aalhendi

About me

Abdulrazzaq Alhendi

Backend & Systems Engineer | Payments, Distributed Systems & Native Software

+965 9991 5770 work@aalhendi.com aalhendi.com github.com/aalhendi
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Experience

Software Developer - Backend - Warba Bank (Kuwait)

- Present

  • Designed and built Warba Bank's core customer onboarding service, handling 100% of new account openings across mobile and branch channels.
  • Delivered highly configurable workflows on a custom workflow engine integrated with 5+ services, modernising the codebase and improving observability.
  • Upgraded core integration platform libraries to JDK 25, improving runtime performance, security posture and compatibility across backend microservices.

Technical Lead - Contract - Dawraty Educational Group (Kuwait)

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  • Modernised critical infrastructure by migrating an end-of-life PHP 7 application to Rust (approximately 75k LoC), preserving feature parity and backward compatibility while enabling 3x faster response times.
  • Architected CI/CD pipelines and containerisation, reducing deployment time by 40% and enabling zero-downtime updates.
  • Reduced cloud costs through resource right-sizing, database scaling policy changes and offloading media to cost-efficient storage.

Experienced Associate, Developer - KNET (Kuwait)

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  • Developed KNET's WAMD ISO 20022 instant-payments platform, implementing load balancing, mutual TLS and X.509 signatures through HSMs for security and scalability.
  • Led database, garbage-collection and application-level performance work that delivered a measured 500% increase in maximum operating capacity while maintaining 99.9% uptime.

Junior Integration Developer - Backend - Warba Bank (Kuwait)

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  • Migrated a monolithic banking application to a Kubernetes-based microservice architecture while moving from JDK 8 to JDK 17.
  • Implemented distributed tracing to investigate latency and accelerate root-cause analysis.
  • Led backend work on the "Pay Me" feature revamp, including entity modelling and KNET payment-processor integration.

Senior Research Technician - Dasman Diabetes Institute (Kuwait)

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  • Modelled large-scale patient time-series data from electronic health records (2011-2020) in Python and documented repeatable analysis methods.

Undergraduate Research Assistant - Qian Wang Lab, Iowa State University (Ames, IA)

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  • Built the initial version of a neuron-tracing application using computer vision and machine-learning techniques for neuron morphology research.

Undergraduate Research Assistant - Auriel Willette Lab, Iowa State University (Ames, IA)

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  • Built a batch-processing pipeline for MRI brain scans and statistical analyses, reducing repeated computational and manual work.

Undergraduate Research Assistant - Derrick Rollins Lab, Iowa State University (Ames, IA)

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  • Automated a feedforward predictive model-control system in VBA with configurable input steps, prediction horizons and temporal resolution.

Technical Skills

Languages
Java, Rust, C, Python, PHP, SQL
Platforms
Kubernetes, Docker, Linux, CI/CD, HSM integrations
Specialties
Distributed systems, microservices, payments, performance engineering, observability
Research
R, NumPy, pandas, Matplotlib, Seaborn; time-series analysis, MRI pipelines, computer vision
Native software
C, Rust, SDL3, Windows, Linux, reverse engineering, bytecode virtual machines
Spoken
Arabic, English

Selected Work

CTR Native - github.com/CTR-tools/ctr-native

- Present

  • Primary contributor to a native PC port of Crash Team Racing (PS1), performing original C reverse engineering and decompilation and implementing runtime, platform, build and game-integration systems.
  • Reworked PSX-specific paths into SDL3-backed Windows and Linux abstractions while preserving behaviour across a large decompiled C codebase.

Kuwait Hackathon 2024 - Award coverage

  • Won first place in a Capture the Flag challenge covering threat detection, system hardening, reverse engineering and digital forensics.

Loxiest

  • Built a portable interpreted language with object-oriented features, bytecode compilation, a custom virtual machine, REPL and script loading.

National Bank of Kuwait Hackathon - Award coverage

  • Won first place by designing and building a family-focused digital banking application within 48 hours.

Rogue

  • Created a Rust roguelike game and engine that runs as a native binary or in the browser through WebAssembly.

Jackaroo-py

  • Built a pure-Python Jackaroo simulation engine for artificial-agent training and statistical analysis.

Education

B.S. in Chemical Engineering - Iowa State University (Ames, IA)

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Certification