Available for freelance & full-time

Karan Popat

Senior Full-Stack Engineer with 8+ years building scalable Node.js backends, distributed systems, and modern React frontends — TypeScript, PostgreSQL, AWS, Cloud.

Get in touchSee my skills

Skills

How I fit into a system

I work across the full stack. Select a layer to see which technologies I use there and what I've actually built.

Web System

Browser / Client

Click a layer to explore skills

Frontend

UI & User Experience

React

8+ years

Turbot

Built Steampipe query UI with Monaco editor and SSE-streamed results (50k+ rows). Used useReducer as a state machine so invalid query session states simply cannot happen. Also built the React UI for Guardrails — tracking compliance across millions of cloud resources in real time.

JP Morgan

Built React/Redux frontends for Click2Meet (analyst–client meeting scheduling) and Forward Calendar (org-wide marketing events viewer) — both delivered ahead of deadline.

Next.js

6+ years

Turbot

Architected full technical pipelines for 7+ production ecosystem platforms (Steampipe, Powerpipe, Flowpipe, Tailpipe, Guardrails Hub) — covering content ingestion, docs parsing, metadata processing, search indexing, and publishing workflows.

TypeScript

5+ years

Turbot

Drove JS-to-TypeScript migrations across legacy codebases. Built and owned a shared React component library (Tailwind + shadcn) rolled out across 9 Turbot sites — reducing maintenance overhead and ensuring UI consistency at scale.

Tailwind CSS

4+ years

Turbot

Used as the primary styling system across all UI work and the shared component library. Custom hooks (ThemeProvider, debounce search) and markdown rendering built as reusable utilities.

Experience

Where I've worked

Senior Software Engineer · Turbot

June 2024 – Present

Cloud governance SaaS — Turbot Pipes

  • —Core engineer on Turbot Pipes — owned backend, infrastructure, and UI end-to-end across the product
  • —Fixed intermittent 500s under load by diagnosing connection exhaustion from HPA scaling — introduced PgBouncer between API pods and Cloud SQL
  • —Migrated workspace provisioning to Temporal for crash-safe multi-step orchestration with separate worker pools
  • —Designed Datatank — a PostgreSQL persistence layer over Steampipe that snapshots live cloud query results as real tables
  • —Built Steampipe query UI with Monaco editor, Algolia in-editor search, SSE-streamed results (50k+ rows batched in 200s), and a useReducer state machine
  • —Built internal AI chat assistant end-to-end using LangGraph — backend service, API layer, and React UI
  • —Cut Vercel infrastructure costs from $1,000+/mo to ~$300 by migrating assets to Cloudflare R2 and adding static HTML caching
  • —Introduced TTL cache on the Steampipe plugin version API to reduce edge function costs at scale
  • —Implemented user-agent detection to serve markdown to AI crawlers across all ecosystem platforms

Software Engineer · Turbot

April 2022 – June 2024

Cloud governance SaaS — ecosystem platforms

  • —Designed and built CloudGovernance.org from scratch — auth, email infrastructure, content management, and access control end-to-end
  • —Implemented OAuth2 social login (Google & GitHub) with session gating for authenticated library content
  • —Built full email pipeline with ActiveCampaign subscriber sync and SendGrid newsletter delivery
  • —Independently architected full technical pipelines for 7+ production platforms (Steampipe, Powerpipe, Flowpipe, Guardrails Hub, and more)
  • —Identified code duplication across 9 Turbot sites — built a shared React component library (Tailwind + shadcn) and rolled it out across all 9
  • —Implemented Algolia-powered search and SEO foundations that rank across thousands of cloud resource and policy pages

Software Engineer · J.P. Morgan & Chase

March 2020 – April 2022

Fortune 500 global financial services

  • —Built the Marketing Data Platform — Java Spring Boot backend and React UI ingesting from X, Adobe, and LinkedIn via APIs, FTP, and Kafka
  • —Built the org-wide Unsubscribe platform — core email opt-out infrastructure validating opt-outs before any marketing email is sent firm-wide
  • —Built React/Redux frontends for Click2Meet (IB analyst–client scheduling) and Forward Calendar — both delivered ahead of deadline

Software Engineer · Gupshup Technology

November 2019 – March 2020

Enterprise conversational messaging platform

  • —Built Node.js messaging bots and IVR workflow applications for enterprise client communication

Software Engineer → Trainee Software Engineer · Zycus Infotech

July 2017 – November 2019

Enterprise procurement software — iSave

  • —Built and maintained the full iSave product — savings management and expense tracking used by large enterprises
  • —Drove CI/CD adoption using Jenkins — modified the org-wide pipeline and got the team up to speed
  • —Built a generic JUnit/Mockito test framework reading inputs from spreadsheets — adopted across multiple internal products
  • —Mentored new hires and trained incoming graduates on Java, Spring, and product architecture

Process

How I work

01

Clear async communication

I keep stakeholders informed with concise written updates — no surprises, no hand-holding needed.

02

Fast ramp-up

I get productive quickly in new codebases and domains. I ask the right questions early and figure out the rest.

03

Focus on shipping

I bias toward getting working software in front of users, then iterating. Perfect is the enemy of done.

04

Strong ownership

I debug deeply, take end-to-end responsibility, and don't hand problems off without a clear resolution path.

Contact

Let's work together

I'm open to freelance contracts and full-time roles. If you have something interesting to build, fix, or modernize — reach out.

karanpopat@gmail.comLinkedIn
Karan PopatSenior Full-Stack Engineer