Why does the boring part matter most? Because that's the part that takes the money.
CS at FAST NUCES, Lahore. 3.92 CGPA, two Rector's List terms at a 4.00. I started in Roblox because that's where the clients were, and they kept coming: storefronts, delivery bots, payment flows, the boring parts that have to be right.
Now I build products and the AI agents that help ship them. My teammates call it pessimism. I call it finding the failure mode before your customers do.
I build the 10-hour version.
Six years on four lanes
tap a point
ExperienceAchievementsAcademicsEventsplanned
BS Computer Science, FAST NUCES
Lahore · 2023–2027
CGPA
cumulative, of 4.00
Rector's List×2
terms at an SGPA of 4.00
Dean's List×4
terms
TA43
students, Digital Logic Design, Spring 2025
Three years, three roles
2024
Infrastructure officer
2025
Deputy Head of Infrastructure
2026
Head of Automations & Cyber Security Competition
Co-led a capture-the-flag for 39 teams and 95 participants, and co-built the QR ticketing: see the case study.
Earlier
Systems Limited intern, 2024. An auth system with Google OAuth, WebAuthn passkeys and Jest.
Smart Irrigation System: top-12 invited presenter, LAP Conference 2023.
Stack
TypeScript
Node
PostgreSQL
Drizzle
Next.js
Supabase
Stripe
WebSockets
Lua
Python
Linux/VPS
Shopify
Claude Code
Takes
01 / 14
I see how it breaks first.failure
I build the 10-hour version.craft
Trust and quality over speed.quality
Freeze the contract first. Half a day of writing buys two weeks of parallel work.systems
Can't run it in CI? Build a fake that speaks the real protocol on day one.systems
Done means merged and pushed. Not committed on a branch.shipping
The messier the integration, the more interested I am.work
Developer tooling is the thing I keep going back to.tools
No black-box sites. The client should own it and edit it without paying me.clients
A vibe coder sends a basic prompt. I do engineering with AI in the loop.ai
AI takes the learnable labour, code and tests. Judgment stays human, so I moved my effort to system design.ai
Claude is a system with memory and rules, not a chat box.ai
AI hasn't replaced me. I still do my assignments by hand.ai
I don't post every project. Nobody posts every photo either.posting
Building something that has to work the first time?
First paid client: storefront and offer-wall sites in HTML/CSS/jQuery/PHP, Lua delivery scripts, Discord bots, and a shipped Roblox game that never found an audience.
Experience· Feb 2023 – Oct 2026 (expected)
HappyCrown / BloxCart
Lead Backend & Automation Engineer (contract). Backend from scratch for a group of Roblox trading stores: REST, WebSockets, Shopify, Lua + TS delivery pipelines, VPS fleet.
Email hi@tahaali.dev, or use the contact form. Also on GitHub and LinkedIn as NotTahaAli.
LootBun for Zelta Digital, HappyCrown with BloxCart, and BloxPlaza. Plus private client builds I can describe but not link, like AquaBlox.
A direct-checkout storefront for Roblox currency on Next.js, pg-boss, Supabase, Sanity and Stripe, with no Shopify in front. Live since June 2026, 2,500+ orders. Case study.
I built the backend from scratch for a group of Roblox trading stores: REST APIs, WebSockets, Shopify integrations and automated delivery. 30k+ orders a quarter, checkout conversion up to 70% higher. Case study.
A private client build, not public: a virtual-goods delivery store with a claim site, bot dashboard and delivery bot, shipped in 14 working days on Fastify, Postgres and Drizzle. Case study.
A VS Code extension that assembles, runs and debugs 8086 assembly in DOSBox, and installs its own toolchain on Windows, macOS and five Linux package managers. 7,040 installs, 5.0 rating. Case study.
Fast incremental LaTeX builds with live preview. A stdlib-only Python script that grew into an editor, an MCP server and a hosted multi-user mode with sandboxed builds. Case study.
A Claude Code usage and cost monitoring dashboard. v1 shipped after 167 tickets, built with AI agents, live at sessclone.com.
I co-built the QR ticketing and check-in system in Next.js: 1,831 tickets issued by email, 1,342 attendees checked in live by phone-camera scan.
An open-source typed async Python package on PyPI wrapping 22 endpoints, pulled out of the LootBun work.
BS Computer Science at FAST NUCES, Lahore, 2023–2027. CGPA 3.92, Rector's List twice at a 4.00, Dean's List four times.
Three years, three roles: Infrastructure officer (2024), Deputy Head of Infrastructure (2025), Head of Automations & Cyber Security Competition (2026). I co-led a CTF for 39 teams.
Every day. SessClone v1 was built with AI agents across 167 tickets. AI writes the code. I still own the merge.
That's the core of what I do. HappyCrown stores run 30k+ orders a quarter on a backend I built from scratch. Tell me what has to work in the form below.
Money is a string, not a float. Every refusal gets a machine-readable error code. And every paid order becomes a tracked job, so none get lost between payment and delivery.
I see how it breaks first. Then I build the version that doesn't. Freeze the protocol first, then build both sides against a fake.
NASM Tools, LaTeX Studio and the Roblox Account Manager SDK. All on github.com/NotTahaAli.
tahaali.dev, LaTeX Studio, and my final-year project.
I was a Teaching Assistant for Digital Logic Design in Spring 2025, for 43 students.
Systems Limited, 2024: an auth system with Google OAuth, WebAuthn passkeys and Jest.
I started in Roblox because that's where the clients were, and they kept coming: storefronts, delivery bots, payment flows, the boring parts that have to be right.
2,500+
LootBun orders since launch. Orders through the storefront since it went live in June 2026, as of October 2026.
source · Client-reported · Zelta Digital
30k+
orders a quarter, HappyCrown stores. Quarterly order volume across the HappyCrown stores, running on the backend I built from scratch.
source · Client-reported · HappyCrown
7,040
NASM Tools installs. Read from the Marketplace on 13 October 2026. The live site syncs it at build time. 5.0 rating, 3 outside contributors.
