REAL-TIME + PAYMENTS / CASE STUDY
The backend behind two social products.
Backend ownership for messaging and mentorship apps that reached 100K+ and 50K+ downloads respectively.
The product challenge
Messaging, translation, live content, and paid interactions need to work together as a coherent product. The engineering work spans the services users see and the payment and account systems supporting them.
What I built
- Built and owned the NextChat backend for real-time chat and voice translation, an AI assistant, and in-chat image generation.
- Built and owned the NextFriend backend for interest-based matching, paid mentor sessions, short videos, and live streaming.
- Implemented token-wallet and Stripe payment functionality supporting the apps’ paid interactions.
- Contributed requirements analysis, architecture, deployment planning, and explanations of product behavior for non-technical stakeholders.
Engineering approach
The work combined product requirements with backend architecture: mapping user flows, defining module behavior, and translating those decisions into a delivery plan that stakeholders could understand.
Delivery & outcome
NextChat reached 100K+ downloads and NextFriend 50K+ downloads, as reported in my portfolio. These figures describe app distribution, not simultaneous users or measured server throughput. My contribution was backend engineering; the apps used Flutter frontends.
Explore the product
Product links show the public application. This case study describes my contribution during the engagement, rather than ownership of the entire product.
