Baran Cezayirli
Technologist
I've spent over two decades building software, leading teams, and turning ideas into products. From energy platforms and healthcare systems to blockchain MVPs and startup scaling — I've worn many hats and learned something valuable from each one.
What Drives Me
Technology is my playground. I'm endlessly curious about how things work and how they can work better. Whether it's designing a distributed system that handles millions of data points or sketching out an idea for a new product on a napkin — the process of building is what keeps me going.
I believe the best technology decisions are the ones you barely notice — systems that just work, architectures that scale naturally, and products that feel effortless. Getting there takes experience, restraint, and a willingness to throw away clever solutions in favor of simple ones.
Skills & Strengths
Career Journey
Oct 2022 — Present
Director of R&D at Rainforest Automation
I joined Rainforest to lead R&D on their energy management platform — and ended up rebuilding it from the ground up. The core challenge was designing a cloud-native system that could ingest high-frequency IoT telemetry from thousands of devices in real time. I architected an event-driven microservices platform, shipped production ML models for energy demand and load optimization, and invented a distributed energy disaggregation pipeline (patent pending). Along the way, I led our migration off the legacy stack, cutting cloud costs by roughly 10× while retaining more historical data than before.
Oct 2019 — Oct 2022
CTO at One%
As CTO, I built the entire technical foundation from scratch — platform architecture, data pipelines, deployment patterns, team. The early days were about moving fast: shipping a production-grade MVP, establishing service boundaries that could evolve, and creating lean experimentation workflows so we could validate ideas in two-week cycles. Over three years, I led a zero-downtime migration to a more maintainable architecture, introduced data-driven product decisions that contributed to 3× user growth, and built the engineering culture from the ground up.
Sep 2018 — Oct 2019
Principal Software Engineer at Malaeb
Malaeb had a fast-growing sports platform with serious performance bottlenecks. I redesigned the backend data access patterns, bringing API response times from seconds down to milliseconds, and rearchitected core components to support international expansion. The most fun project was designing a gamification system driven by user behavior data — it increased platform engagement by 75% and became a core part of the product.
Apr 2018 — Sep 2018
Principal Software Engineer at Solve.Care
Healthcare platforms are a special kind of complexity — regulatory constraints, interoperability requirements, and zero tolerance for data errors. I worked closely with the solution architect to design a modular, extensible platform that could grow with the company. I led the first production release end-to-end, ensuring the system was stable, observable, and ready for real patients.
Oct 2017 — Apr 2018
Staff Software Engineer at Applied Blockchain
In six months, I led the development of four blockchain-based platforms — each for a different client, each with unique data consistency and integration challenges. The work was intense and varied: translating complex business rules into distributed system designs, working directly with clients to scope requirements, and mentoring a growing team of developers along the way.
Dec 2016 — Oct 2017
Staff Software Engineer at Decision Mapper
This is where I architected Deloitte's audit automation platform, Cortex — an enterprise-grade system that's still in operation years later. The platform ingests data from heterogeneous sources, normalizes it through configurable pipelines, and generates automated audit reports. I designed the core abstractions that separate client-specific logic from shared infrastructure, which made onboarding new enterprise clients dramatically faster. I also managed a globally distributed engineering team under tight enterprise delivery constraints.
Apr 2008 — Dec 2016
Full Stack Engineer at Self-Employed
For nearly nine years, I built apps, games, and web platforms as a freelance engineer — working with clients and collaborators across industries. The technical output was significant, but the real value was in the people I worked with and the breadth of problems I got to solve. This period shaped my instinct for pragmatic engineering and taught me how to learn quickly in unfamiliar domains.