Ugur Sogukpinar

Lead Backend Engineer

Software engineer with 10+ years of experience. Born a "Linux kid", grew into a Cloud Native architect. Passionate about problem-solving, from WebRTC banking systems to high-scale e-commerce gifting platforms.

Experience

Lead Backend Engineer

Apr 2023 - Present

1-800-Flowers.com

Following SmartGift's acquisition, led migration of applications from AWS to GCP ecosystem.
Leading backend engineering efforts, architectural decisions, and ensuring code security and compliance.

Lead Backend Engineer

Sep 2021 - Apr 2023 (1 yr 8 mos)

SmartGift (Acquired by 1-800-Flowers.com)

Promoted to leadership role, establishing and managing a backend team.
Guided technical direction while maintaining hands-on involvement in development.
Managed migration to Kubernetes (EKS) and architectural evolution.

Software Engineer

Sep 2017 - Sep 2021 (4 yrs)

SmartGift

Core contributor to a gifting platform serving major e-commerce clients.
Full-stack responsibilities spanning Frontend, Backend, DevOps, and AWS infrastructure.
Implemented solutions using PHP/Laravel, NodeJS, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Elasticsearch/OpenSearch.
Designed workloads across AWS services like ElasticBeanstalk, S3, SQS, SNS, RDS, and Fargate.

Backend Developer

Aug 2016 - Sep 2017 (1 yr 2 mos)

Turkish Economy Bank (TEB)

Developed Smart ATM video call systems using WebRTC technology.
Enabled digital identity verification and legal compliance workflows.
Built internal communication tools using NodeJS and MySQL.

Software Developer

Dec 2013 - Aug 2016 (2 yrs 9 mos, Part-time)

UBIT Bilgi Teknolojileri

Contributed to school management systems during university years.
Migrated legacy PHP systems to Laravel framework.
Standardized development environments using Vagrant and later Docker.

Education

Computer Science

Yildiz Technical University

Tech Stack

NodeJS Golang Python/Django PHP/Laravel AWS GCP Kubernetes Docker PostgreSQL MongoDB Elasticsearch WebRTC