Ali Najafizadeh
Lead Software Engineer
I build resilient distributed systems and the developer tools that make them a joy to work with.
About
Experienced software engineer with a strong background in building distributed systems and contributing to high-impact, developer-facing platforms. Over 14 years of experience working with Go, specializing in scalable backend components, resource optimization, and developer experience.
Proven ability to work independently and alongside highly technical teams, leading initiatives like distributed tracing, identity management, and internal SDK platforms. Skilled in authentication and authorization protocols such as OAuth2 and SSO.
Comfortable working asynchronously in fast-paced, remote-first environments. Passionate about secure access, user identity, and tooling that quietly removes friction for entire engineering organizations.
- Years with Go
- 14+Years with Go
- Open-source repos
- 27Open-source repos
- Companies led at
- 8Companies led at
Distributed Systems
- Temporal
- Kafka
- Event Sourcing
- Append-Only Logs
- NATS.io
Backend
- Golang
- Node
- Deno
- Python
Frontend
- React
- React Native
- TypeScript
Observability & DX
- OpenTelemetry
- Grafana
- Tempo
- CLI Tooling
- Code Generation
Experience
Projects
A focused toolchain of open-source Go libraries published under ella.to — small, composable building blocks for high-quality systems.
- orc
Durable workflow orchestrator for Go, backed by SQLite
A lightweight, embeddable, durable workflow orchestrator. Write ordinary Go functions and orc checkpoints their inputs, step outputs, and completion to SQLite — surviving crashes and resuming in-flight workflows. Includes durable queues, inter-workflow messaging, cron scheduling, and a bundled web dashboard.
GoWorkflowsSQLiteDurable Execution - ella
A compiler that generates Go & TypeScript HTTP clients and servers
Yet another compiler, designed from 12+ years of building backends and APIs. From a simple, readable schema IDL it emits almost perfectly optimized, handcrafted code you can actually read. Supports six HTTP communication patterns including SSE, file uploads, and binary streaming.
GoCompilerRPCCode Generation - bus
A persistent, high-performance message bus
A lightweight message bus with zero external dependencies — no Redis, Kafka, or RabbitMQ required. Persistent by default with append-only logs, HTTP/SSE transport for any language, pattern matching, request/reply, optional NaCl encryption, and automatic redelivery.
GoMessage BusEvent-DrivenSSE - flex
A cell-based flexbox layout engine for the terminal
A composable layout engine rendered with lipgloss v2 and ready to drop into Bubble Tea v2. Synthesizes exact integer cell sizing with a declarative Fit / Fixed / Grow model and first-class text alignment for precise, responsive terminal UIs.
GoTUILayout EngineBubble Tea
Education
M.Sc., Software Engineering
Ontario Tech University
Sept 2009 — Aug 2011
B.Eng., Software Engineering
Ontario Tech University
Sept 2005 — Apr 2009