Mahmudul Alam

Rebuilding the frontend architecture behind Catarse

Architected and led the frontend for one of Brazil’s largest crowdfunding platforms, and cut the cost of shipping a new feature by roughly a third.

• TypeScript
• React
• Next.js

Shipping crypto on-ramp/off-ramp under KYC

Built US payment methods, crypto on-ramp/off-ramp flows and identity verification into a live crowdfunding platform, where a failed payment is somebody’s funded project.

• TypeScript
• Stripe
• Bridge

A backend API for 400,000+ users

Led delivery of the backend API serving 400,000+ users and millions of requests, plus the React Native client that talked to it over BLE, NFC and QR.

• Python
• TypeScript
• React Native

How a ‘Dream Freelance Gig’ Tried to Run Malware on My Mac

A fake recruiter sent me a confidential project brief as a Git repo. Hidden in .git/hooks was a dropper that fires the moment you check out a branch.

Spec-Driven Development with Claude: A Professional Guide to Consistent AI-Assisted Coding

Spec-driven development with Claude: writing the spec first, structuring the context it reads, and the workflow that makes AI-assisted coding repeatable.

jq: JSON on the Command Line

A practical guide to jq: piping JSON in, pretty-printing, filtering and reshaping it, with the handful of expressions worth committing to memory.

HTTP, Demystified: How Browsers and Servers Actually Talk

A working mental model of HTTP: URLs, methods and headers, then caching, cookies, CDNs, HTTP/2 and what HTTPS actually protects.

Beware: Marketplace Scammers Distributing Malware Through Fake Development Projects

How attackers are using freelance platforms to trick developers into running malicious code that steals data and credentials

How Git Actually Works: commits, trees and the object model

How Git stores your code: the object model behind commits, trees and blobs, and what branches, merges and the reflog really are underneath.