Hi, I'm

Karan Agarwal

Backend Architect | Builder | Tinkerer

9+ years turning ideas into production systems — from enterprise SaaS to zero-to-one startups. I architect, build, ship, and own.

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About Me

I'm a backend architect and founding engineer based in Bangalore with over 9 years of experience designing and building distributed systems that actually work at scale. I've owned entire system lifecycles — from architecture and API design to deployment and production operations — across enterprise SaaS platforms and zero-to-one product builds.

I've built platforms serving Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Toyota, and Subaru, and most recently co-founded and architected a social platform from the ground up in Go. My sweet spot is microservices, real-time infrastructure, security design, and database systems — the kind of problems where the architecture decisions really matter.

I'm a builder at heart — equally comfortable architecting distributed systems and tinkering with home servers. Outside of work, I'm usually outdoors — playing football, diving, trekking, or solo travelling on plans made five minutes ago. I'm happiest when I'm building something from scratch or exploring something unfamiliar.

Projects

Yaara — Humans-Only Social Platform

Co-founded and architected a social platform with a 300-connection cap, pincode-based discovery, and democratic governance. Built a 6-service microservices backend in Go with real-time messaging, end-to-end encryption, and event-driven notifications. Designed and load-tested for 10,000+ concurrent users.

Go PostgreSQL MongoDB Redis RabbitMQ WebSocket Docker Flutter
GitHub

Enterprise Telematics & Insurance SaaS

Led backend architecture and delivery for enterprise SaaS platforms serving Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Toyota, Subaru, and Paul Hanson Partners. Drove microservices adoption, implemented SSO integrations (Keycloak, SAML), and automated OEM data pipelines — reducing manual processing and improving deployment velocity.

PHP Node.js PostgreSQL MySQL Redis Docker Jenkins Keycloak

Skills

Architecture

Microservices Clean Architecture Event-Driven Systems REST API Design Domain-Driven Design

Languages

Go PHP JavaScript Node.js Dart (Flutter) SQL

Databases & Storage

PostgreSQL MongoDB MySQL Redis ElasticSearch Apache Solr MinIO (S3)

Infrastructure

Docker RabbitMQ Jenkins CI/CD Linux Administration

Security & Auth

JWT Token Rotation SSO (Keycloak, SAML) AES-256-GCM Encryption OWASP Hardening

Real-Time

WebSocket Redis Pub/Sub Push Notifications

Experience

Co-Founder & Technical Architect

Yaara Social Technologies Pvt. Ltd. · Bangalore

May 2025 - Mar 2026

  • Architected a 6-service microservices backend in Go (Gin) with clean architecture, each service independently deployable.
  • Built real-time messaging via WebSocket + Redis Pub/Sub with AES-256-GCM end-to-end encryption.
  • Implemented JWT-based auth with token rotation, blacklisting, and Redis-backed distributed rate limiting.
  • Engineered event-driven notification pipeline using RabbitMQ + SendGrid.
  • Designed and load-tested the platform for 10,000+ concurrent users.
  • Delivered 60+ documented REST endpoints and led end-to-end Flutter mobile integration.

Independent Research & Product Development

Self-Directed · Bangalore

Aug 2023 - Apr 2025

  • Deep hands-on exploration of Go, distributed systems, and event-driven architecture.
  • Designed and validated product ideas leading to the founding of Yaara.

Senior Backend Engineer to Technical Lead

EOX Vantage · Bangalore

Apr 2018 - Jul 2023

  • Owned end-to-end design and delivery of telematics and insurance SaaS platforms for Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Toyota, and Subaru.
  • Drove microservices adoption, improving deployment velocity and reducing cross-team dependencies.
  • Architected SSO integrations (Keycloak, SAML) across multiple client-facing applications.
  • Led OWASP-based security hardening and server performance optimisation.
  • Mentored junior engineers and established code review standards.
  • Recognized with an Architect-level role offer based on sustained technical ownership.

Software Engineer

EOX Vantage · Bangalore

Apr 2017 - Apr 2018

  • Delivered full-stack features in PHP (Zend Framework 3) and optimised database schemas for scale.
  • Developed reusable plugins and libraries extending core product capabilities.

Data Engineer / Analyst (R&D)

EOX Vantage · Bangalore

Jun 2016 - Apr 2017

  • Automated multi-step data workflows using Talend ETL, reducing manual reporting effort by 60%.
  • Built reporting pipelines for high-profile insurance clients.

Get In Touch

I'm open to backend architect, senior engineer, and founding engineer roles. If you're building something interesting and need someone who can own it end-to-end — let's talk.

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