Arshia Shahidi

Sanamekan is a venue discovery and rental platform for events, productions and private organizations, with listed venues for 70+ event types. It is an ITÜ Çekirdek startup, a Big Bang 2025 Top 50 startup, and closed a $400K first investment round in 2026. The platform has 40,000+ users. 

I joined at the start and helped build the product from the first commit to production, across web, mobile, backend and infrastructure, working with two other developers.

WEB APP
- Built the customer-facing web app with Next.js (App Router and Pages Router) and TypeScript, using server-side and static rendering for fast pages and good search visibility.
- Built the UI with Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui and MUI, with a responsive and accessible design across all devices.
- Added a multi-language interface with next-intl and i18nexus.

MOBILE APP
- Built and shipped the iOS and Android app with React Native, sharing the same API and authentication as the web app.

BACKEND AND DATA
- Used Strapi as the CMS and API layer (REST and GraphQL) on PostgreSQL, and designed the data model and API used by both the web and mobile clients.
- Built the backend services and admin tools in Node.js and TypeScript.
- Led the 2026 re-platforming: migrated the API from Strapi (Node.js) to Laravel, and moved production infrastructure and the PostgreSQL database from DigitalOcean to AWS (S3 and related services, managed with Laravel Forge), including file storage and CI/CD.

SEARCH
- Built the search experience with Meilisearch as the core engine and Algolia InstantSearch as the UI layer (autocomplete, filters, pagination), giving fast and relevant results across the venue catalog.
- Designed the indexing pipeline from the CMS to Meilisearch (incremental updates, faceting, typo tolerance). Algolia is used only for the client-side widgets.

AI FEATURES (Google Gemini)
- Built an AI assistant that reads a user's event description and turns it into venue search filters.
- Built an AI-enhanced hybrid search using Meilisearch and Gemini embeddings to improve semantic relevance.

ANALYTICS AND SEO
- Set up PostHog and Google Analytics with a clear event plan, and built and optimized the dashboards the team uses for product and marketing decisions.
- Improved SEO performance with structured metadata, Open Graph tags and server-side or static rendering.

AUTH AND PAYMENTS
- Integrated Firebase Authentication (email/password and social login) with secure session handling across web and mobile.
- Integrated Sipay for payments.

INFRASTRUCTURE, CI/CD AND QUALITY
- Own the infrastructure end to end: Docker-based services and staging-to-production CI/CD, with fast and reliable deployments on Vercel.
- Run Playwright and Vitest test suites on GitHub Actions against Vercel preview URLs.
- Managed infrastructure on DigitalOcean first, then on AWS, focusing on performance, uptime and scalability.

TEAMWORK
- Worked in a Scrum team of three developers to plan, build and ship features.
- Worked closely with designers and product managers to take features from concept to production.
- Worked with the site admins to understand their daily needs and built internal tools to make their work easier.

Appwox was a boutique mobile app and web development agency with offices in Istanbul and Cambridge (UK). The team built custom native mobile apps, backends and admin panels for client companies. I worked full-time on the iOS apps and on the AWS backends behind them.

IOS DEVELOPMENT
- Built native iOS apps in Swift for client projects, focusing on smooth performance and stability across devices.
- Worked on both the client-side features and the backend integration, so users get a consistent experience from the screen to the server.

BACKEND AND AWS
- Built backends in Node.js and Python and deployed them on AWS, using EC2, S3, Lambda and RDS to support scalable app backends.
- Tuned DynamoDB indexes based on real usage patterns.
- Implemented authentication and role-based access control (RBAC) with Amazon Cognito and IAM.

INTEGRATIONS
- Integrated Stripe and iyzico payments into client apps.

TEAMWORK
- Worked in a Scrum team with sprint planning and code reviews, using a Bitbucket-based, branch-release workflow.
- Worked with designers and product managers to match the technical work to the product goals.
- Contributed to full-stack delivery, from client-side features to the cloud systems behind them.