# Seyma Kara

> Senior Software Engineer at Balbix

Location: San Jose, California, United States
Profile: https://flows.cv/seyma

I am a well rounded full stack engineer (Javascript, React) with experience in backend (NodeJS/Express, Python/Django) and systems (AWS, MongoDB, Postgres, Cassandra, Redis, Nginx, APMs).

## Work Experience
### Senior Software Engineer @ Balbix
Jan 2023 – Present

### Software Engineer @ Balbix
Jan 2019 – Present

### Backend Developer @ Barebnb - Personal Project
Jan 2019 – Jan 2019
• A recommendations component for MERN-Stack Vocational Rental App for Lodgings.
• Designed and optimized the backend to handle a web-scale load.
• Improved query time to 4ms for a PostgreSQL database with 85M rows.
• Horizontally scaled backend on AWS EC2 using NGINX and Redis cache. Resulted in the ability to handle 500 requests per second with an average latency of 14ms and 0% error rate.

### Frontend Developer @ Barebnb - Personal Project
Jan 2019 – Jan 2019
• Created review component for MERN-Stack Vocational Rental App for Lodgings
• Designed and developed paginated review component using React to take advantage of using a virtual browser for faster rendering and easier testing by leveraging Jest and Enzyme.
• Deployed micro-service to AWS EC2 instance by utilizing Docker to have a lightweight container to minimize coupling with other components and for easier management and scaling.

### Full Stack Developer @ WatchLog - Personal Project
Jan 2018 – Jan 2018
• MERN-Stack App with a watchlist and​ ​movie log to review the movies watched
• Designed and developed a movie application with full CRUD functionality using React and MongoDB.
• Utilized The Open Movie Database API to retrieve information related to the movie queried by the user.

### Frontend Developer @ Valley Medical Center Foundation
Jan 2018 – Jan 2018
The Valley Medical Center Foundation's live auction site empowers people to auction on and bid on items as an avenue to donate to the foundation.

• Created a more effective user interface to optimize the conversion funnel. 
• Participated in daily scrums, sprint planning meetings, backlog updates, and sprint retrospectives. 

Technologies used: HTML5, CSS3, Bootstrap, JavaScript, jQuery, Node.js, Express, EJS templating, socket.io, MongoDB, and Git. 

Website: http://dv1.elizabid.com

### Digital Marketing Specialist @ Freelancer
Jan 2014 – Jan 2018 | San Francisco Bay Area
As a freelance Digital Marketing Specialist, I worked closely with clients to establish their digital footprint through launching & executing marketing initiatives and formulating email & content marketing strategies.

Client: http://www.maralhairklinik.com/
•	Built with WordPress by applying SEO.
•	Established digital ad campaigns and helped increase spending on Google AdWords and Facebook Ads from $0 to $800K. 
•	Provided strategic guidance and prepared campaigns to target international patients from the US and Europe.
•	Developed strategies for email and content marketing which now drives a majority of web traffic.

Client: www.dentsuadiye.com
•	Established and managed Google AdWords, Analytics, and Facebook Ads accounts.
•	Increased digital ad spending on Google AdWords and Facebook Ads from $0 to $50K.

### Full Stack Developer @ E-commerce - Personal Project
Jan 2018 – Jan 2018
• Full stack E-commerce software allowing users can add, edit and delete items and checkout.
• Support user authentication during login and signup process.
• Used MongoDB to optimize query time.
• Created a RESTful API with NodeJS for interactions with backend and used Express and AngularJS in the frontend.

### Fullstack Developer @ Social Network - Personal Project
Jan 2017 – Jan 2017
• Developed a Facebook-like social network website with registration, friending, wall, posts and commenting, user panel, messaging (using sockets).
• Technologies used: Python/Django, MySQL.
• Deployed to EC2 instance in AWS.

### English Lecturer @ Beykent University
Jan 2012 – Jan 2015

### English Lecturer @ Galatasaray Üniversitesi
Jan 2011 – Jan 2012


## Education
### Bachelor in Foreign Language Education
Boğaziçi University
Jan 2006 – Jan 2010

### Advanced Software Engineering Immersive Program
Hack Reactor
Jan 2019 – Jan 2019

### Master's Degree in Sociolinguistics
Syracuse University
Jan 2014 – Jan 2014

### Computer Software Engineering
Coding Dojo
Jan 2017 – Jan 2018

### Master's Degree in Applied Linguistics
Bahcesehir University
Jan 2013 – Jan 2016


## Contact & Social
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/seymakara
- GitHub: https://github.com/seymakara

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