# Rakeem Thomas

> Senior Software Engineer — Node.js/TypeScript • React • Kafka & Event-Driven Architecture • Distributed Systems • REST/GraphQL

Location: United States, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/rakeem

Senior Software Engineer (7+ yrs) building end-to-end products across Node.js/TypeScript backends and React frontends.
I design APIs and UIs together: Kafka-based eventing, clean REST/GraphQL contracts, and performance-minded frontends (Core Web Vitals, bundle budgets).
I care about reliability and velocity: DLQ/retries, Datadog/Sentry, CI/CD. I also codify patterns/docs and mentor to level up teams.

Selected impact:
• Automated supplier campaigns with an event-driven platform (Kafka), reducing end-to-end cycle time by ~85%.
• Cut large report time by ~30% using MongoDB cursors + Node Streams.
• Built a React component library + Storybook CI (adopted by 5+ teams) and trimmed JS bundles by ~20%.

Open to Senior SWE / Full-Stack / Backend / Platform roles.

## Work Experience
### Senior Software Engineer @ Inkwell
Jan 2026 – Present

### Senior Software Engineer @ Sourcemap: the Supply Chain Transparency Company
Jan 2022 – Jan 2025 | New York, New York, United States
Automated supplier campaigns with an event-driven platform (Kafka), reducing end-to-end cycle time by ~85%.

Architected the company’s adoption of Apache Kafka, introducing a shared abstraction layer and domain-driven event taxonomy across microservices.

Standardized Kafka eventing with contract-first schemas via Confluent Schema Registry, reducing integration breaks and accelerating onboarding for new services.

Built a DLQ pipeline with exponential backoff and bounded retries and added Datadog instrumentation to improve system resiliency and failure visibility across services.

Refactored report generation using Node.js Streams and MongoDB cursors, reducing processing time by 30% and improving UI responsiveness for data-heavy reports.

### Software Engineer @ Sourcemap: the Supply Chain Transparency Company
Jan 2021 – Jan 2022 | New York, New York, United States

### Software Engineer @ GE Digital
Jan 2019 – Jan 2021 | Miami/Fort Lauderdale Area
AngularJS → React migration; designed a GraphQL layer across 20+ services to simplify integrations and accelerate delivery.

Built a React component library + Storybook CI (adopted by 5+ teams) and trimmed JS bundles by ~20% via Core Web Vitals budgets.

### Software Engineer @ Robert Half
Jan 2019 – Jan 2019 | Miami/Fort Lauderdale Area
Modernized legacy APIs by refactoring monolithic endpoints into Node.js AWS Lambda microservices, improving scalability and reducing operational overhead.

Added versioned Swagger/OpenAPI documentation to standardize API contracts and streamline frontend and internal integrations.

Collaborated across teams to align API structures with frontend needs, improving consistency and reducing integration bugs.

### Javascript Developer @ SmartBear Software
Jan 2018 – Jan 2019 | Coconut Creek, FL
Built the InstaPlay Recorder, a React-driven UI that captures and serializes browser events for real-time test automation and playback across distributed environments.

Developed the Data Bank Upload workflow enabling parameterized test execution using external CSV inputs, expanding automated test coverage.

Improved reliability and delivery speed by automating CI pipelines using Jenkins and GitHub CI, reducing regressions and tightening release cycles.

Contributed to performance improvements across the LoadNinja frontend to support high-volume test execution scenarios.

### Software Engineer @ blubeta
Jan 2018 – Jan 2018 | Miami, FL
Designed the initial GraphQL schema and React integration layer for a cross-platform messaging application, enabling efficient data synchronization across web and mobile clients.

Improved performance of a time-tracking app by optimizing Webpack configuration (loaders, compression, code-splitting), reducing load times and improving runtime efficiency.

Implemented reusable frontend components and cleaned up legacy codebases, improving maintainability and developer velocity.


## Education
### Bachelor of Science (B.S.)
University of Central Florida


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/rakeemthomas
- Website: https://rakeem.dev/

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Source: https://flows.cv/rakeem
JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/rakeem/resume.json
Last updated: 2026-03-22