From Idea to Reality
BIOGRAPHY
Hi, I’m Harry Qu, a software engineer with a focus on backend, platform, and cloud systems, experienced in building and operating large-scale, production-grade distributed systems. I enjoy turning complex problems into reliable, high-performance solutions that scale, and I care deeply about system reliability, performance, and observability.
I hold a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) in Software Engineering from the University of Auckland and have worked across both large technology companies and fast-paced startups, contributing to backend services, infrastructure, and developer platforms that support real users at scale across web, mobile, and internal products.
I’m driven by practical engineering-designing systems that are simple where possible, robust where necessary, and maintainable over time. In a fast-moving industry, I enjoy continuously improving production systems, learning new technologies, and solving hard problems in real-world environments.
Whether working on backend services, platform infrastructure, or end-to-end systems, I bring strong ownership and a focus on delivering reliable, well-engineered solutions. I’m always excited to take on new challenges and contribute to meaningful, high-impact products.
Experience
Software Engineer @Atlassian
February 2025 – Present
Improving observability logging platforms processing over 1.2 PB/day by building high-throughput, low-latency backend services in Go, Java, and Python. Implemented ingestion quota controls, hardened failure paths with fallback recovery mechanisms, and migrated infrastructure from Ansible to Terraform to improve reliability and operational efficiency.
Software Engineer @TikTok
November 2023 – February 2025
Architected and implemented scalable Golang, Python, and Java microservices using RPC, Thrift, MySQL, Redis, Kafka, and Kubernetes to support live streaming features for a global user base of over 1B users. Led data platform improvements, system refactors, and observability initiatives that significantly improved performance and reduced on-call incidents.
Software Engineer & DevOps @Spark
April 2023 – November 2023
Built and operated CI/CD pipelines for large-scale applications using Docker, Terraform, AWS, and Azure. Developed internal tooling to manage on-prem and cloud build dependencies, reducing storage usage and build times and delivering significant cost savings.
Software Developer Intern @Akuna Capital
November 2022 – February 2023
Designed and developed real-time market data visualization tools using C#, .NET, React, TypeScript, and Python. Built high-throughput data processing pipelines handling billions of time-series records daily and deployed production services with Docker and Kubernetes, monitored via Prometheus and Grafana.
Software Developer Intern @Tidy
May 2022 – July 2022
Migrated legacy backend systems to a modern architecture using C#, ASP.NET Core, and Azure DevOps. Built an administrative portal with React and TypeScript and significantly improved system reliability through extensive unit and integration testing.
Graduate Software Teaching Assistant @University of Auckland
June 2022 – October 2023
Conducted tutorials for software engineering courses including Object-Oriented Programming, Web Development, and Operating Systems, supporting over 200 students.
Education
Bachelor of Engineers (Honours) majoring in Software Engineering
2020 - 2023 | University of AucklandEngineering GPA: 8.6/9 (A/A+ Average) – First Class Honours
Faculty of Engineering Dean’s Honours List - Top 5% in the cohort