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.
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.
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.
What's under the hood.
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