Open to new opportunities

Hello, world! 👋

I'm Alex Rivera

 

I build high-quality software products and developer tools — from real-time collaboration systems to open-source infrastructure. 5+ years turning ideas into production systems used by thousands.

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// get to know me

About Me

I'm a full-stack engineer who cares deeply about developer experience and production reliability. I've spent the last 5 years building everything from real-time collaboration tools to data infrastructure that processes billions of events daily.

My sweet spot is the intersection of product and engineering — translating fuzzy requirements into clean architecture, then shipping systems that actually work at scale. I default to TypeScript on the frontend, Go on the backend, and PostgreSQL everywhere I can get away with it.

When I'm not writing code, I write about it. My articles on databases and distributed systems have been read by 80k+ developers.

San Francisco, CA (Remote)
Senior Engineer @ Acme Corp
3 coffees/day (unfortunately)
Open to freelance projects

// current stack

TypeScriptNext.jsGoPostgreSQLKubernetesAWS

5+

Years experience

20+

Projects shipped

5k+

GitHub stars

3

Open source pkgs

// fun_fact.ts

I once debugged a production issue by reading Wireshark packet captures on a plane with no internet. The root cause was a 1-byte integer overflow in a third-party C library. It only manifested under specific load patterns, every Tuesday, between 14:00 and 14:17 UTC.

// what I work with

Skills & Tech Stack

Tools I reach for daily — no progress bars, just the real list.

Ty
TypeScript
Ja
JavaScript
Py
Python
Go
Go
SQ
SQL
Ru
Rust

Languages

TypeScriptJavaScriptPythonGoSQLRust

Frontend

ReactNext.jsVue.jsNuxtTailwind CSSFramer Motion

Backend

Node.jsExpressFastAPIGraphQLPostgreSQLRedisMongoDB

DevOps & Cloud

DockerKubernetesAWSVercelGitHub ActionsTerraform

// things I've built

Featured Projects

Selected work spanning developer tooling, data infrastructure, and SaaS products. Each with a detailed case study.

All on GitHub →
DevFlow screenshot
2.4k

DevFlow

A real-time collaborative code review platform with AI-assisted suggestions, inline comments, and pull-request analytics.

Reduced average code review time by 40% for teams of 10+ engineers.

Next.jsTypeScriptWebSocketsPostgreSQLRedis+1
CodeDemo
Case Study
PulseDB screenshot
1.8k

PulseDB

An open-source database observability tool that surfaces slow queries, lock contention, and schema drift in real time.

Helped users identify and fix P99 latency spikes in under 5 minutes vs. hours.

GoReactClickHousePrometheusGrafana+1
CodeDemo
Case Study
ShipKit screenshot
950

ShipKit

A CLI and GitHub Action toolkit that automates versioning, changelogs, and multi-environment deployments for Node.js projects.

Cut release cycle from 2 hours to 8 minutes, eliminating manual changelog work.

TypeScriptNode.jsGitHub ActionsDockerAWS ECR+1
Code
Case Study
DataWeave screenshot
680

DataWeave

A visual ETL pipeline builder with a drag-and-drop interface, 40+ connectors, and real-time data previews.

Enabled analysts to own their own data pipelines, reducing data team tickets by 60%.

ReactPythonFastAPIApache AirflowSnowflake+1
CodeDemo
Case Study

// giving back

Open Source

Maintainer of 3 npm packages and contributor to projects used by millions.

View GitHub Profile

Notable Contributions

vercel/next.js
Bug Fix122k

Fixed a hydration mismatch bug in the App Router that affected dynamic routes with catch-all segments.

PR #58241

prisma/prisma
Feature39k

Added support for PostgreSQL generated columns in the schema definition language.

PR #22134

trpc/trpc
Enhancement34k

Improved type inference for nested routers, eliminating a class of TypeScript errors in large monorepos.

PR #5821

My Packages

typed-env
890 48k/wk

Type-safe environment variable parsing with Zod schemas. Zero config.

pg-migrate-cli
640 32k/wk

Opinionated PostgreSQL migration CLI with rollback support and dry-run mode.

fetch-retry
410 21k/wk

Tiny fetch wrapper with exponential backoff, timeout, and abort signal support.

// contribution activity

1,247 contributions in the last year

// where I've worked

Experience

  1. Senior Full-Stack Engineer

    Acme Corp

    Jan 2023 — Present
    Remote (San Francisco, CA)

    Led architecture and delivery of the core developer platform, scaling from 0 to 50k monthly active developers. Built a real-time event streaming pipeline processing 2B+ events/day. Mentored 4 junior engineers and drove adoption of TypeScript across 3 frontend teams.

    TypeScriptNext.jsGoKafkaPostgreSQLKubernetes

  2. Full-Stack Engineer

    Startup Labs

    Jun 2021 — Dec 2022
    New York, NY

    Built the product from zero to Series A (50k users). Designed and implemented a multi-tenant SaaS backend with row-level security. Integrated Stripe billing and reduced churn analysis from 2 days to 10 minutes with a custom analytics pipeline.

    ReactNode.jsPostgreSQLStripeAWSRedis

  3. Open Source Maintainer

    Open Source Collective

    Mar 2020 — Present
    Remote

    Maintain 3 npm packages with 100k+ combined weekly downloads. Review community PRs, triage issues, and publish monthly releases. Wrote documentation that reduced first-PR time from weeks to hours.

    TypeScriptNode.jsGitHub ActionsVitest

  4. Junior Software Engineer

    TechAgency

    Aug 2019 — May 2021
    Austin, TX

    Delivered 8 client projects across fintech, healthcare, and e-commerce verticals. Built a HIPAA-compliant patient portal handling 10k+ daily users. Improved CI/CD pipeline runtime from 25 minutes to 6 minutes by parallelizing test suites.

    ReactPythonDjangoMySQLDockerJenkins
Download Full Resume (PDF)

// writing & thinking

Latest Articles

Deep dives on databases, distributed systems, and TypeScript.

All Articles →
Y.jsNext.js

Building a Real-Time Collaborative Editor with Y.js and Next.js

A deep dive into CRDTs, operational transforms, and how to wire up Y.js with a Next.js app for conflict-free collaborative editing — without a central lock.

Jun 12, 202511 min read
Read
PostgreSQLPerformance

Why Your PostgreSQL Queries Are Slow (And How to Fix Them)

A practical guide to reading EXPLAIN ANALYZE output, understanding sequential scans vs. index scans, and the 5 indexes every production PostgreSQL database should have.

May 3, 20258 min read
Read
GoConcurrency

The Go Concurrency Model I Wish Someone Had Explained to Me Earlier

Goroutines and channels make sense on paper, but production code requires a deeper understanding of context cancellation, errgroups, and when NOT to use goroutines.

Mar 19, 20259 min read
Read

// let's talk

Interested in Working Together?

Whether you have a full-time role, a freelance project, or a consulting engagement — I'd love to hear about it. I typically respond within 24 hours.

// primary email

alex@alexrivera.dev
Typical response time

Within 24 hours

Mon–Fri (Pacific Time)

// open to

  • Full-time senior roles
  • Freelance contracts
  • Technical consulting
  • Open source collaboration

Or email directly: alex@alexrivera.dev