S – Situation
A consumer‑facing taxi app was developed as a modern booking, dispatch and payment system. I joined as a backend developer to build the necessary services and integrations.
T – Task
- Develop backend services to handle ride orders, vehicle tracking and dispatch logic.
- Implement functionality to retrieve ride receipt data, generate a PDF receipt and email it to the customer.
- Finalize integration with the existing taxi dispatch system and with NETS mobile payments.
- Test and fix bugs in the Android client application.
- Build a microservice architecture on AWS Fargate and ensure reliable inter‑service communication via a Redis message bus.
A – Actions
Backend features
- Built the order API, which forwarded ride requests to the dispatch system and maintained order status in a Redis cache and an SQL database.
- Implemented real‑time vehicle location updates for users of the mobile app.
- Integrated NETS mobile payments into the Spring Boot service and documented the payment process.
- Developed functionality to fetch receipt data at the end of a ride, generate a PDF receipt and email it to the customer.
Integrations & infrastructure
- Configured microservices to run on AWS Fargate and wrote scripts for container building and deployment to AWS.
- Used Redis pub/sub mechanisms to transmit ride status updates between services.
Mobile testing & bug fixes
- Tested the Android application on a physical device and in the Android Studio emulator; fixed several discovered issues directly in the Android app’s code.
- Followed a lightweight Kanban process and managed tasks using GitHub’s issue tracker.
R – Results
- Launch & stability: The MVP launched on schedule in July 2018 and ran stably without major bugs or outages.
- User & business impact: Within the first month the app achieved substantial user downloads and positive reviews. The number of rides booked through the mobile app grew significantly after launch. App‑store ratings were strong compared to competitors, and several customer suggestions for improvements were implemented in updates.
- Outcome: The client later decided to change their dispatch system to one that came with its own mobile app, ending further development on this product.
Tools & Technologies
- Languages & Frameworks: Java, Vert.x, Kotlin, Spring Boot
- APIs & Integration: REST, Redis, NETS payments
- Databases & Infrastructure: AWS Fargate, AWS RDS, Docker
- DevOps & CI/CD: AWS CLI, CloudFormation, custom deployment scripts
- Version Control & Collaboration: GitHub