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Roman Empire
Roman Empire

CV

Roman
Author
Roman
Photographer with MSci in Computer Science and a Home Lab obsession
Table of Contents
💫
About Me: A Backend Engineer passionate about Homelabbing
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Currently working on: Building a self-hosted photo library linter
🌱
Currently learning: Go
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Ask me about: Home lab setups

My Tech Stack

Languages
Java Scala Go Kotlin
Frameworks
Spring Boot ZIO
Cloud & DevOps
AWS (Lambda Glue S3) Docker Ansible Jenkins
Databases & Messaging
PostgreSQL Kafka SQLite

Work

  1. Conduktor - Backend Engineer

    Conduktor - Backend Engineer

    May 2025 – Feb 2026

    Scala Java ZIO Kafka PostgreSQL AWS
    • Achieved sub-second query latency by building a violation metrics system using PostgreSQL time buckets (minute and hour granularity) instead of Prometheus, getting exact counts vs estimated rates for aggregations
    • Cut per-cycle API calls from ~12,000 to near-zero by building an AWS MSK Glue Schema Registry Indexer with bounded concurrency and timestamp-based change detection
    • Reduced memory usage from 1.2 GB to 275 MB (4× improvement) by resolving a memory leak via JVM heap analysis (jmap + Eclipse Memory Analyser), finding excessive HTTP calls and introducing a caching layer
    • Delivered Data Quality Overview feature in under 2 weeks by owning the backend end-to-end: API spec, ticket scoping, and PostgreSQL materialized views for pre-computed aggregations
    • Led monthly product releases end-to-end: documentation prep, release candidate cut, patch release coordination, and customer-facing communication
    • Authored multiple Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) covering DLQ design, JSON Schema validation (avoiding Schema Registry), and rule policy versioning. Those informed ticket scoping and implementation across the team, and flagged complexity early in product requirements
    • Recognised for displaying the company value “Own it”; rated above expectations in a year-end review for taking ownership of features from investigation through design, implementation, and documentation
  2. Kainos - Senior Software Engineer

    Kainos - Senior Software Engineer

    Sep 2024 – Apr 2025

    AI Panellist Project

    AWS HeyGen Bedrock TypeScript
    • Reduced AI response latency from ~12s to ~3s by implementing a streaming architecture for real-time LLM responses using HeyGen
    • Designed and implemented a queue system with locks to prevent race conditions in response handling, which allowed for reliable real-time speech output and instant interruption of queued responses
    • Built an AWS-based AI panellist system using Bedrock, Transcribe, and S3, capable of participating in live calls and responding to questions in real time
  3. Kainos - Associate Software Engineer

    Kainos - Associate Software Engineer

    Aug 2022 – Sep 2024

    FCA - Gateway Forms Project

    Java Spring Boot Jenkins AWS (Lambda)
    • Led and managed a team of 6 engineers, coordinated the project pentests, triaged findings and fixed a critical delete vulnerability that allowed arbitrary data deletion
    • Improved app creation time by 79%(from 9955ms to 2096ms) by parallelising downstream service calls
    • Delivered persistence and triage features for the forms platform (~46,000 firms, ~130,000 applications/year), built end-to-end across Spring Boot and AWS Lambda/Step Functions
    • Reduced dependency upload from 1 GB to 1 MB by optimising Jenkins Security Pipelines to use the Debricked dependency method
  4. Kainos - Associate Software Engineer

    Kainos - Associate Software Engineer

    Aug 2022 – Sep 2024

    DVSA Theory Test Project

    Azure Microservices TypeScript
    • Digitised DVSA Theory Test systems, so candidates receive results within 15 minutes, transitioning from paper certificates to email notifications
    • Identified and addressed performance and functionality limitations
    • Conducted performance testing to ensure the application’s ability to handle heavy loads
  5. Kainos - Software Engineer Trainee

    Kainos - Software Engineer Trainee

    Nov 2020 – Jul 2021

    TypeScript React
    • Developed an internal web management application for the Office of National Statistics for managing Census data
  6. Barclays - Developer Intern

    Barclays - Developer Intern

    Jun 2019 – Aug 2019

    AWS
    • Migrated an internal application and its database to AWS, using automation tools

Projects

See the Projects page for a list of personal and side projects.

Education

  1. University of Birmingham

    University of Birmingham

    2017 – 2022

    1st Class MSci Computer Science with a year in Industry

    1st year: Functional 96%, Java 89%, AI 82%, Robot Programming 100%, Language & Logic 82%, Software Engineering 80%

    2nd year: Computer Systems and Architecture 95%, Functional Programming 83%, Computer Security 89%, Models of Computation 77%

    3rd year: Intelligent Robotics 86%, Mobile & Ubiquitous Computing 93%, Networks 83%, Network Sec 100%, OS 77%