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Hi, I’m Manan. I design systems.

I design the system. AI writes the code.

Backend first, then full stack. Now I design how software should work and let AI write most of it.

See my work

A little about me

Istartedinthebackend,wheretheworkisinvisibleandthestakesarereal.ThenIfolloweditupthestack,untilIcouldbuildaproductendtoend.Somewherealongthewaythetypingstoppedbeingthehardpart.TodayIspendmytimeonthedecisionsthatmatter:howasystemshouldwork,whereitshouldbend,andwhathappenswhenitbreaks.AIwritesmostofthecode.Imakesureit’stherightcode.

  1. My MacBook Air
    01

  2. A PS5 controller
    02

  3. AirPods Max
    03

  4. A pair of dumbbells
    04

  5. A light bulb
    05

  6. A potted plant
    06

What I believe

Judgement is the job

AI can write the code. Deciding what to build, what to leave out and when something is good enough is still on me.

Leave it better than you found it

Codebases, teams, conversations. I try to make every place I pass through a little clearer and a little kinder.

Honesty over comfort

Say what you know, admit what you don’t, and never let a status update hide a problem.

Curiosity is a discipline

“I don’t know yet” is my favourite sentence. The tools change every month; the habit of learning is what lasts.

Own the outcome, not the task

Shipping isn’t the finish line. The thing working for real people is, whoever or whatever wrote the code.

What I do

I decide how a system should work: the boundaries, the data and the failure modes. Then I direct AI to build it, and review the result like it’s mine. Because it is.

  • Architecture that fits on a whiteboard: clear boundaries, honest trade-offs and a plan for when things fail.

    • Architecture and boundaries
    • Data modelling
    • Failure modes

Where I’ve been

  1. Aug 2025 - now

    Full-stack engineer (SDE-1)

    SolarSquare

    Building across the whole stack, from APIs and data to the screens people use, and spending more and more of my time on the design: how a system should work, where it should bend and what happens when it breaks. AI writes most of the code; I make sure it’s the right code.

  2. Jun 2024 - Jul 2025

    Software engineer

    Novoinvent Softwares

    Backend for a fintech platform: transactions, bank integrations and data at scale, where correctness isn’t optional.

    • API latency down 60% by reworking SQL queries
    • 1,000+ concurrent transactions with no data corruption
    • 5,000+ bank files a day into wallets, 90% faster
    • 10M rows a day into Redshift, 15% faster processing
    • Database response times down 20% with indexing

  3. May 2023 - May 2024

    Software engineer intern

    Novoinvent Softwares

    Where it started: learning the craft next to senior engineers, from MySQL performance to shipping real features on AWS.

    • Invoice text extraction at scale with AWS Textract and S3
    • Query optimisation cut database load by 25%
    • Integrated external REST APIs into the platform

Things I’ve built

Writing

Latest, 20 Sept 2026

I stopped writing most of my code. I didn't stop engineering.

From backend to full stack to designing systems while AI writes the code, and what the job turned out to be all along.

Read it

14 Sept 2026, 1 min read

Why I love boring technology

The most exciting thing a system can do is nothing surprising at all.

2 Aug 2026, 1 min read

What being on call taught me about empathy

Incidents are rarely about the code. They're about the people on both sides of it.

Read all writing

Now

What has my attention, as of October 2026.

Building
This site. I designed it; AI wrote most of the code.
Learning
How to write specs so clear an AI can’t misread them.
Reading
Designing Data-Intensive Applications, again.
Thinking about
What engineering becomes when code is cheap and judgement isn’t.

Bookshelf

Books that rearranged something in my head.

Designing Data-Intensive Applications

Martin Kleppmann

The book that made backend click.