I own infrastructure, CI/CD, and backend architecture in production at NSquared. I work with Google Cloud, Docker, GitHub Actions, Cloudflare, PHP, Laravel, Python, MySQL, Redis, BigQuery, and Apache Superset.
The first code I wrote generated geometry under constraint. The code I write now proves work before it ships. Four decisions between the two.
I started in 3D and design in 2014. By 2016 the real work was code: Rhino, Grasshopper and Python generating geometry under constraint, judged by what it did rather than how it looked. An idea stopped being an opinion to defend and became something you evaluate on performance metrics.
I was building either way. In 3D, most of the distance between an idea and the finished thing was friction that had nothing to do with the idea. Digital cut that distance: what I can describe, I can build, run and change the same day. I moved to where building carries the least friction.
I joined NSquared in 2022 and spent the first months learning the systems end to end, which is the fastest way to find out what in them actually matters. From then on I measured a contribution by whose attention it freed, not by how interesting it was.
My work is DevOps and automation for the team: infrastructure, pipelines, backend architecture, and the AI-assisted workflows around them. The team waits less on every push, and nobody logs into a server by hand anymore.
Built with the team at NSquared, except Flow XR, which is my own.
The accessibility testing tool built for busy digital teams, and for the people those teams are building for.
Dashboards and reporting that partners provision for their own clients, on live data.
The open-source BI platform under the dashboards.
A piece of the 3D years I kept: personalized e-commerce in realtime 3D, in the browser.
Engineers wait less for builds and tests, releases spend less time in manual testing, and nobody logs into servers one at a time anymore. Each card says what it counts.
−40% 9 minutes back on every push
How long an engineer waited to hear whether a push passed, on GitHub Actions.
−51% Halved by finding where the time went, not by dropping tests
How long the team's tests took to run in CI. Same tests, same assertions, both times.
50%+ less time spent testing each release by hand
The time a release spent in manual QA before browser tests ran in the pipeline.
659 → 1 logins by hand, replaced by one command
Every server login opened by hand, counted from shell history, before one command replaced them.
7 years since 2019
Three subjects the work keeps coming back to.
Written after the work shipped: what was decided, what it cost, and what held up in production.
Getting speed from AI without handing it the decisions: how the tools fit into real work, and where they quietly replace your judgment if you let them.
Read this category →What carried over from design and 3D: generative and computational design, and a house designed the way I run infrastructure.
Read this category →Backend and DevOps depth turning into product judgment, mostly by getting it wrong first: what to build, what to automate, what to leave alone.
Read this category →Use the previous and next buttons or the left and right arrow keys to browse the testimonials.
"Hsein is an exceptional mentor who excels at making complex technical concepts feel accessible to anyone. His unique journey from design to software engineering inspires critical thinking and building with purpose."- Adham Kiwan , Software Engineer at People365
"Hsein is an organized and detail-oriented mentor who refuses to let students settle for the minimum, constantly pushing them to realize and reach their full potential."- Shireen Zeineddine , Associate Software Engineer at People365
"Hsein consistently showed a strong work ethic, a serious commitment to growth, and the ability to collaborate effectively while making valuable contributions to team efforts."- Nabil Hassan , Director
Questions and disagreements about the writing are welcome. I read every message.