Fotis Makris_
Hi, I'm Fotis
Full-Stack Software Engineer | Distributed Systems
I built and led the technology powering a 70,000-user gaming platform that generated $300K+ revenue. I design scalable systems, solve complex problems, and create seamless user experiences. You know... the usual.
About Me
I am a dedicated software engineer with 5+ years of professional experience as the Lead Software Engineer and founder of a small game publishing company.
I led the development and maintenance of a private game server platform with over 70,000 registered users and $300,000+ in revenue generated over three years. My work involved building critical systems that ensured high availability and user experience, including a game launcher, user account and payment processing system, game statistics dashboard, internal developer tools, and many more.
I thrive on designing scalable, user-focused solutions. I'm passionate about solving complex problems and contributing to high-impact projects in senior engineering roles. Whenever issues arose — whether technical, operational, or outside my comfort zone — I took initiative to resolve them. This mindset helped me rapidly expand my skillset across every single thing I had to deal with.
Despite operating with a fraction of the resources of multi-billion dollar companies in the same gaming space, I consistently delivered an experience that players praised as smoother, more reliable, and more enjoyable and I personally designed and maintained the systems that contributed this experience — all while working with a lean team and very limited budget.
“Our users consistently told us our experience was better than the official servers. That was our benchmark — and we beat it.”
Key Skills & Strengths
- Full-stack Engineering: Experienced across frontend, backend, databases, and DevOps.
- Systems Architecture: Designed and maintained scalable services supporting 70,000+ users with real-time interactions and secure payment integrations.
- Adaptability & Initiative: Took ownership of unfamiliar challenges — from integrating third-party APIs, to reverse engineering, to 3D Game Development concepts — and turned them into learning and growth opportunities.
- Leadership: Led end-to-end development, mentored contributors, and ensured technical alignment across services.
- Business Ownership: As company director, balanced product direction, system performance, and user growth — helping generate over $300K in revenue.
- Resilience & Problem-Solving: Proactive in resolving blockers, optimizing systems, and delivering features quickly without compromising on quality.
- User Experience Excellence: Built systems that delivered a smoother and more stable experience than large commercial platforms, according to player feedback — including launcher reliability, login flow, and stat dashboards.
Tech Experience
Programming Languages
JavaScript
TypeScript
C/C++
C#
Java
Kotlin
Go
SQL
Backend & Frameworks
Node.js
Express.js
Next.js
Prisma ORM
Docker
Kubernetes
Microservices
Nginx
Android SDK
REST APIs
Endpoint Design & Deployment
Authentication & Authorization (API Keys, OpenID, OAuth2, JWT, MFA, AWS Cognito, Custom)
Rate Limiting
Idempotency, Response Caching
CORS
Pagination
Event-Driven Design (Webhooks / WebSockets)
Frontend
HTML
CSS
React
Next.js
Electron
Tailwind CSS
Material UI
Databases & Caching
MySQL/MariaDB
MongoDB
SQL Server
AWS Aurora
AWS DynamoDB
Redis
Cloud
AWS (EC2, ECS, VPC, S3, ELB(ALB/NLB), API Gateway, Aurora RDS, ElastiCache, Lambda, IAM)
Azure (Virtual Machines, App Services, Static Web Apps, Storage Accounts)
Cloudflare (DNS, CDN, R2, Stream, Pages, Images)
Message Queues & Data Streaming
RabbitMQ
Apache Kafka
AWS SQS
Amazon Kinesis Data Streams
Systems Engineering
Win32 API
Linux/Windows Server Admin
Sockets Programming
System/Network Security
Reverse Engineering
Planning, Testing & Other Tools
Git (GitHub, AWS CodeCommit)
CI/CD (Github Actions, AWS CodeBuild/CodePipeline)
Agile (Jira, Azure DevOps, Trello)
Unit/Integration Testing (Jest, Vitest, Postman)
Terraform
E2E Testing (Playwright)
AI Agents, Claude Code
Game Development
Unreal Engine 5
Featured Projects
Apartment Application Bot
An automated search application with multiple instances which bypasses common anti-bot systems and submits an application, when it finds an appropriate apartment.
SMS Forwarder
An Android application which forwards received SMS messages to other devices using Firebase Cloud Messaging.
Animey
A download system which, given an input URL for an anime series season, would fetch all available episodes and upload them to S3, with embedded English subtitles.
Project Aurora
A discord-like real-time communications social media platform that aims to deliver a secure, resilient and exquisite performance at huge scale.
Game Server Emulator
A game server emulator for a popular massively-multiplayer online role-playing game, using asynchronous, event-driven architecture, and a predetermined thread pool to support thousands of concurrent connections.
Game Launcher & Auth System
A seamless, multi-lingual launcher with auto-updates, secure authentication, integrated MFA, automatic game patching/repair and streamlined UX for 70,000+ users.
User Account & Payments System
A secure user account system with registration, login, MFA, and password resets. Integrated Stripe for payments and custom Twitch drops API.
Game Statistics Web UI
An interactive dashboard showing damage statistics, skills used, DPS rankings, and encounter history. Boosted retention and competition.
Internal Developer Tools
A suite of internal tools for content creation, update deployment, and analytics aggregation, enabling faster iteration and fewer bugs.
Menmu Discord Bot
A simple discord music bot with support for YouTube playback and live streams.
Contact Me
Have a project, opportunity, or question? Feel free to reach out!