About
Shamika K.
Backend engineer. Distributed systems. Occasional writer.
Background
I'm a backend engineer, 10 years in, currently at Roche working on microservices in a regulated environment. Before that, Deutsche Bank, before that CGI. Day to day that's Java, Node.js, AWS, queues and state machines that have to behave correctly even when half the system around them doesn't.
This site is where I put the stuff that doesn't fit in a Jira ticket. Right now that's mostly a context layer I built for Claude Code, four YAML files and some slash commands that give it a working map of a 30-repo platform instead of starting cold every session. Feel free to reach out!
Currently
- Reading A Philosophy of Software Design — John Ousterhout
- Building This site, and a distributed job runner in Java
- Learning How Postgres chooses query plans (and when it gets it wrong)
- Thinking about The gap between simulation and sentience in AI systems
Elsewhere