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Lead Full-Stack Engineer & Architect | MITCHDesigns (Yadaweya) | 2012

Context & Scale

Yadaweya is an Egyptian social enterprise and fair-trade e-commerce marketplace dedicated to preserving traditional handmade crafts and empowering artisan workshops across rural and marginalized regions in Egypt (including Nubia, Upper Egypt, Sinai, and the Siwa Oasis). Contracted through digital agency MITCHDesigns, this project engineered Yadaweya's direct-to-consumer e-commerce platform and international export portal.

Architectural Decisions

  • ->Artisan Provenance Relational Schema: Modeled a normalized MySQL database schema connecting individual handcrafted products directly to artisan profiles, regional governorate lineages, and cultural craft traditions, preserving craft authenticity and creator attribution throughout the shopping experience.
  • ->Multi-Currency & Variable Freight Calculations: Engineered dynamic cart calculation algorithms handling variable dimensional weights for delicate handcrafted goods, international carrier freight rules, and real-time multi-currency conversions for global buyers.
  • ->Atomic Payment Settlement Architecture: Structured secure online checkout transaction workflows interfacing with local payment gateways, enforcing atomic order state transitions and automated buyer and artisan notification dispatches upon payment confirmation.

Engineering Execution

  • ->Backend: Object-oriented PHP 5 MVC application core managing product catalogs, shopping cart logic, order fulfillment states, and administrative content management.
  • ->Data Layer: Normalized MySQL relational database with composite indexes covering artisan profiles, product taxonomies, order items, and localized shipping rates.
  • ->Frontend: Standards-compliant semantic HTML, modular CSS layouts, and vanilla JavaScript interaction handlers for catalog browsing, artisan storytelling, and shopping cart updates.
  • ->Infrastructure: Apache web server running on Linux with SSL encryption and canonical URL rewrites for search engine optimization.

Measurable Impact

  • ->Delivered Egypt's pioneer fair-trade handcrafts marketplace, connecting rural artisan workshops directly with global consumers.
  • ->Digitized product catalog and order fulfillment across hundreds of unique handmade craft items.
  • ->Automated shipping and international payment settlement, eliminating manual invoicing for social enterprise operations staff.