Urwa Usman

Principal Software Engineer · Lahore, Pakistan

Muhammad Urwa Usman

I build and repair the software that businesses run on: SaaS platforms, Shopify operations, ERP integrations and data pipelines. Most of my work starts where something is slow, broken, or still being done by hand.

Open to remote full-time roles and freelance projects.

Get in touch Download CV (PDF)

About

I started writing production code in 2017 at SoftBeans Technologies in Faisalabad, mostly PHP and Laravel for e-commerce and ERP clients. Since 2021 I have been at Strategic Systems International in Lahore, where I work as a Principal Software Engineer on products for companies in the US, Australia and the Gulf.

The work I enjoy most is the unglamorous kind: taking a platform with hundreds of open production issues and making it boring again, tracing a dashboard that takes a minute to load back to a duplicated query, or wiring NetSuite, Shopify and DocuSign together so nobody has to copy data between them.

Lately a lot of that work involves LLMs. I use Claude and OpenAI inside real delivery work, for codebase analysis, migration mapping, test generation and document parsing, and I build automation around them where it saves people real time.

Experience
9+ years
Current
Principal Software Engineer, SSI
Main stack
Laravel, Node.js, Python, Vue, React
Certified
Celigo L1 – L3
Education
BSCS, Virtual University of Pakistan

Work

Strategic Systems International (SSI)

Principal Software Engineer, AI & Full-Stack

Aug 2021 – Present
Lahore

  • Built a recruitment automation platform in Laravel that pulls resumes from Outlook through Microsoft Graph, parses them, filters candidates by rules and creates profiles and job submissions in Bullhorn ATS. OAuth 2.0, queues, scheduled jobs, retries and an Orchid admin dashboard.
  • Brought Claude and OpenAI into the delivery process with prompt pipelines for codebase analysis, REST-to-GraphQL migration mapping, QA scenario generation and documentation.
  • Designed a recommendation and matching engine for a lifestyle membership platform: behaviour tracking, tagging, scoring and taste profiles on an event-driven AWS SQS/SNS setup.
  • Backend lead on a property management SaaS used across the US and Australia. Built the Merchandise Management and Alternate Contacts modules, reworked invoicing and reporting, and helped take the production backlog from 500+ open issues to under 20.
  • Automated a Shopify business selling data products end to end: subscription billing, DocuSign NDAs before dataset access, NetSuite sync through Celigo, Zapier workflows and a shareable custom cart.
  • Stabilised a 30-module insurance and benefits platform (Python, MySQL, SQL Server) handling group quoting, Medicare rating and COBRA/ACA documents.
  • Led modernisation of an IT asset management platform, fixed its reporting and export modules, and planned the move from Laravel/Angular to React, Node.js, GraphQL and micro frontends.
  • Led a data engineering team building Python ETL/ELT pipelines with SQL, shell scripting and FTP ingestion on PostgreSQL.

SoftBeans Technologies

Senior Software Engineer (joined as Software Engineer)

May 2017 – Jul 2021
Faisalabad

  • Led a centralised ERP platform in Laravel for a multi-channel retailer. Wrote the invoicing module from scratch and fixed SQL and application bottlenecks.
  • Connected Shopify and Magento stores to the ERP through REST APIs and webhooks so orders, products and discounts stayed in sync.
  • Built a bilingual eLearning platform for Grade 11 and 12 students in Oman with lessons, quizzes, past papers, progress tracking and PayPal payments.
  • Shipped client projects in Laravel, CakePHP, CodeIgniter and WordPress, and mentored junior developers.

Selected projects

Client names are left out on purpose. Happy to walk through any of these in a call.

  1. 01

    Recruitment automation platform AI · Automation

    Resumes arrive in Outlook, get parsed into structured profiles, pass through rule-based filters and land in Bullhorn without anyone touching them. Built with retries and a monitoring dashboard because email is never as clean as you hope.

    Laravel, Microsoft Graph, Bullhorn API, OAuth 2.0, Redis, AWS

  2. 02

    Property management SaaS Enterprise SaaS

    Multi-tenant platform for leases, tenants, invoicing and maintenance across the US and Australia. I worked on new modules and on the long job of getting 500+ open production issues under 20 on a 50+ engineer programme.

    Node.js, Express, Vue.js, MySQL, Redis, Docker, microservices

  3. 03

    Commerce automation for a data business Shopify · Integrations

    A Shopify store that behaves like a back office: subscriptions, NDA signing before access, ERP sync and pre-built checkout links for the customer success team.

    Shopify, Liquid, PHP, DocuSign, NetSuite, Celigo, Zapier

  4. 04

    Enterprise password manager Security

    Customised self-hosted Passbolt with SSO, admin-controlled private keys, approval steps for downloads and password changes, and matching browser extension changes.

    Passbolt, CakePHP, React, MySQL, Docker

  5. 05

    Smog index prediction Data · Forecasting

    Forecasts the smog index for the coming days from eight years of air-pollutant readings, with a dashboard for the research team.

    Python, data pipelines, dashboard

  6. 06

    Autonomous QA agent AI tooling

    A Claude Code skill that tests a Laravel app in a real browser, measures the UI with DOM probes, writes an HTML report and runs from a small local control panel.

    Claude Code, browser automation, PHP

Tools I use

Backend
PHP, Laravel, Lumen, CakePHP, CodeIgniter, Node.js, Express, Python, FastAPI
Frontend
Vue.js, React, AngularJS, JavaScript, jQuery, Tailwind CSS, HTML, CSS
APIs
REST, GraphQL, SOAP, OAuth 2.0, Webhooks, Microservices, AWS SQS/SNS
Data
MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MongoDB, Redis, ETL / ELT, Query tuning
Commerce
Shopify apps, Shopify themes, Liquid, Magento, WordPress, WooCommerce
Integrations
NetSuite, Celigo, DocuSign, Bullhorn, Microsoft Graph, Stripe, PayPal
AI & tooling
Claude, Claude Code, OpenAI, Cursor, Zapier, n8n, Docker, Git

Contact

Hiring for a senior role, or have a system that needs fixing? Send a short note about what you are working on and I will reply within a day or two.