# Frequently asked questions URL: https://shahid09.netlify.app/faq/ Author: Muhammad Shahid (https://shahid09.netlify.app/) > Answers to 124 questions about Muhammad Shahid: Node.js backends, AI agents, SwiftUI iPhone and Mac apps, web apps, Web3, QA, experience and how to hire him. ## About me URL: https://shahid09.netlify.app/faq/about/ ### Who is Muhammad Shahid? Muhammad Shahid (also known as Shahid Khan) is a Senior AI Software Engineer and Backend Developer from Faisalabad, Pakistan. He builds mobile apps, desktop apps, web apps, AI agents and the backends behind them, and has published 8 apps of his own on the App Store. ### What do you do? I build software end to end: Node.js backends and APIs, AI agents and automation, SwiftUI apps for iPhone, iPad and Mac, web apps and Solidity smart contracts. I also test what I ship, because I started my career in QA. ### Where are you based? Faisalabad, Pakistan, on Pakistan Standard Time (UTC+5). I work remotely with clients around the world and regularly overlap with US, EU and Gulf working hours. ### How much experience do you have? More than five years in software: SQA Engineer at Travelogest from March 2021, Backend Developer at Dlux Soft from August 2022, and Backend Developer (Node.js / Solidity) at Quecko Inc. since March 2023. ### Where do you work now? I am a Backend Developer (Node.js / Solidity) at Quecko Inc. in Islamabad, where I have worked since March 2023. My main ongoing project there is Joni (joni.ai), an AI product platform. ### What is your education? I have a BS in Computer Science from the Virtual University of Pakistan (2020 to 2024). Before that I studied ICS at Government College, Faisalabad. ### What certifications do you hold? n8n: No-Code AI Agent Builder (Simplilearn), Build AI Agents using LangGraph (Simplilearn), React (Simplilearn), Blockchain (Coursera), and MongoDB and Mongoose (MongoDB University). ### What are your biggest results? Backend services for DOP, which raised $185M in its private sale and grew to 300M+ users; smart contracts and services for Tomi, a Web3 ecosystem with 1M+ users; scaling the CV Maker backend from 200K to 1M+ users with about 60% faster APIs; and 8 apps of my own on the App Store. ### Which languages do you work in? English and Urdu. ### How can I contact you? WhatsApp on +92 321 7815799 is the fastest way. You can also email contacttoshahidkhan@gmail.com, or find me on LinkedIn and on GitHub as ShahidKhan09. ## Backend development URL: https://shahid09.netlify.app/faq/backend-development/ ### Which backend technologies do you use? Node.js and Express.js for APIs, MongoDB with Mongoose for data, Redis for caching, REST APIs with JWT authentication, EJS for server-rendered pages, and Heroku, VPS servers or Netlify for deployment. ### Are you a Node.js developer? Yes. Node.js is my main backend language. I have used it in production at Quecko Inc. and Dlux Soft for products with millions of users, including DOP, TheCryptoBasic and CV Maker. ### Do you build REST APIs? Yes. I build production Express and MongoDB REST APIs with request validation, centralised error handling, logging, JWT authentication, caching and pagination. ### Do you work with MongoDB? Yes, it is my main database. I design schemas and compound indexes, write aggregation pipelines and use Mongoose. I also hold the MongoDB and Mongoose certification from MongoDB University. ### How do you use Redis? Mainly to cache read-heavy routes. At DOP I added a Redis caching layer together with new MongoDB indexes, which brought API timeouts and database CPU load under control at 300M+ users. ### Can you fix login and session problems? Yes. At TheCryptoBasic users were being logged out at random. I traced it to incorrect JWT expiry and refresh-token handling and rewrote the session flow so sessions now persist as intended. ### Can you build the backend for a mobile app? Yes. I developed the backend of CV Maker – Resume Builder, an Android app on Google Play with 1M+ users worldwide, and worked with the mobile and design teams to ship its releases. ### Can you integrate third-party APIs? Yes. I built the live market-data pipeline at TheCryptoBasic, connected 5 RPC providers at DOP, and build API and LLM integrations for AI agents. ### Do you work with real-time data and WebSockets? Yes. TheCryptoBasic serves live market data to 2M+ users, and my open-source project cmcprice-Websocket streams live crypto prices over WebSockets. ### Where do you deploy backends? Node.js backends on Heroku or VPS servers, and static and Next.js sites, like this one, on Netlify. ### Can you fix payment and transaction failures? Yes. At Quecko I investigated user-reported payment and transaction failures, traced the root causes, shipped fixes on tight timelines, restored reliable payments and added monitoring and error alerts to catch failures early. ### How do you make a backend reliable? Request validation, centralised error handling, logging, monitoring and error alerts, and testing before every release. At Dlux Soft this approach reduced production errors. ### Can you add monitoring and error alerts? Yes. I add monitoring and alerts as part of every fix, so the next failure is caught by the system instead of being reported by users. ### Can you build a full-stack app on your own? Yes. I built New-Waffle, an NFT raffle web application, end to end on my own: the raffle logic, the backend and the web client, deployed solo. ### Do you build internal tools? Yes. Two of my open-source tools are mongodb-data-exporter, which exports every collection in a MongoDB database to its own JSON file, and video-splitter-with-text, which splits videos and burns in text overlays. ### Can you work on a backend someone else built? Yes, that is most of my work. I have taken over live products with millions of users and fixed their performance, session and payment bugs without rewriting them. ### Do you use NestJS? Yes. I build Node.js backends with NestJS when a project benefits from its modules and dependency injection, and with Express when a lighter setup fits better. ### Do you build GraphQL APIs? Yes. I build GraphQL APIs as well as REST APIs, and choose between them based on how the clients need to fetch data. ## Performance and scaling URL: https://shahid09.netlify.app/faq/performance-scaling/ ### Can you fix a slow API? Yes. I profile the slow queries, then fix them with indexes, aggregation pipelines, caching and pagination. At Dlux Soft this cut average API response time by about 60%. ### How did you scale CV Maker from 200K to 1M users? With MongoDB indexing, aggregation pipelines, response caching and pagination on the Node.js backend, while keeping releases stable and free of downtime. ### How do you fix high MongoDB CPU usage? Find the slow queries, add the right compound indexes, rebuild the access patterns, and cache read-heavy endpoints in Redis. That is how I brought DOP’s database load back into a safe range. ### What did you build for DOP? DOP (Data Ownership Protocol, dop.org) is a privacy-focused blockchain protocol that lets users choose what on-chain data they reveal, using zero-knowledge selective disclosure. I engineered its backend services: the APIs, the data layer and the blockchain connectivity. ### What usually causes API timeouts at scale? In my experience, read-heavy queries without the right indexes and no caching layer. At DOP fixing exactly that eliminated the timeouts and stabilised response times under peak load. ### Can you scale a backend without rewriting it? Usually, yes. Slow queries, timeouts, 100% CPU and random logouts can almost always be fixed in place, and that is how I have handled them on live products. ### How do you keep blockchain transactions working when an RPC node fails? At DOP I integrated 5 RPC providers behind randomised selection with automatic failover, so a dead node never reaches the user. Transaction downtime from individual node failures dropped to zero. ### Can you fix CPU and memory bottlenecks? Yes. Query and aggregation tuning, CPU and memory bottlenecks, and session bugs are the problems I fix most often on live products. ### Do you do zero-downtime releases? Yes. While scaling the CV Maker backend from 200K to 1M+ users, every release stayed stable and free of downtime. ### Can you rescue a product that keeps breaking in production? Yes. I have fixed slow queries, timeouts, 100% CPU and random logouts on live products with millions of users, then added monitoring so the problems do not return quietly. ### Can you scale Node.js and MongoDB systems to millions of users? Yes. I have done it in production: DOP grew past 300M users, TheCryptoBasic serves 2M+ readers, and I scaled CV Maker from 200K to 1M+ users, all on Node.js and MongoDB backends. ### How do you design high-performance REST APIs? Indexed queries, Redis caching for read-heavy routes, pagination, lean responses, request validation, and slow work moved to background jobs. At Dlux Soft this cut average API response time by about 60%. ### Do you do system design? Yes. I design the services, data model, caching, queues and failover for a system and plan how it will scale. At DOP that meant Redis caching, new indexes and multi-provider RPC failover for 300M+ users. ## AI agents and automation URL: https://shahid09.netlify.app/faq/ai-agents-automation/ ### Do you build AI agents? Yes. I build AI agents with LangGraph and n8n and connect them to your existing tools and data. I hold the Build AI Agents using LangGraph certification from Simplilearn. ### What is Joni (joni.ai)? Joni is an AI product platform and my main ongoing project at Quecko Inc. I build its backend services, agent workflows and integrations. ### Do you use n8n? Yes. I build n8n workflows that automate repetitive work and connect AI steps to your apps. I hold the n8n: No-Code AI Agent Builder certification from Simplilearn. ### Do you use LangGraph? Yes. LangGraph is a framework for building AI agents as connected steps that keep state between them. I use it in my AI agent work, including Joni. ### Can you add an AI feature to an existing product? Yes. I build API and LLM integrations that plug into your current backend, tools and data, so the AI feature works with what you already have. ### What kind of work can you automate? Repetitive work that moves information between tools: workflows, notifications, data syncing and internal processes. I build it with n8n, AI agents or custom Node.js services, depending on the job. ### Can you build a production-ready AI product? Yes. I build the AI layer and everything around it that production needs: the backend, authentication, data storage, error handling, monitoring and testing. ### Do you build on-device AI features? Yes. My apps SnapText (iPhone and iPad) and Picture to Text (Mac) run text recognition entirely on the device, so images and text never leave it. Picture to Text reads 30+ languages. ### Can you build AI features into a mobile app? Yes. Resume Builder – CV Maker AI, one of my App Store apps, includes an AI assistant that helps improve resume text, and SnapText extracts text from images with on-device OCR. ### Do you build the backend behind AI products? Yes. At Joni I build the backend services, agent workflows and integrations that make the AI product work. ### Can you build custom AI tools for my team? Yes. I build custom internal tooling, from n8n workflows to AI agents connected to your data, to remove repetitive work. ### Can you turn my idea into a working product? Yes. I scope it with you, plan fixed milestones, build it in small pieces you can see, then test and launch it. I handle the app, the backend and the AI parts, so you deal with one person. ## AI engineering and cloud URL: https://shahid09.netlify.app/faq/ai-engineering/ ### Do you build LLM and GenAI systems for production? Yes. I build LLM-based features and agentic workflows that run in production, including at Joni (joni.ai), an AI product platform where I build the backend services, agent workflows and integrations. ### Do you build RAG systems with embeddings? Yes. I have built production RAG pipelines (retrieval-augmented generation) using embeddings and vector search: splitting content into chunks, creating embeddings, storing them for vector search, and retrieving the right context for the LLM, so its answers are grounded in your own data. ### What is an agentic workflow, and do you build them? An agentic workflow is an AI system that plans and carries out several steps itself: calling tools, reading data and deciding what to do next. I build them with LangGraph and n8n, keeping state between steps and passing results to the rest of the system. ### How do you evaluate and monitor LLM features? I trace prompts, responses and tool calls, evaluate changes against test sets before release, and monitor answer quality, latency and cost in production. It is the same discipline I learned in QA, applied to AI. ### Do you use Python? Yes. I use Python for AI work and scripting, alongside JavaScript and TypeScript for backends and web apps. ### Do you use TypeScript? Yes. I write TypeScript and JavaScript for Node.js backends and web front ends. ### Do you work with AWS and Docker? Yes. I containerise services with Docker and deploy and run them on AWS, alongside Heroku, VPS servers and Netlify. ### Do you set up CI/CD pipelines? Yes. I set up pipelines that build, test and deploy automatically, so every change is checked before it reaches production. This site, for example, deploys on every push and then submits its sitemap to IndexNow. ### Do you design microservices and event-driven systems? Yes. I split backends into services that talk through APIs, events and queues, and I have worked with data streaming. For Tomi I built event-driven services that index on-chain events and keep off-chain state in sync. ### Are you a fit for a Senior AI Software Engineer role? I combine production backend work at scale (DOP with 300M+ users, CV Maker with 1M+), hands-on GenAI engineering (LLMs, RAG, agentic workflows and evaluation), cloud and DevOps with AWS, Docker and CI/CD, and a QA background. I am open to remote and hybrid roles. ### Do you work with LangChain or LlamaIndex? Yes. I build with LangChain and LlamaIndex for loaders, retrievers and chains, and with LangGraph, which I am certified in, for stateful AI agents. ### Can you integrate OpenAI and Anthropic APIs in production? Yes. I call the OpenAI and Anthropic (Claude) APIs from production backends with retries, timeouts, streaming, rate-limit handling and usage logging, so the AI features stay reliable and their cost stays visible. ### Do you optimise LLM cost and latency? Yes. I cache repeated answers, use smaller models where quality allows, trim prompts and context, stream responses and batch background work, and I track cost and latency per feature. ### Have you built multi-agent systems? Yes. I have built multi-agent systems where specialised AI agents split a task, pass results to each other and hand off work, coordinated with LangGraph. ### Do you do prompt engineering? Yes. I design prompts with clear instructions and structured outputs, keep them versioned, and test every change against evaluation sets before it ships. ### Do you use LLM tool calling and function calling? Yes. I let LLMs call APIs and tools through defined schemas, and validate the arguments before anything runs, so agents can act on real systems safely. ### Have you fine-tuned LLMs? Yes. I have fine-tuned models, including with LoRA, for cases where prompting and RAG are not enough, and I evaluate the fine-tuned model against the base model before using it. ## Mobile and desktop apps (SwiftUI) URL: https://shahid09.netlify.app/faq/mobile-desktop-apps/ ### Do you build iOS apps? Yes. I build iPhone and iPad apps with SwiftUI. Seven of my App Store apps run on iPhone and iPad, and one runs on the Mac. I designed, built and published all of them myself. ### Which apps have you published? UK Test Prep, RoadTick: Driving Theory Test, Resume Builder – CV Maker AI, SnapText – Image to Text, Picture to Text (Mac), Magnetic Blocks: Fill & Relax, Cheatly: Game Cheat Codes, and Secret Codes: IMEI & Carrier. All are free on the App Store. ### Do you use SwiftUI? Yes. SwiftUI is what I build my Apple apps with, from the interface to App Store publishing. ### Do you build Mac apps? Yes. Picture to Text is my Mac OCR app: drop in images or PDFs, or press Shift-Command-2 to capture any area of the screen, and get editable text in 30+ languages. Everything runs on the Mac. ### Do you build desktop apps? Yes. My published desktop app is Picture to Text for the Mac, and I build desktop apps alongside mobile and web apps. ### Can you build a production-ready app from scratch? Yes. I take an app from idea to a live, tested product: design, SwiftUI or web front end, Node.js backend, testing and release. My 8 App Store apps are all production apps I built and shipped myself. ### Can you publish my app on the App Store? Yes. I have taken 8 apps through the whole pipeline myself: design, build, App Store review and release. ### Do you build Android apps? I built and scaled the backend of CV Maker – Resume Builder, an Android app on Google Play with 1M+ users. My own published apps are for iPhone, iPad and Mac. Send me the details of your Android project and I will tell you honestly whether it is a fit. ### Can you build apps that work offline? Yes. UK Test Prep works fully offline, and Magnetic Blocks and Cheatly are offline apps too. ### Can you build privacy-first apps? Yes. My apps work without an account and keep data on the device. SnapText, for example, needs no account and has no tracking. ### Can you build a game? Yes. Magnetic Blocks is my calm, offline tangram-style puzzle game with 10,000+ puzzles, 100 chapters, a Build Mode and daily challenges. ### Can you build an exam preparation app? Yes. UK Test Prep has 1,250 Life in the UK practice questions, 46 study note sections, 307 flashcards and a timed 24-question mock exam. RoadTick covers the UK driving theory test, hazard perception, the Highway Code and road signs. ### Can you build OCR and document scanning apps? Yes. SnapText extracts editable text from photos, screenshots and scanned documents on iPhone, and Picture to Text does the same for images and PDFs on the Mac. ### Can you build an app that creates PDFs? Yes. Resume Builder – CV Maker AI builds resumes, CVs, cover letters, biodata and resignation letters, checks them against ATS software and exports a clean PDF. ### Can you build both the app and its backend? Yes. I build the SwiftUI app and the Node.js backend behind it, and I have built backends for mobile apps with 1M+ users. ### Can you help an app get found on Google? Yes. Every one of my apps has ten guides on this site in English, Hebrew, Chinese and Spanish, with structured data, sitemaps and hreflang so search engines and AI assistants can find them. ## Web apps and websites URL: https://shahid09.netlify.app/faq/web-apps/ ### Do you build web apps? Yes. I build web apps with JavaScript, React and Node.js, such as New-Waffle, an NFT raffle web app I built end to end. ### Do you know React? Yes. I hold the React certification from Simplilearn, and this site is built with Next.js, a React framework. ### Can you build a website or landing page? Yes. This portfolio and blog is my own work: a Next.js site exported as static pages and hosted on Netlify. ### Can you build a multilingual website? Yes. The blog on this site is published in English, Hebrew, Chinese and Spanish, including right-to-left layout for Hebrew and hreflang tags for each language. ### Do you do technical SEO? Yes. On this site I set up structured data, sitemaps with hreflang, IndexNow submission after every deploy, llms.txt and Markdown copies of every guide for AI assistants. ### Which frontend technologies do you use? JavaScript (ES6+), React, HTML5, CSS3 and Bootstrap, plus Next.js and Tailwind CSS on this site. ## Web3 and blockchain URL: https://shahid09.netlify.app/faq/web3/ ### Do you write Solidity smart contracts? Yes. I built Solidity smart contracts for Tomi, a Web3 ecosystem with 1M+ users, and the raffle logic for New-Waffle. ### What did you build for Tomi? Tomi (tomi.com) is a DAO-governed Web3 ecosystem with its own domain layer, wallet, browser and TOMI token. I wrote the Solidity contracts for token and ecosystem logic and the Node.js services that index on-chain events and keep off-chain state in sync. The TOMI token climbed from $0.10 to $7 after launch. ### Have you worked on token sales? Yes. I worked on the backend of DOP, which raised $185M in its private sale, and on Rain (rain.one), which raised $1M in its private sale. ### Can you index blockchain events? Yes. For Tomi I wrote Node.js services that index on-chain events, expose them through clean APIs and keep off-chain state in sync with the chain. ### Can you build NFT projects? Yes. I have built generative NFT and raffle systems, including New-Waffle, an NFT raffle web app I built end to end. ### How do you make a Web3 backend reliable? Multi-provider RPC failover, so one dead node cannot break transactions, and on-chain event indexing that is monitored so it never silently stops. ### Can you build a production-ready Web3 backend? Yes. My Web3 backends have run in production for DOP, Tomi and Rain, with multi-provider RPC failover, monitored event indexing and careful transaction handling. ### Can you build on-chain risk tools? Yes. My open-source project rugchecknext is a token rug-pull checker for on-chain risk screening. ### Can you connect smart contracts to a normal web or mobile app? Yes. Writing the backend glue between smart contracts and the products people use is a large part of my Web3 work. ### What did you do for Rain? I built and hardened backend services around Rain’s private sale flow, with careful validation and transaction handling so no contribution could be lost or double-counted. The sale raised $1M. ## QA and testing URL: https://shahid09.netlify.app/faq/qa-testing/ ### Do you test your own code? Yes. I started as an SQA engineer before moving into backend development, so everything I ship goes out tested. ### What QA experience do you have? I was an SQA Engineer at Travelogest from March 2021 to July 2022, doing manual, regression and UI testing across web and mobile releases and leading verification and validation. ### Can you do manual and regression testing for my product? Yes. Manual, regression and UI testing are where I started, and I still run them on everything I release. ### Can you find the root cause of a bug? Yes. I trace the bug to its root cause, ship the fix, and add monitoring so it cannot come back unnoticed. ### Do you write test cases? Yes. At Travelogest I documented test cases and worked with developers to reproduce, track and close bugs quickly. ### Do you test mobile apps? Yes. I tested web and mobile releases at Travelogest, and each of my App Store apps goes through release QA before it ships. ### What is the difference between verification and validation? Verification checks that the software is built correctly against its specification; validation checks that it is the right software for its users. I led both at Travelogest. ### Why does a QA background matter for a developer? Having spent years breaking other people’s software, I build with the failure cases in mind, so the things I ship tend to stay shipped. ## Working with me URL: https://shahid09.netlify.app/faq/hire-me/ ### Are you available for hire? Yes. I am available for freelance projects and remote roles. ### Do you build apps that are ready for production? Yes. Everything I deliver is built for real users: validated inputs, error handling, logging, monitoring, tests, and a release process that does not take the product down. ### Do you work freelance or full-time? Both. I take on freelance projects and I am open to remote roles, with working hours that overlap US, EU and Gulf teams. ### What is your hourly rate? It depends on the scope. Small fixes and audits work hourly; full builds work better on fixed milestones. Send me the details and you get a clear number back, not a vague estimate. ### How does a project with you work? Four steps: a scope call, a written plan with fixed milestones and delivery dates, the build in small pieces with progress updates, then tested delivery with documentation and handover. ### What are your working hours? I am in Pakistan (UTC+5) and regularly overlap with US, EU and Gulf clients. I keep the hours your project actually needs. ### Do you support the project after delivery? Yes. Delivery includes documentation and handover, plus free support afterwards if something breaks. ### How will I know how my project is going? I ship in small pieces and send regular progress updates, so you always see what has been built and where the time is going. ### Will you tell me if my project is not a good fit? Yes. On the first call I tell you honestly whether the job is a fit and what it realistically takes. ### What should I send you for a quote? What you want built or fixed, the current state of the product or code, your deadline and your budget range. The more detail, the more accurate the quote. ### Have you worked on products at launch? Yes. I worked on the backends of DOP and Rain during their private sales and on Tomi through its token launch, when everything has to work the first time. ### How do I hire you? Message me on WhatsApp (+92 321 7815799) or email contacttoshahidkhan@gmail.com with your project details, and I will reply with next steps. ### Are you available for AI Engineer or LLM Engineer roles? Yes. I am open to AI Engineer, LLM Engineer, Senior AI Software Engineer and backend roles, remote or hybrid, as well as freelance AI projects. ### Do you build production-ready AI systems, not just prototypes? Yes. I take AI features past the demo: evaluation, monitoring, error handling, cost control, tests and a stable backend, so they keep working for real users.