Rida Dzhaafar

I'm a senior backend engineer in Montreal. I own products from idea to production.

I build backend systems that have to hold up in production: distributed services, integrations between platforms, messaging and long-running workflows. Lately that includes AI systems, from MCP layers and agent orchestration to agents that run in production. I've done this in commerce, telecom, healthcare and government, in roles from founding engineer at a startup to tech lead at a larger company.

What I do best is the step between business and code: settling what "done" means, fitting the scope to the time available, designing the architecture and shipping it, then making sure it keeps working.

Some of that work:

• At Lightspeed, I built category sync end to end, a feature users of our X-Series and E-Series integration had wanted for a long time: design, migrations, backfills, incidents and rollout. Lightspeed also gave me its Changemaker award for performance.
• At Plusgrade, I designed the architecture for AI-powered analytics services, including an MCP layer and an agent orchestrator.
• At ModonGroup, I led requirements analysis and system design for an ERP system serving Lebanon's water establishments.
• At Cardinal Health, I implemented and co-designed a message debouncer that reduced battery drain on hospital smart shelves.
• In open source, I wrote an output module for the VASM assembler and fixed bugs in the Rust compiler.

I work best when I own an outcome end to end and have room to decide how to get there. If you have a project or a role where that's useful, send me an email.

• My experience on LinkedIn
• My code on GitHub
• Older writing on software