Open to backend / systems roles · Full-remote

Christopher Marlon
Abastar

Backend & systems engineer with 17 years building and tuning high-scalability services — from game backends and payment gateways to telecom transaction systems and complex, high-volume data pipelines that ingest, process, and analyze data at scale.

I like the parts most people avoid: kernel tuning, database internals, connection pooling, and replication.

View experience Download résumé (PDF)
📍 Zamboanga del Sur, Philippines in/cmabastar

Field notes

cmabastar@prod-01: ~ 

  








  
Core stack

  

    

      Python
      Python
    

    

      PostgreSQL
      PostgreSQL
    

    

      FreeBSD
      FreeBSD
    

    

      Linux
      Linux
    

    

      AWS
      AWS
    

    

      Redis
      Redis
    

    

      Docker
      Docker
    

    

      Nginx
      Nginx
    

  







  
Also fluent in

  

    
    


    

      

        
        
        
        cache & queue
      

      
$ redis-cli ping
PONG

$ redis-cli dbsize
(integer) 128291

$ celery -A app status
worker1@prod-02: OK

1 node online.

    


    

      

        
        
        
        containers & config mgmt
      

      
$ docker ps --format "table {{.Names}}\t{{.Image}}\t{{.Status}}"
NAMES    IMAGE            STATUS
api      glimpse/api      Up 41 days
worker   glimpse/worker   Up 41 days

$ ansible-playbook site.yml --limit prod --check
PLAY [provision api fleet] ***********
TASK [nginx : config valid] ... ok
PLAY RECAP prod-01 : ok=14  changed=0  unreachable=0  failed=0

    


    

      

        
        
        
        cloud ops
      

      
$ aws ec2 describe-instances --filters "Name=tag:env,Values=prod" \
  --query 'Reservations[].Instances[].State.Name'
["running", "running", "running"]

$ aws rds describe-db-instances \
  --query 'DBInstances[0].[DBInstanceStatus,MultiAZ]'
["available", true]

    


    

      

        
        
        
        kernel & network tuning
      

      
$ sysctl net.inet.tcp.sendspace net.inet.tcp.recvspace
net.inet.tcp.sendspace: 262144
net.inet.tcp.recvspace: 262144

$ wg show wg0
peer: 3x9K...q2M
  endpoint: 10.8.0.4:51820
  latest handshake: 42 seconds ago
  transfer: 4.21 GiB received, 1.02 GiB sent

    


    

      

        
        
        
        auth & security
      

      
$ python3 -c "import jwt; print(jwt.encode({'sub': 'user_88213'}, 'secret', algorithm='HS256'))"
eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1c2VyXzg4MjEzIn0.4f1d9a...

$ curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" https://api.internal/health
200

    


    

    
  

  
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17+

      
Years engineering

    

    

      
99.9%

      
Server uptime & stability

    

    

      
Scalable

      
High-throughput REST APIs

    

    

      
Supercharged

      
Backend engineer

    

  







  
Experience

  
A track record of owning backends end-to-end — infra, data, and security.


  


    

      
      

        
Glimpse — Software Development Engineer

        Mar 2019 – Present
      

      
Remote (Philippines) · Lead Backend Engineer

      
Own infrastructure, backend, and security end-to-end for a consumer-trends discovery platform.

      
    
        
  • Built highly scalable data-processing and web-scraping pipelines in Python.
    • 
        
  • Run the AWS stack — EC2, ECS/Fargate, RDS (PostgreSQL), Redshift, ELB — provisioned with Docker & Ansible on Ubuntu.
    • 
        
  • Own security and private network access via VPN and WireGuard.
    • 
        
  • Build internal tooling and analytics — Flask frontends, REST APIs, and SQL reporting.
    • 
      

    


    

      
      

        
Collabspot — Software Specialist

        Jul 2017 – Jan 2019
      

      
Remote · Philippines

      
    
        
  • Backend services in Python and Django.
    • 
        
  • Owned CRM data-sync services and the consistency guarantees behind them.
    • 
      

    


    

      
      

        
XII Braves — Senior Software Engineer / Tech Lead

        May 2015 – Mar 2017
      

      
Singapore · Game server for Valiant Force

      
    
        
  • Architected the REST/HTTP API on Python 3, Flask, PostgreSQL 9.4, Redis, Celery & Socket.io — on AWS EC2 (FreeBSD) behind Nginx/Gunicorn.
    • 
        
  • Split the platform into microservices for independent, decoupled scaling.
    • 
        
  • Tuned the full stack for high traffic: FreeBSD kernel, PostgreSQL (JSONB, GIN, autovacuum), PgBouncer pooling, HAProxy for WebSockets.
    • 
        
  • Secured game auth with JWT; automated FreeBSD provisioning with Ansible.
    • 
      

    


    

      
      

        
TransferTo — Technical Operations

        Jun 2014 – May 2015
      

      
Singapore · B2B airtime, 300+ operators worldwide

      
    
        
  • Maintained 99.9% uptime across servers handling live telco transactions.
    • 
        
  • Built a scalable Redis promotions system for targeted marketing, with analytics in PostgreSQL & Perl.
    • 
        
  • Built CGI/HTML accounting reports — FX, per-country tax, discounts, revenue.
    • 
        
  • Built a promo-code system extending airtime into value-added services.
    • 
      

    


    

      
      

        
Gumi Asia — Server Engineer

        May 2013 – Jun 2014
      

      
Singapore · Mobile games infrastructure

      
    
        
  • Built a scalable multi-platform push-notification service and improved login systems.
    • 
        
  • Built a payment gateway (PayPal, Amazon App Store) to expand monetization.
    • 
        
  • Designed AWS VPC networking, office VPN, and HA NAT; ran MongoDB as DBA.
    • 
        
  • Tuned the Linux kernel (NAT, TCP/IP) for higher throughput.
    • 
      

    


    

      
      

        
zvelo — Threat Prevention → Lead Software Engineer

        Feb 2010 – May 2012
      

      
United States · Web classification & threat detection

      
    
        
  • Automated web-classifier expansion — 100+ categories in a new language in three months.
    • 
        
  • Built a distributed queueing architecture for threat sensors on RabbitMQ.
    • 
        
  • Grew the English classification system to 144 categories; integrated Google Safe Browsing & AV scanning.
    • 
      

    


    

      
      

        
Narrasystems — Software Development Engineer

        May 2007 – Dec 2009
      

      
Silicon Valley startup · Networking test appliances

      
    
        
  • Built a multi-threaded C/C++ packet generator and a full TCP/IP routing-protocol test suite (Tcl/Tk).
    • 
        
  • Automated router testing with Expect across BGP, OSPF, IS-IS, RIP, PIM-SM, LDP.
    • 
      

    


  







  
Skills & Tools

  

    

      
Systems

      

        Linux
        FreeBSD
        Kernel tuning
        High availability
        Networking
      

    

    

      
Databases

      

        PostgreSQL
        Redshift
        Redis
        MongoDB
        SQL
      

    

    

      
Languages

      

        Python
        Perl
        C/C++
        Tcl/Tk
      

    

    

      
Infrastructure

      

        AWS
        Docker
        ECS/Fargate
        Ansible
        WireGuard
        Nginx
        CI/CD
      

    

  







  

    
Let's build something reliable.

    
Hiring for a backend, systems, or infrastructure role? I'm open to full-remote work.

    

      marlon.abastar@gmail.com
      LinkedIn