform — ECS Fargate (Spot), CloudFront over a private S3 bucket, an internal ALB, RDS Postgres 17, Cognito and a self-healing NAT instance — for ~$35/month.
    • ▸Replaced laptop-run deploy scripts with trunk-based CI/CD in GitHub Actions: OIDC federation with no stored credentials, one immutable image per commit promoted unchanged between environments, ECS circuit-breaker rollback, and post-deploy smoke tests against real Cognito sign-in.
    + 5 more
    • ▸Took automated testing from zero to ~6,650 checks in 14 days (1,236 end-to-end and screenshot-parity specs plus ~5,400 unit tests), including multi-tenant isolation asserted directly against Postgres row-level security.
    • ▸Retired a 42,465-line JavaScript monolith in 8 days, porting it to ~40 React/TypeScript routes — every port held to screenshot-parity tests committed before any React code.
    • ▸Restructured the repository into a monorepo, moving ~715 files with zero application-code changes (each step proven by byte-comparing the deployed artefact), and deleted 311,000 lines of unreferenced code.
    • ▸Built the agent layer on the OpenAI Agents SDK: an objective becomes portfolios, programs and projects level by level, each decided by a three-sample vote over a fixed ontology, then researched on the web with cited sources.
    • ▸Ran many Claude Code agent sessions in parallel — up to 30 git worktrees at the peak — on one strict per-PR process: ~300 pull requests, 1,100+ commits and 135 versioned releases in the first 14 days.
    TerraformAWSGitHub ActionsPostgreSQLReactTypeScriptOpenAI Agents SDKClaude CodeCase study

  2. Sep 2025 – Jul 2026

    US (Remote)

    super.AI — Senior Full-Stack Engineer

    Agentic workflows platform for unstructured data processing · 11-month Toptal assignment

    • ▸Delivered production features across a Python/FastAPI backend and React/TypeScript frontend, including data-view, runs-view, PDF viewer, SSO, tag-scoping, and worker/reviewer workflows.
    • ▸Implemented Kubb-based TypeScript code generation from FastAPI OpenAPI specs — a 1-minute script replaced manual type hunting across the frontend, cutting developer time on type-sync work by ~60% and shifting contract errors to compile-time rather than runtime.

    Engagement ended when the company reduced its external contractor headcount due to financial constraints.

    PythonFastAPIReactTypeScriptshadcn/uiKubbTemporalSupabaseLiteLLMTiptap

  3. Oct 2025 – Dec 2025

    UK (Remote)

    Helical AI — Senior Full-Stack Engineer

    helical-ai.com · Fixed-term 3-month arc.dev contract, part-time; concurrent with super.AI

    • ▸Introduced tRPC and Kubb, eliminating API contract drift between frontend and backend services.
    • ▸Delivered the multi-tab notebook interface — the most requested feature by existing customers and a prerequisite for the company’s investor pitch; resolved a long-standing UX gap that had been a friction point in every customer conversation.
    • ▸Identified and resolved critical security vulnerabilities ahead of a scheduled penetration test.
    TypeScripttRPCKubbReact

  4. Sep 2023 – Aug 2025

    Netherlands (Remote)

    Zanders — Technical Lead

    • ▸Introduced React Compiler with no migration overhead, improving frontend runtime performance by 42% across the product.
    • ▸Integrated Kubb for automated TypeScript codegen from OpenAPI specs, eliminating all manual type maintenance.
    • ▸Designed monorepo architecture unifying 5 separate products under shared packages — eliminated the publish-to-test cycle that previously made cross-product core updates a cascade of breakages, reducing inter-package publish overhead by ~70% and making dependency upgrades safe and immediate.
    + 2 more
    • ▸Built an internal RAG-based AI assistant for private knowledge retrieval and experimentation.
    • ▸Led the existing team through an architectural uplift — establishing code-review standards, CI/CD practices, and mentoring engineers to work efficiently within the new monorepo structure.

    External Technical Lead engagement concluded after delivery of the planned architecture, workflow improvements, and team uplift.

    TypeScriptReactPythonMaterial-UI (MUI)PostgreSQLVite

  5. Jul 2021 – Aug 2023

    Netherlands (Remote)

    PassionatePeople — Senior Software Engineer

    GrandVision European e-commerce platform

    • ▸Integrated Optimizely A/B testing workflows, contributing to a 24% revenue increase on the GrandVision e-commerce platform.
    • ▸Implemented OneTrust cookie consent for GDPR compliance across multiple European storefronts.
    • ▸Migrated transactional email templates to MJML + React — 50% reduction in maintenance time.

    Following EssilorLuxottica’s acquisition, GrandVision released 42 external engineers. PassionatePeople retained me on payroll during the bench period; I later chose to leave and pursue independent opportunities.

    TypeScriptNode.jsReactNext.jsOptimizelyMJML

  6. May 2019 – Apr 2021

    Netherlands

    INFO — Software Engineer

    NS Railways app — highest-traffic mobile app in the Netherlands

    • ▸Built a React Native barcode-scanning camera module, reducing scan time by 65% on a high-traffic mobile app.
    • ▸Delivered a project on Microsoft Azure — Azure Functions, Cosmos DB, and Azure Storage.
    • ▸Built a route optimisation tool for field bike technicians — calculated daily routes that minimised travel time while accounting for broken, healthy, and surplus bike counts across stations, reducing unnecessary stops and improving fleet repair throughput.
    React NativeJavaScriptTypeScriptAzure FunctionsCosmos DBAzure Storage

Earlier career · 2012–2019

  1. Jan 2018 – Apr 2019

    Sadad Informatic Corporation — Senior Frontend Engineer

    Built an internal code generator adopted org-wide — 400% increase in team throughput. Delivered a DApp proof-of-concept for blockchain-based payment flows using Web3.js and Ethereum smart contracts.

  2. Aug 2014 – Dec 2017

    Vesta Boot — JavaScript Engineer

    Full-stack delivery across insurance, clinical, and internal tooling domains. Built a CLI tool that improved project velocity by 300% across engineering teams.

  3. Aug 2013 – Jul 2014

    Infotech — Frontend Engineer

    Built a modularised SPA admin panel using AngularJS, Sass, and Grunt.

  4. Feb 2012 – Jan 2013

    TETA — Frontend Engineer

    Developed a web-based BPMN editor as an ERP module; built frontend components for multiple ERP modules.

§04Lab

Things I build after hours.

Solo, with AI coding agents as pair: a deep dive into AI and LLM engineering, a startup, and a trading bot.

Live on a VPSMar 2026 – ongoing

Sparrow

A client-agnostic MCP knowledge server

Durable memories, skills and a RAG library behind one MCP server that Claude Code, Codex, Gemini, ChatGPT and JAI all use — plus Google Workspace, Microsoft, Slack and Linear as tools. About six agent and chat clients came and went on top of it; the knowledge plane stayed.

Claude Code · Codex · Gemini · ChatGPT · JAI ──MCP──▶ sparrow ──▶ memories · skills · library · connectors

  • —48 MCP tools across 11 domains, OAuth 2.1
  • —Hybrid FTS5 + sqlite-vec search, MRR 0.774 → 0.802 on 193 labeled searches
  • —Chunked embeddings: vector search past page one, 19 → 46 of 60 found in the top 5
  • —Moved to a 1 vCPU / 2 GB VPS with 13 s of downtime
TypeScriptMCP SDKExpressSQLite · FTS5 · sqlite-vecONNX / transformers.jsReact 19
Runs from sourceSep 2026 – ongoing

JAI

A Jarvis-style personal agent

One entry point — typed or spoken — that answers, and starts and watches workflows, schedules and its own subagents. The Electron app shows the whole system as a live graph; Sparrow stays its knowledge plane over MCP.

  • —Speech-to-speech voice mode with JAI kept the only brain
  • —Work outlives the UI: answers run in the main process and replay into any reopened view
  • —Every provider request and response captured to a readable wire log
MastraElectronReact 19React FlowLibSQLDuckDBGemini Live
Coming-soon page liveJan 2026 – ongoing

heal.voyage

Broker-first health-tourism SaaS for Türkiye

Brokers arrange care for foreign patients, found through a public, SEO-indexed doctor and hospital directory. Rewritten from scratch as a monorepo, with schemas, core logic and i18n kept free of Next, DOM and React Native so a mobile app can reuse them.

  • —4 locales including RTL (en, tr, ru, ar)
  • —Statically rendered directory, one URL per doctor and hospital
  • —Shared broker pool and an 8-stage case pipeline
Next.js 16tRPC 11FirestoreZod 4next-intlTurborepo
heal.voyage
Paper trading2021 · restarted Mar 2026

Kryptonite

A reactive grid-trading bot

Watches price and fires a market order when a grid line is crossed — no resting orders on the exchange. SQLite is the source of truth and bots auto-resume after restarts. Now retargeting gold.

  • —Backtests run the real engine on 4 months of Binance 1-minute candles
  • —Per-level state machine ended zero-profit buy/sell churn
  • —Broker behind a swappable interface (eToro → KuCoin)
TypeScriptFastify 5tRPC 11SQLite · DrizzleReact 19Vitest
The 2021 write-up

Other client & freelance work

  • Curriculum Advances

    EdTech · Mar 2025 – May 2025 · 4 coworkers · Freelance

    An educational platform designed to teach essential skills while capturing students' attention, built with modern web technologies and real-time features.

    TypeScript · Next.js · Firebase · PostgreSQL · React

  • SETT — Slides Management

    Productivity · Oct 2024 – Jan 2025 · 3 coworkers · Freelance

    A platform for accessing and managing personalized collections of slides, helping users browse materials tailored to support faster, data-driven decisions.

    TypeScript · React · Next.js · Firebase · PostgreSQL

  • AutoApp

    Automotive

    Tech lead responsible for picking the tech stack, interviewing team members, service design, application architecture, server setup, and stakeholder communication.

    TypeScript · React · JavaScript · Node.js

  • EHR System

    Healthcare

    Electronic Health Records system for a private clinic enabling doctors and patients to access health records based on strict role-based access control.

    TypeScript · React · Node.js · PostgreSQL

  • Insurance Loyalty System

    FinTech

    Full-stack loyalty platform for an insurance company enabling administrators to create complex and flexible reward conditions.

    TypeScript · React · Node.js · JavaScript

§05Stack

Deep where it counts.

React and TypeScript are the decade-deep core. Python and the AI/LLM stack are recent — and in production.

Years in production, of 14
  • TypeScript / JavaScript10+ yrs
  • React~10 yrs
  • AWS~5 yrs
  • Python~2 yrs

Frontend

React · React Native · Next.js · TypeScript · JavaScript (ES2022+) · Vite · MUI · Tailwind CSS · shadcn/ui

Backend

Node.js · Python · FastAPI · Pydantic · REST APIs · GraphQL · WebSockets · tRPC

Infra & Data

PostgreSQL · Redis · MongoDB · Docker · Nginx · AWS · Azure (Functions, Cosmos DB, Blob Storage) · CDK · Pulumi · CI/CD · OpenAPI / Swagger · Kubb · Supabase · Terraform · GitHub Actions

AI / LLM

Claude SDK · Claude Code · OpenAI SDK · OpenAI Agents SDK · Mastra · OpenRouter · LiteLLM · Codex · Ollama · MLX · RAG · Vector search · Embeddings · sqlite-vec · MCP · Context engineering · Harness engineering

Practices

Technical leadership · Monorepo architecture · Code review · Agile / Scrum · Mentoring

§06Writing

Notes from the field.

On Medium, mostly in Level Up Coding — lately about going from AI skeptic to AI-first.

All 9 posts

§07Recommendations

In their words.

7 recommendations from managers, leads and teammates — verbatim from LinkedIn.

View on LinkedIn
I had the pleasure of working with Hossein on a high-pressure project with tight deadlines and demanding stakeholders. He’s incredibly hardworking, deeply invested in the outcome, and always willing to go the extra mile. His mentorship of junior engineers played a key role in keeping the team on track, and his support ensured I was able to deliver my part on time. Hossein was a reliable and driven teammate.
JMJan MalčákBuilding Virtual Offices at BeZonedWorked with Hossein at different companies · June 2025
Great frontend software developer with a lot of Next.js knowledge which he applied in building the GrandVision SPA in a scalable way so all operating companies could onboard the platform and benefit from the state of the art scalable technology. Hossein is a great team player who fit very well in an agile software development team. He is taking responsibility on his work and is always willing to deliver the committed work items. Even though Hossein was working abroad he was always available in the timezone the rest of the team was working in, which was very supportive for all team agile rituals. I would recommend Hossein to any multi-disciplinary Agile software development team with a need for a great front-end developer.
BOBart OpstalProduct Owner & Digital Transformation ManagerManaged Hossein directly · October 2023
Hossein is a motivated, skillful and forward-thinking fullstack software engineer. He has the ability to tackle complex software engineering challenges and a passion for cloud technologies. A great asset to any team, as he’s open, upfront and easy to work with and possesses great mentoring skills.
SMStefan MirckStaff+ EngineerSenior to Hossein · June 2021
During the short period we collaborated in the same project I noticed that Hossein is very good with people and always wants to get the best out of his day. He is very committed to his job, eager to get things done and wants to provide the best solution for the client. He’ll help people out where help is needed and he also brings a lot of good vibes to the team. Anyone would be lucky to have Hossein as a colleague!
RVDBRomy van der BeekProduct Designer at INFOWorked with Hossein on the same team · April 2021
During some projects I had the pleasure to work together with Hossein. He is a great full stack developer who can keep an overview of what is important during development process. He can bring down technical complex situations into logical parts and knows how to explain his solution to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. Besides his technical knowledge it’s very pleasant to work together as he always brings a smile on your face, at least once a day!
AVArjan VerusHead of Solution Architecture, founder of fresk.digitalWorked with Hossein on the same team · April 2021
Over the past two years, I had the pleasure to collaborate closely with Hossein in our development team. He’s a terrific team player, always making the best out of everything. Hossein is an asset for your team; playing an active role in advising, being proactive in collaborating and by having a problem solving mindset. You were a great sparring partner during our brainstorms and ideation sessions. Aside from someone who’s working very hard and is highly motivated, Hossein is a very social colleague who brings a lot of joy to the team.
JGJoy Gangemi-JansenHuman Centred Designer at fresk.digitalWorked with Hossein on the same team · April 2021
Hossein is one of the most experienced and sharp engineers I ever worked with. He is a great mentor and team leader. Hope we can work together again in the future.
ITIoannis TheodosiouLead Software EngineerWorked with Hossein on the same team · April 2021

§08Background

Education

  • Master of Engineering, Computer Engineering

    Atlas Üniversitesi · Feb 2026 – Present

  • Bachelor of Engineering, Computer Engineering

    Mazandaran University · Sep 2005 – Sep 2009

    Grade 15.79

Recognition

  • Passionate People Engineering Coding Challenge — Champion

    2022

  • National Computer Olympiad — Ranked 32nd

    2009

Volunteering

  • Team Lead, React Native Frontend

    Health Gateway Africa Trust · Oct 2022 – May 2023

    Remote frontend development for a healthcare platform in Africa.

Languages

  • English

    Professional working proficiency

  • Persian

    Native

§09Contact

Hiring a senior engineer or a tech lead? Let's talk.

Open to senior full-stack and technical-lead roles, permanent or contract, with a preference for long-term collaboration. Based in Istanbul, Turkey; remote-first.

[email protected]
Phone
+90 546 182 2118
LinkedIn
in/tntfx256
GitHub
tntfx256
Medium
@tntfx256