When a tenant in Dubai pays rent by card through Tern, my systems charge the card, record every dirham, and pay the landlord. I lead the backend engineering behind them.
Ahmad Mujahid is a Lead Backend Engineer at Tern in Dubai. He builds payment systems and backend platforms in Node.js, TypeScript, and PostgreSQL, with 9 years in production.
Integrated with UAE Pass, Ejari, card acquirers, open banking, installment providers, and UAE banks.
Three things, in plain words. The line under each is for engineers.
A card is charged once, every amount is recorded, and the right person is paid on time. Even when a provider fails halfway.
For engineers: Payment processing, refunds, payouts, provider integrations, and an end-to-end test suite on money flows.
Systems that many people use at the same moment, like a live test with 1,000+ students.
For engineers: Node.js, TypeScript, PostgreSQL query profiling, WebSockets, and automated release pipelines.
I put AI to work where its answers are tested, measured, and tied to a source, so people can rely on them.
For engineers: AI-assisted code review for the team, AI training, and an AI portal that generates assessments.
The rule the system keeps: a retry never moves money twice.
What I work on now, and earlier projects.
Lead Backend Engineer, Sep 2026 to now; Senior Backend Engineer, Sep 2025 to Sep 2026
I rebuilt the payments core of a Dubai rent payments platform: charges, refunds, payouts, and rent in installments. Hundreds of millions of dirhams in rent went through it.
Backend Developer & Team Lead, 2022
I built the Ekhtibary backend from scratch on PostgreSQL. It ran a live test with 1,000+ concurrent students, then gained an AI portal for assessment generation.
Sole Developer, 2018
As the sole developer, I built a social case management system for the UN and UNICEF in Java, JSF, and MySQL: one secure record per case, shared across subsystems.
Founder & Sole Engineer, 2025
My own product: a UAE price tracker with a browser extension, price history, and drop, target, and restock alerts. 1.6M+ products and 12M+ price points tracked.
A price tracker for UAE shoppers. It records prices across Amazon.ae, Noon, IKEA, and dozens more stores, so you can tell a real deal from a fake discount. I built and run all of it alone.
Promoted at Tern, YH&H, and Hsoub.
2025 to nowTern, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Own backend architecture, technical direction, and delivery for a rent payments and rewards platform.
2022 to 2025YH&H Products Design Services, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Architected forK12, a school registration platform with payments, ID verification, and video conferencing.
2019 to 2021Hsoub, remote
Led a development team of 4.
2017 to 2021Nabdah, remote
Built the UNICEF Social Protection system for 5,000+ beneficiaries.
2018 to 2020Elixir for intelligent software
Built core components of the Elixir framework.
Education: Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) in Informatics Engineering (Artificial Intelligence), Arab International University, 2021.
Courses I teach on Udemy: Mastering Database Management with Knex.js and PostgreSQL; URL Shortener: TypeScript, PostgreSQL, Koa.Js, REST and MVC.
The rules I hold myself and my team to.
I explain why something broke, with evidence, before anyone changes code.
One focused test that shows the problem beats a full rerun and a guess.
Every plan gets a second review whose only job is to find what breaks.
Fewer moving parts and one source of truth. Nothing built for a future that may not come.
No change to a production system runs without an explicit yes from its owner.
Notes on payments, backend work, and running production systems.
How we made Slack the operating surface of a fintech startup: build and deploy notices, secret change alerts, test verdicts, release steps, and business events, with the rules that keep them useful.
A createIndex call in server startup looks harmless and idempotent. Why I moved index creation out of application code into a per-environment ops step, with a MongoDB collation example.
How I built a receive-only test inbox on Amazon SES, S3, SNS, and Lambda, so end-to-end tests can prove who got an email, including Bcc.
Ahmad Mujahid is a Lead Backend Engineer at Tern in Dubai. He builds payment systems and backend platforms in Node.js, TypeScript, and PostgreSQL, with 9 years in production. He leads the backend engineering behind rent payments by card: charges, refunds, payouts, and provider integrations.
In Dubai, UAE. He has lived in Dubai since 2021. His role at Tern is hybrid, and he is open to remote work.
Email me@ahmadmu.com, book a 30-minute call, or message him on LinkedIn.
I am open to conversations about payments, backend architecture, and engineering teams, in Dubai and remote.
me@ahmadmu.com
