Return to Project Vault

Lead Full-Stack Engineer & Architect | Greek Community of Alexandria | 2015 - 2026

Context & Scale

The Greek Community of Alexandria (Ελληνική Κοινότητα Αλεξανδρείας - EKA) is a historic civic institution founded in 1843 governing schools, hospitals, cultural centers, and charitable endowments for the Greek diaspora in Egypt. In 2015, established a long-term engineering partnership to build, scale, and maintain EKA's official digital communications, transparency archives, and community gazette platform, supporting global diaspora readership across 11 continuous years of operation.

Architectural Decisions

  • ->Tri-Script Database Architecture & UTF-8 MB4 Normalization: Configured strict UTF-8 MB4 database schema collations across all content tables to eliminate character corruption and truncation across mixed Greek alphabet, Arabic script (RTL), and Latin English text.
  • ->Institutional Transparency & Archival Taxonomy: Designed a structured publication taxonomy separating presidential decrees, board transparency announcements, and digitized historical PDF community newsletters for diaspora members worldwide.
  • ->Edge Caching & Infrastructure Hardening: Configured Nginx reverse-proxy FastCGI micro-caching, SSL/TLS encryption, and strict upload directory execution restrictions on Linux VPS hosting, sustaining reliable global performance with zero critical security incidents.

Engineering Execution

  • ->Frontend: Responsive, cross-browser layout templates supporting Greek, Arabic (RTL), and English typography.
  • ->CMS & Backend: Custom WordPress theme and PHP application logic with automated categorization, newsletter indexing, and editorial media workflows.
  • ->Data Layer: MySQL relational database with composite indexes on publication dates, post status, and multilingual taxonomy keys.
  • ->Operations & Security: Long-term Linux server administration, automated off-site database snapshot backups, and staff enablement for non-technical administrative editors.

Measurable Impact

  • ->Maintained 11 years of continuous institutional publishing and operational availability with zero critical downtime.
  • ->Digitized and cataloged over a decade of community gazettes, board resolutions, and historical diaspora publications into an accessible public archive.
  • ->Prepared the platform's data layer for subsequent programmatic AST migration and Full Site Editing modernization in 2026.