Satish
Samala
Staff Software Engineer building backend systems that don't fall over. 15+ years in healthcare claims, travel-tech, and PCI payment infrastructure across India and New Zealand.
I design for the load nobody sees coming: migrations on live systems, traffic spikes, compliance audits. I keep the lights on while doing it.
Hyderabad, India — RemoteWhat I actually do
Most of my career has been spent on the part of the building nobody photographs: the load-bearing wall, not the lobby.
I'm a backend engineer who specializes in changing the foundations of a live system without anyone upstairs noticing: PHP 7→8 migrations on production codebases with zero downtime, PCI-compliant payment engines, HIPAA-governed claims platforms processing high transaction volumes. I work across distributed, multi-country teams on end-to-end backend systems, and I've spent the last two years pushing AI-assisted engineering (GitHub Copilot, Claude Code) into daily practice, not as a novelty but as a way to ship more carefully, faster.
Software is being built with AI now, that's not a trend to resist, it's the baseline. I use AI assistants deliberately and responsibly: for velocity and coverage, never as a substitute for judgment, with quality held to the same strict bar regardless of who wrote the first draft. Targeting the Claude Certified Architect: Foundations credential this year.
Fifteen years, six structures
Read this the way a structural engineer reads a settlement curve: each deflection is a real transition, a new company, a new system, a new load. The line never breaks.
Itemized, in the order it happened
— PRESENT
Staff Software Engineer L5
- Backend Engineer on a SaaS Claims Management Platform processing high-volume healthcare claims, developing backend code that integrates with the React UI and QA within two-week sprint cycles.
- Delivering an active PHP 7 → 8 migration on a live, high-traffic production codebase with zero service disruption to date, holding every touched module to strict-typed, PHP 8-native coding standards throughout.
- Develop and maintain backend services built on AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, RabbitMQ, and Elasticsearch, writing for graceful degradation under load.
- Write PHPUnit test suites aimed at 100% code coverage on every module touched, testing rigor engineering leads have repeatedly praised.
- Champion AI-assisted engineering org-wide: delivered internal sessions on where Copilot and Claude Code add real value vs. where human review is essential, holding output to the same quality bar either way.
- Maintain strict HIPAA compliance across all systems handling sensitive healthcare data.
— APR 2023
Full Stack Engineer & Scrum Master
- Contributed to a PHP 7 → 8 migration on a 24/7 cloud SaaS platform while preserving the company's 100% uptime commitment.
- Designed and documented API integrations extending the platform through third-party systems.
- Acted as liaison between product management and the development squad, keeping technical decisions aligned with business priorities.
— OCT 2021
Web Developer
- Managed server infrastructure spanning on-premise and third-party virtual servers, with direct responsibility for uptime.
- Designed custom APIs and connectors to automate data exchange between third-party services and in-house systems built on Symfony.
— MAR 2018
Senior Web Developer
- Built and maintained PCI-compliant hotel booking engines handling live payment transactions.
- Developed and maintained REST APIs integrated with payment gateways.
- Informally took on AWS server management for the team, outside any formal title.
- Redesigned an existing platform for UX and SEO, increasing daily traffic by 30%.
— FEB 2014
Web Developer
- Architected and prototyped new applications; built and tested APIs for system-to-system data exchange across multiple client platforms.
— OCT 2012
Web Developer
- Foundational years in production web development, the start of fifteen years on live systems.
Three jobs where the foundation moved while the building stayed open
Migrating the load-bearing version of PHP, mid-tenancy
The Claims Management Platform processes high-volume healthcare claims data under HIPAA, around the clock, for live customers. Moving its core PHP runtime from version 7 to 8 means touching typed properties, modern syntax, and dependency compatibility across a codebase nobody gets to take offline.
As backend engineer, I work through the migration hands-on: sequencing changes, coordinating with the React frontend and QA teams, and validating each step against production traffic patterns before it ships. I'm passionate about writing strict, PSR-12-compliant PHP 8 code, and hold every module I touch to that standard.
Migration in progress with zero service disruption to date, on a live healthcare SaaS platform under active compliance audit.
A second 7→8 migration, this time against a 100% uptime promise
ezyVet's veterinary practice-management platform runs as a 24/7 cloud SaaS product with a contractual 100% uptime commitment to its customers. A second PHP major-version migration in my career, this one with even less room for error: any service interruption is visible to every clinic using the platform in real time.
I also designed and documented the API integrations that let the platform extend through third-party systems, and acted as the technical liaison between product management and the development squad, translating business priorities into engineering sequencing.
Migration delivered without breaching the platform's 100% uptime SLA.
Payment-grade booking engines, and a redesign that moved the traffic needle
STAAH's hotel booking engines handle live payment transactions under PCI compliance, a domain where security and reliability aren't optional features, they're the entire product. I built and maintained these engines and the REST APIs connecting them to payment gateways.
Separately, I redesigned an existing platform for improved UX and SEO, a rare front-of-house project in an otherwise backend-heavy career, and one with a number attached to it.
Platform redesign increased daily traffic by 30%.
What it's built from
| Languages | PHP (7.x / 8.x): primary, 15 years. Working knowledge of Java, Perl, JSP, PL/SQL. Active investment in Python: shipped production tooling (trading automation: Python, SQLite, Docker). Picks up new languages on the problem, not the label. |
| Distributed & Messaging | Apache Kafka, RabbitMQ, Elasticsearch: designing for scale and graceful degradation under load. |
| Cloud & Infrastructure | AWS, Azure, Docker, Kubernetes (CKAD certified), Heroku, Nginx. Picked up as part of the dev role at a few companies, including hands-on hosting platform management at a website development and maintenance firm. |
| Frameworks | Laravel, Symfony, CodeIgniter, Yii, PHPUnit, Selenium, TestNG. |
| Testing | PHPUnit unit testing, written to a strict, high-coverage standard, a die-hard advocate for 100% code coverage on every codebase touched. Testing rigor engineering leads have repeatedly praised. |
| Data | MySQL: schema design, indexing, query optimization at production scale. |
| Frontend-adjacent | ReactJS, HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, Ajax, JSON, XML: fluent enough to coordinate directly with frontend teams, not just hand off tickets. |
| AI-Assisted Engineering | GitHub Copilot, Claude Code: daily use in production workflow, used deliberately and responsibly with quality as the non-negotiable bar. Internal speaker on where AI coding assistants add real value vs. where human review stays essential. Targeting CCA-F (Claude Certified Architect: Foundations) this year. |
| Practice | Agile/Scrum (PSM I certified), CI/CD, code review. Leading by example, holding myself and the team to the highest coding standards, across distributed, multi-country teams. |
Education
Certifications
Let's talk about
what needs
holding up.
Based in Hyderabad, India. Open to remote, backend-led roles across healthcare, fintech, and other systems where reliability is the actual product, not a footnote on the roadmap.