GetThrivin
A workforce development platform — web, API, and mobile — architected and built end-to-end, deployed across African markets with FIPS compliance and enterprise SSO.
Overview
As Fractional CTO, I took the platform from architecture sketch to working product — backend, frontend, and mobile app, built in parallel, under tight deadlines that included live investor demos and FIPS-compliant international rollout.
Backend on Express + TypeScript, web on Next.js 16 / React 19, mobile on React Native + Expo. Integrated enterprise SAML SSO with complex token-refresh flows, Coursera’s learning API for external course ingestion, Firebase for push + analytics, and Mailgun for the notification pipeline.
The part I’m proud of: a BullMQ-based job system for behavioral nudge notifications that still runs itself. And a comprehensive seed-data environment so the team could demo the full product to investors in a realistic state — one of those invisible things that matters a lot when a deal closes.
Architecture
Reading the diagram: Three client surfaces (Next.js web, iOS + Android from a single React Native / Expo codebase) converge on one API core. Enterprise SAML flows sit outside and hand off tokens to the API. Data lives in MongoDB and Redis; background work — nudge notifications, digest emails, course syncs — runs through BullMQ. External integrations (Coursera, Firebase, Mailgun) are called only from the API boundary.
Shipping three platforms from scratch as one person is a posture — pick the integrations you won't regret, write the invisible glue well, and let the demo environment carry the pitch.
Six things shipped,
three hard ones solved.
Key contributions
- Built the complete backend — Express.js + TypeScript — and the Next.js 16 / React 19 web app.
- Developed the mobile app from scratch in React Native with Expo EAS build pipeline.
- Integrated enterprise SAML SSO, Coursera API for course content, Firebase, and Mailgun.
- Designed a BullMQ background job system for nudge notifications and async work.
- Created a comprehensive seed-data and demo environment for investor presentations.
- Guided the international rollout with FIPS Africa compliance requirements.
Challenges solved
- Three platforms (web, API, mobile) built in parallel as a solo technical lead, without any of them stalling.
- Enterprise SSO integration with complex multi-tenant token-refresh flows.
- Multi-phase international deployment against regional regulatory requirements.
What's under the hood.
Related work
Ready to fix, build,
or scale?
30 minutes, with me personally. I'll read your system like a log file and tell you what I'd do first. No pitch deck, no sales funnel.
— Davor Majc, founder, Numen