Kamel El-Refaie

Software engineer in Cairo, Egypt. I build backend systems with Java and Spring Boot, connect them with Kafka, and run them on Kubernetes.

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About

I'm Kamel, a backend developer at Manex / Solarus Smart Solutions since December 2022. I work on Spring Boot microservices, event-driven workflows, and the infrastructure that keeps them running.

Before backend, I built Android apps with Kotlin and Jetpack Compose, and cross-platform apps with Flutter. I studied Business Information Systems at Helwan University and graduated with honours in 2022. Recent work includes an offers engine that launches new offers without a redeploy, and a move to Kubernetes that cut infrastructure cost by more than 60%.

Name
Kamel El-Refaie, also written Kamel Elrefaie or Kamel Refaie, and known as Kamel Sayed. In Arabic: كامل الرفاعي
Now
Java Software Developer at Manex / Solarus Smart Solutions
Works with
Java, Spring Boot, Kafka, Drools, Redis, MySQL, MongoDB, Kubernetes, AWS, Jenkins, Elastic
Studied
B.Sc. Business Information Systems, Helwan University
Speaks
Arabic, English, Italian

Story

Year by year: studying, first teams, and what I built along the way.

  1. 2018 Starting at Helwan University

    I started a Business Information Systems degree at Helwan University in Cairo.

    • Helwan University
    • BIS

  2. 2020 Android and first teams

    I joined SCCI as a technical Android academic member and became a project member at Enactus BIS. This is where I got serious about mobile development with Kotlin.

    • SCCI
    • Enactus
    • Kotlin
    • Android

  3. 2021 Building and creating

    I moved to the multimedia team at Enactus BIS while continuing to build apps with Jetpack Compose, MVVM, and Flutter.

    • Enactus
    • Jetpack Compose
    • Flutter

  4. 2022 Graduation and my first engineering role

    I graduated in May with Excellent with Honours and a 3.79 GPA. Our graduation project, Metroid, scored 99/100 and won Best Project of the Year. I also completed the Google Africa Developer Scholarship. In December, I joined Manex / Solarus Smart Solutions as a Java Software Developer.

    • Metroid
    • Google Africa Developer Scholarship
    • Manex

  5. 2023 Learning production backend

    I built production services with Spring Boot and REST APIs in a microservices architecture, and wrote Kafka producers and consumers that connect services for notifications, offers, and transactions. I also integrated Fawry for payments.

    • Spring Boot
    • Kafka
    • Fawry

  6. 2024 Engines and real-time features

    I designed a dynamic offers engine on Drools so new offers go live without redeploying, built a reusable push notification service with Firebase Cloud Messaging, and replaced external API calls with MultiPolygon spatial indexing for faster city detection.

    • Drools
    • FCM
    • Spatial indexing

  7. 2025 Infrastructure and observability

    I moved our development environment from several EC2 instances to Kubernetes, cutting cost by more than 60%, set up blue-green deployments with zero downtime, and automated database migrations with Liquibase in Jenkins. I added Elastic APM and the ELK Stack for tracing and logging, and built a Python and YOLO pipeline that reads odometer mileage from photos.

    • Kubernetes
    • AWS
    • Elastic
    • YOLO

  8. 2026 Now

    I'm still building backend systems at Manex, studying the Mathematics for Machine Learning specialization on Coursera, and I launched this site.

    • Machine learning
    • Coursera

Books

Books I've read and what stayed with me. Pick one from the shelf to open it.

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