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Arkynate
Pixel-art portrait of Paolo in a leather smithing apron

The Smith

About me

I’m Paolo — a software architect who can’t stop building things.

By day I design the systems behind big platforms: integrations, migrations, and data that has to stay correct under real load. After hours, the forge is for fun. I make games for the web, the iPhone and Reddit, apps I wanted on my own phone, and small tools that save me time — 5 of them are out in the world right now, and you can browse them on the shelves.

I used to play StarCraft II competitively, and I still read a system the way I read a map: the whole board, not just the next move. I’ve spent years working with teams across time zones, mostly in writing, and I like leaving things better documented than I found them.

Everything here ships with release notes in the Forge Log. If you want something built, the commissions page is the door.

Skill tree

Four specialisations and the traits behind them. Pick a node to see what it covers.

Operator portrait
Principal · Class: Archon

Jose Paolo Javier

Founder & Operator · Arkynate Labs
10+ years · enterprise architecture, data & integration, applied AI · Manila and Tokyo

Traits & perks

Map Awareness
Pro-gamer instinct (Mineski, SC2) — sees the whole system, not just the ticket.
Zero-Downtime Nerve
Runs live cutovers and migrations without flinching — because the rollback is tested.
Documentarian
Leaves ADRs and runbooks behind. The team is stronger after the engagement than before.
Async-Native
Forged in international remote teams (Tokyo). Communicates in writing, ships on overlap.
STUDIO · CORE

Full-Stack Systems

All classes · production-grade
Four domains, each battle-tested in a real production system. This is the surface area Arkynate can engineer against.
KotlinJavaSpring BootTypeScriptReactAWS
ArchitectureEngineeringAIStrategy
  • Full-Stack Systems (STUDIO · CORE, 10 YRS) — Kotlin, Java, Spring Boot, TypeScript, React, AWS — Four domains, each battle-tested in a real production system. This is the surface area Arkynate can engineer against.
  • Distributed Systems (ARCHITECTURE, 8 YRS) — Kafka, MongoDB, Kubernetes, Docker — Systems that stay correct and available across nodes, regions, and failure modes. Consistency, partitioning, and the trade-offs that bite in production.
  • Event-Driven Arch (ARCHITECTURE, 6 YRS) — Kafka, Debezium, CDC Pipelines, Idempotent Consumers — Kafka, CDC, exactly-once delivery, and service choreography that never blocks. Ordering and idempotency as first-class design.
  • Multi-Tenant SaaS (ARCHITECTURE, 4 YRS) — PostgreSQL, Flyway, Spring Security, JWT Auth — Tenant isolation, scoped data access, and per-tenant config as foundations — not retrofits.
  • Enterprise Architecture (CAPSTONE, 5 YRS) — Integration Patterns, Cloud Architecture, AWS, Azure — Integration architecture, cloud stack selection, ADR libraries, and enablement for a platform serving 2M+ members.
  • Backend APIs (ENGINEERING, 10 YRS) — Kotlin, Java, Spring Boot, REST Design, WebSocket / STOMP — Java/Kotlin Spring REST APIs across web, mobile, and partner clients — to a standard that survives real traffic.
  • Performance Eng (ENGINEERING, 5 YRS) — JVM Profiling, SQL Tuning, Distributed Tracing, Load Testing — Profilers, execution plans, traces. Took a booking path to sub-1s P99 across 300+ integrations.
  • CDC & Pipelines (ENGINEERING, 4 YRS) — Debezium, Kafka Connect, MongoDB, PostgreSQL — Debezium-sourced capture, ordered streams, idempotent sinks. Sub-100ms sync across heterogeneous DBs.
  • Zero-Downtime Migration (CAPSTONE, 3 YRS) — MongoDB Atlas, Shard-Key Design, Dual-Write Cutover, Azure Networking — On-prem → managed sharded cluster with zero downtime. Dual-write, rehearsed cutover, tested rollback.
  • AI-Augmented Dev (AI, 2 YRS) — Claude Code, Agent Orchestration, AI Code Review — Frontier tooling as a senior-engineer force multiplier — search, refactor, tests, docs. One human at small-team velocity.
  • LLM Tooling (AI, 2 YRS) — Anthropic API, Structured Output, Prompt Caching, Evals — Building with LLM APIs: prompt architecture, structured output, evals, and guardrails for trustworthy systems.
  • Agentic Workflows (AI, 1 YR) — Multi-Agent Pipelines, Tool Use, Workflow Orchestration — Multi-step agent loops wired into real delivery pipelines. AI amplifies intent — it never replaces it.
  • Applied ML Systems (CAPSTONE, 2 YRS) — Model Serving, Feature Pipelines, ML Observability — ML-powered architecture that learns and scales — model serving, feature pipelines, and the observability to keep them honest.
  • Systems Thinking (STRATEGY, 15 YRS) — StarCraft II, Trade-off Analysis, Post-Mortems — Forged as a pro StarCraft player and captain at Mineski: map awareness, build orders, post-game analysis as improvement.
  • ADRs & Docs (STRATEGY, 6 YRS) — ADR Libraries, Runbooks, C4 / Architecture Diagrams, Confluence — Documentation as the memory of a system. ADR libraries that outlive team changes.
  • Team Enablement (STRATEGY, 5 YRS) — Training Programmes, Mentorship, Code Review Culture — Ran the training programme for all IT application engineers at an enterprise. Leave the team stronger.
  • Technical Leadership (CAPSTONE, 5 YRS) — Stack Selection, Technical Roadmapping, Stakeholder Comms — Lead Developer → Enterprise Architect. Setting direction, selecting stacks, owning the call.
  • Map Awareness (innate trait) — Pro-gamer instinct — sees the whole system, not just the ticket. Reads second-order effects before they land.
  • Zero-Downtime Nerve (innate trait) — Runs live cutovers and migrations without flinching — because the rollback is rehearsed and tested.
  • Documentarian (innate trait) — Leaves ADRs and runbooks behind. The team is stronger after the engagement than before it.
  • Async-Native (innate trait) — Forged in international remote teams. Communicates in writing, ships on overlap, never blocks on a meeting.
  • APM (innate trait) — Actions per minute, applied to shipping — high-tempo execution that never drops the macro plan.
  • Scout (innate trait) — Probes early and often — new stacks, tools, and models are scouted and evaluated before they are needed.
  • Macro (innate trait) — Plays the long game — invests in architecture and docs that compound over quarters, not sprints.