Open to remote, hybrid & relocation · Principal / Staff / Eng Leadership

I build systems that scale, and teams that ship them.

Principal Engineer / Engineering Leader / 20+ years

I'm Timothy Brown — a principal engineer and engineering leader with two decades building and scaling payment, booking, and high-availability web platforms. Equally at home deep in the architecture as I am leading multiple teams to deliver it. Today I'm building production-grade agentic AI systems — MCP, RAG, and deterministic LLM pipelines — on a foundation of distributed systems, Linux, and application security.

Get in touch View selected work

~/whoami.json

{
  "role":        "Principal Engineer · Engineering Leader",
  "based":       "Pranburi, Thailand",  // British citizen
  "experience":  20,            // years, and counting
  "building":    ["agentic AI", "MCP", "RAG", "payments"],
  "scaled":      "20 → 120 req/s · 200 TPS",
  "led":         "4 teams · 20+ engineers → VP/C-level",
  "htb":         "Master",          // offensive security
  "status":      "open to the next hard problem"
}

A stack built across two decades

Python Ruby / Rails Go PHP · Laravel TypeScript Anthropic Claude MCP FastAPI Vue · React PostgreSQL · PostGIS Elasticsearch Redis Docker · Kamal AWS mTLS

20+

Years shipping production software, IC to leadership

6×

Core throughput gain — ~20 → ~120 req/s via Puma & code tuning

200 TPS

Payment core scaled through targeted systems optimisation

70%+

Profit uplift from the ProfitOpt optimisation engine

Featured work

Selected projects

A slice of what I'm building now — agentic AI systems with the LLM deliberately confined to the edges, and the multi-service platform they run on. Deterministic where it counts, intelligent where it helps.

MCP · RAG · Agentic pipeline

Conversational Real-Estate Search Agent

Turns free-text buyer intent ("3-bed near the beach under ฿8M") into structured queries over real listing data, then answers in plain language grounded in the results. A deterministic Python core with the LLM confined to the edges — for reliability, auditability, and predictable cost. FastAPI backend, React chat UI, a FastMCP tool boundary, and a grounding verifier that refuses to claim what the data doesn't support.

Python 3.13 FastAPI FastMCP Anthropic Claude React RAG SQLite index

Live — realestate.t3dr3d.com

MCP · Deterministic pipeline · Security

WordPress Vulnerability-Triage Agent

Agentic triage of WordPress vulnerabilities using MCP tooling and a deterministic pipeline. The model reasons at the boundary; the scanning, correlation, and severity logic stay in typed, testable code — so the output is reliable and auditable rather than a plausible-sounding guess. Built on the same "LLM at the edges" discipline, with an input gate and grounding checks to keep the agent honest.

Python MCP Anthropic Claude Deterministic core AppSec

Full platform · Microservices · mTLS

IPropertyPro — property platform & AI console

A complete multi-service property platform I architected end to end: a Laravel 12 Engine API (Postgres/PostGIS + Elasticsearch) as the source of truth, a Vue 3 management SPA that proxies to it, a static marketing site, and a Python MCP agent that turns dashboard chat into real actions. Services talk over mutual TLS, deploy to a single droplet with Kamal behind an nginx edge, and share one design contract. A working example of the whole spectrum — data modelling, search, auth/RBAC, billing, and an agent layer — under one roof.

Laravel 12 Vue 3 PostGIS Elasticsearch FastAPI · MCP Stripe Kamal · Docker mTLS

Live — ipropertypro.net

Capabilities

What I work with

Two decades of range, kept current. The AI/agentic and platform stacks below are drawn straight from systems I'm building today — the rest is the distributed-systems and security foundation underneath.

AI / AgenticBuilding now

LanguagesPolyglot

Backend & frameworksServices & APIs

FrontendProduct surfaces

DataStorage & search

Infra / DevOpsShip & operate

SecurityOffensive & defensive

ArchitectureSystems design

LeadershipTeams & process

Track record

Experience

Payments, travel, hospitality, and property — the through-line is high-availability platforms under real load, owned end to end.

Building and shipping the production AI systems in Selected projects — full ownership from architecture and agent design through deployment and operation.

Principal Engineer Mar 2024 — Jun 2026

Built an LLM-powered SDK generator producing client SDKs in 10 languages directly from OpenAPI schemas — removing per-language manual maintenance.
Designed and implemented a webhook throttling and circuit-breaker system — merchant endpoints returning excessive errors are automatically blacklisted, with a background probe restoring traffic once healthy — turning a manual incident into self-healing behaviour.
Increased core throughput ~6× (~20 → ~120 req/s) through Puma configuration tuning and targeted code optimisation.
Separated the Sidekiq job queue onto a dedicated Redis instance, eliminating a shared point of failure behind a prior multi-hour production outage.
Delivered single sign-on across Omise and sister company Merchant-E.
Chaired the design committee of staff engineers and directors; established the design-review process and approval criteria.
Led technical analysis of new projects — architecture, feasibility, risk — and ran technical interviews, upholding the bar as a principal.

Software Engineering Manager Apr 2022 — Mar 2024

Built a payout microservice letting merchants withdraw platform earnings instantly via PromptPay rails — replacing delayed settlement with real-time disbursement on a surface where correctness is non-negotiable.
Architected and led the team delivering a payroll product used both internally and by external company customers — owning system design and delivery.
Scaled the core system to ~200 TPS; led the production PostgreSQL upgrade and the Elasticsearch v7 → v8.6 migration and optimisation.
Led the PDPA compliance initiative; oversaw Citi PromptPay API integration and the central reconciliation service.
Architected multi-merchant branch accounts — parent/admin merchants owning and managing child accounts.
Managed 3–4 teams (4+ engineers each) reporting to VP: hiring, OKR-based performance, mentoring, and delivery.

Lead Software Engineer Sept 2021 — Mar 2022

Led delivery of Dashboard v2, Opn's React + GraphQL SPA — owning architecture, mentoring, and code quality.
Drove observability with DataDog and Mixpanel, and led ongoing development of Omise's public plugins.

Owned all software development — internal and consumer-facing — and the development roadmap, reporting to C-level executives.
Led internal teams and external contractors end to end: hiring, growth, conflict resolution, and performance.
Integrated core hotel systems with payment gateways and new channel managers, opening additional distribution channels and payment methods across the estate.
Delivered a blockchain-based rewards system and Solar API integration; owned application architecture, server infrastructure, and DevOps (Jenkins, Docker, AWS).
Ran security analysis across IT systems using penetration-testing techniques.

Architected and led the core booking platform — the Nirvana booking-management API and the ProfitOpt profit-optimisation engine.
Increased profit 70%+ through optimisation of the ProfitOpt system.
Led multiple teams and the critical-support "SWAT" team, owned production releases, and standardised Vagrant/Docker developer environments.
Owned server architecture and security across Nginx, Apache, PostgreSQL, Redis, and beanstalkd on production and dev infrastructure.

Designed and built high-availability property portals (PHP, JavaScript, PostgreSQL/PostGIS, AWS S3 & CloudFront) — 24/7 uptime under high volume.
Led studio and client delivery at Genkan Creative, shipping full-cycle web and mobile projects for international clients and mentoring staff.

Project-managed and built websites for UK and Thai clients; systems setup, debugging, and full IT support.

About

I've spent 20+ years at both ends of the ladder — hands-on architecture and systems optimisation, and leading multiple teams to deliver.

Location: Pranburi, Thailand
Status: British citizen · remote, hybrid & relocation
Languages: English (native) · Thai (conversational)
Education: A Levels — Computer Science · Physics · Mathematics · Business Studies
Security: Hack The Box — Master
Off the clock: Guitar · motorsport · sci-fi

As comfortable owning a product end to end — architecture, infrastructure, security, and delivery — as I am leading a team to do it. I've built payment cores that handle real money at scale, booking engines that squeeze out margin, and property portals that stay up 24/7 under load.

The last stretch has been about agentic AI done responsibly: MCP tool boundaries, RAG over real data, and deterministic pipelines with the LLM confined to the edges — so the systems are reliable, auditable, and cheap to run, not just impressive in a demo.

Underneath it all is a deep foundation in distributed systems, Linux, and application security — the last of which I keep sharp on Hack The Box, where I hold Master rank. I like hard problems, small elegant solutions, and teams that take pride in the craft.

Let's talk

Building something that has to work at scale?

I'm open to principal / staff engineering and engineering-leadership roles — remote, hybrid, or relocation. If you're wrestling with scale, reliability, or getting agentic AI into production responsibly, I'd like to hear about it.

timothy.brown@t3dr3d.com Hack The Box — Master