Pranta Roy.
Available from November 2026 — full-time, or a 400-hour internship placement

I build the backend systems other businesses run on.

I'm completing a Master of Information Technology at the University of Waikato, and looking for a 400-hour internship placement in Hamilton or remote across New Zealand. I came into the degree already knowing how to ship — HR, payroll, school ERP and queue platforms I built are live in production today — and I'm here to build on that under people who've been doing this longer than I have.

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Portrait of Pranta Roy

Shipped and running in production

Who I am

I'm a backend developer who ended up caring a lot about the parts of software nobody demos: the data model, the permission rules, the job that runs at 2am, the number on the payslip being correct. Most of what I've built is the kind of system a business opens every morning and can't work without.

That's shaped how I work. I plan before I type — requirements, schema, then architecture — because in multi-tenant systems the cost of guessing shows up six months later. I document as I go, and I'd rather ask a clarifying question on day one than rebuild in week five.

I moved to Hamilton for my Master of Information Technology at Waikato, specialising in secure cloud application engineering, programming project and advanced network security — the two things I kept running into while building those systems and wanted to properly understand rather than approximate. I'm looking for a team where I can keep learning that the way you actually learn it: by watching how experienced engineers make the calls I've only had to guess at so far.

Outside the degree I volunteer as an after-school tutor with a local trust, which has turned out to be good practice at the actual hard part of engineering: explaining something technical to someone who doesn't have your context yet.

Based inHamilton, Waikato
StudyingMaster of Information Technology, Waikato
ScholarshipVice-Chancellor's International Excellence
First degreeBSc Computer Science, Daffodil International University
Looking for400-hour internship placement
Strongest inBackend, APIs, databases, cloud
Getting aroundOwn car, licensed to drive
LanguagesEnglish

What I'm looking for

A 400-hour internship that forms part of my Master's, or full-time work — I'm available from November 2026. These are the areas where I can contribute from week one rather than week six.

Full-stack development

React and TypeScript on the front, Node, Express or Laravel behind it. Comfortable owning a feature end to end.

Backend and API engineering

REST API design, data modelling, multi-tenant architecture, background jobs and the performance work that follows.

PHP and Laravel

My deepest stack, and the one behind most of the systems listed below.

MERN Stack

MongoDB, Express, React and Node, plus TypeScript, Prisma and NestJS on the newer work.

Cloud and DevOps

AWS, DigitalOcean and Linux. Docker, CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code and cost-aware deployments.

Security engineering

Role-based access, authentication, audit trails in practice — and secure cloud architecture in my coursework.

AI development

Building product features on top of LLMs, and using agentic tooling well enough to keep it cheap.

Research and analysis

Requirement gathering, feasibility work and turning a vague brief into something a team can build.

Work rightsFull-time under current visa
Placement length400 hours, compulsory
Available fromNovember 2026
Based inAnywhere in New Zealand
Open toOn-site, hybrid or remote

Stack

Tools I've used to ship something real, grouped by where they sit in a system.

Languages

JS JavaScript
TS TypeScript
php PHP
Python
SQL

Backend and frameworks

Node.js
ex Express
NestJS
Laravel
FastAPI
React
Vite
Tailwind

Databases

MySQL
PostgreSQL
MongoDB
Redis
DynamoDB
Prisma

Cloud, infrastructure and tooling

aws AWS
DigitalOcean
Docker
Linux
Git & GitHub
CI/CD
Claude
Jira & Asana

Selected work

Products I planned and built. The first four are live — click any screenshot to enlarge it.

Upwork Verified freelancer profile

5.0 from a verified client

Expert Full Stack Backend Developer — Laravel, MERN and NestJS. Client work delivered through the world's largest freelancing platform, with identity and payment verified by Upwork.

ID verified 90 hours delivered Laravel, MERN, NestJS
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RadarSchool

Planned and built end to end

SaaS school management ERP, used by schools in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq

radarschool.com

A multi-tenant ERP that a school runs its whole operation on: enrolments, academics, money and transport, with a different view of it for every role in the building. I took it from first schema to a product that now serves schools across several countries.

  • Academic, assessment and multi-curriculum modules
  • Fees, invoicing and online payment
  • Library and school inventory
  • Bus and transport management
  • Role-based access for staff, parents and students
  • Reporting, live chat and log tracking

Laravel, PHP, MySQL, REST API

Trusted HRM

System design, database and delivery

HR and payroll platform, with companion iOS and Android apps

demo.trustedhrm.com

Planned from scratch: database design, system design, third-party integrations and the delivery schedule. It handles the parts of HR that go wrong loudly if the maths is off — attendance, rosters, tax and payroll — across multiple branches.

  • Attendance with biometric device integration
  • Payroll, shift rostering and tax calculation
  • Leave management and employee lifecycle
  • Multi-branch, role-based control
  • Support ticketing and reporting
  • Real-time chat with Pusher, files on AWS S3

Laravel, PHP, MySQL, AWS S3, Pusher, REST API

Smart Queue System

Backend and real-time architecture

Kiosk, counter and display queue management for multi-branch service desks

demo.smartqueuesystem.com

Three connected surfaces that have to stay in sync to the second: a touch kiosk that issues tickets, a display that calls them out loud, and a counter app that staff work from.

  • Self-service ticketing with configurable formats
  • Real-time token calling with voice announcements
  • Call, serve, hold, transfer and recall at the counter
  • Counter performance metrics
  • English, Spanish, Arabic and Bengali

Laravel, Laravel Reverb, Pusher, MySQL

Infix LMS

Core platform development

Marketplace-style learning platform for instructors and students

infixlms.ischooll.com

A course marketplace in the Udemy mould, where instructors sell and students learn, with the commission and payout accounting that implies.

  • Course creation, categories and drip content
  • Online exams, quizzes and gamification
  • Zoom API meetings and video lectures
  • Cart, checkout and payment gateways
  • Revenue and commission management
  • Social login, two-factor login, multi-language

Laravel, PHP, MySQL, Bootstrap, jQuery

HRM PLUS

Master's capstone, in progress

AI-enabled multi-tenant SaaS for HR and workforce management (COMPX576-26B)

A rebuild of everything I've learned about HR software, on a modern stack and a twelve-week clock. One MySQL database per tenant, with a control-plane database holding the tenant registry, packages and applications.

  • Admin, HR, manager and staff roles with JWT auth
  • Online, QR-code and offline attendance capture
  • Configurable leave types on a multi-step approval workflow
  • Payroll runs with overtime, holiday and tax handling
  • AI-assisted candidate screening and document parsing
  • Role-templated document generation and verification
  • Meeting scheduling with availability checks
  • Reporting across attendance, leave, payroll and assets

Express, TypeScript, Prisma, MySQL, React, Vite, Tailwind, Docker, CI/CD

Event Photo Cloud & Face Matching Platform

Cloud architecture project, in progress

Face-matching photo sharing for conferences, weddings and community events

Guests take a selfie and get back every photo they appear in. Built deliberately as an AWS-native system so the interesting problems are architectural: queueing, scaling and staying inside a budget.

  • Event registration and authentication with Cognito
  • Face-based photo search and matching
  • Infrastructure defined in CloudFormation
  • Lambda, SQS, EC2, S3 and load balancing
  • CloudFront delivery, alerting and budget controls

Laravel, React, Vite, DynamoDB, AWS (Lambda, SQS, Cognito, CloudFormation, CloudFront)

Projects and contribution

The same work in one view, with what I was actually responsible for.

Project What I contributed Stack
RadarSchool Owned the product from first schema: requirement analysis, database and system design, academic, fees and transport modules, role-based access, REST API and reporting. Now serving schools in several countries. Laravel, PHP, MySQL
Trusted HRM Planned the platform from scratch — database design, system design, third-party and biometric integrations, payroll and tax calculation, rostering, leave, reporting, REST API for the mobile apps. Laravel, MySQL, AWS S3, Pusher
Smart Queue System Built the real-time backbone across kiosk, display and counter apps, multi-branch token logic, configurable ticket formats, counter metrics and four-language support. Laravel Reverb, Pusher, MySQL
Infix LMS Course and content management, exams and quizzes, cart and payment gateway integration, revenue and commission accounting, Zoom API integration, two-factor login. Laravel, PHP, MySQL, jQuery
HRM PLUS Sole developer. Multi-tenant architecture with a database per tenant, JWT auth and RBAC, attendance capture, approval-workflow engine, payroll runs, document generation and AI-assisted screening. Test coverage maintained above 80%. Express, TypeScript, Prisma, React
Event Photo Cloud & Face Matching Platform Cloud architecture and backend: CloudFormation templates, Lambda processing pipeline with SQS, Cognito authentication, DynamoDB data design, CloudFront delivery and budget alerting. AWS, Laravel, React, DynamoDB

How I work with AI

I use coding agents daily, and I use them carefully. The skill isn't prompting — it's scoping a task small enough that the agent gets it right, reviewing what comes back, and keeping token and request cost low enough that the approach survives a real budget.

It's also a product skill. HRM PLUS uses an LLM for candidate screening and document parsing, so I've had to think about grounding, cost per tenant, and what happens when the model is confidently wrong.

  • ClaudeArchitecture, refactors, long-context review
  • CursorDay-to-day editing and repo-wide changes
  • GitHub CopilotInline completion while writing
  • Google AntigravityAgentic multi-step build tasks

Honest self-assessment

What I'm good at, what I'm still working on, and where I think I fit. I'd rather you know all four before we talk than after.

Strengths

What I bring on day one

  • Production experience. Six years of building systems people depend on daily — not tutorials, not toy apps.
  • Depth in backend and data. Schema design, multi-tenancy, REST APIs, query performance and the tricky maths of payroll and billing.
  • Full ownership. I can take a vague requirement through analysis, design, build, documentation and release.
  • Breadth across stacks. Laravel and PHP deeply, Node and TypeScript actively, AWS and Linux for the infrastructure underneath.
  • Fast, reviewed AI-assisted delivery. I ship more per week with agents without letting unreviewed code through.

Working on

Known gaps, and what I'm doing about them

  • Frontend polish. I'm a systems person before a visual one, so I lean on design systems and component libraries rather than improvising UI.
  • New to the NZ market. No local commercial track record yet — an internship is exactly how I intend to fix that.
  • Node depth vs PHP depth. Node and TypeScript are newer to me than Laravel, which is why my capstone is built entirely on them.
  • Local compliance knowledge. I've studied IRD payday filing rules for my payroll work, but I'd want a review from someone experienced before shipping it.
  • Delegation. I default to fixing things myself; I'm learning to hand work over and trust the review process.

Opportunities

Where I think I can add most value

  • Teams with a legacy PHP system. Maintaining one while building the replacement is work I've done before.
  • Cloud migration and cost control. My coursework and AWS project are both aimed here.
  • Early AI adoption. Many teams are still deciding how to use agents safely; I've already made those mistakes.
  • Security-adjacent backend work. My papers in network and cloud security feed straight back into how I build APIs.

Challenges

Realities I'm planning around

  • A competitive junior market. Plenty of graduates apply for the same placements, so I lead with shipped work rather than a transcript.
  • A fixed internship window. The 400 hours sit inside my degree timeline, so planning ahead matters on both sides.
  • Fast-moving stacks. What's current in 2026 won't be in 2029, which is why I invest in fundamentals over frameworks.
  • Proving overseas experience locally. Live demos and open repositories are how I make that verifiable instead of asking for trust.

Academic

My degree, the papers I chose and why, and the award that brought me here.

Awarded by the University of Waikato

Vice-Chancellor's International Excellence Scholarship

A merit scholarship awarded to a small number of incoming international students on the strength of prior academic results. It's the reason I'm studying in Hamilton rather than anywhere else.

Master of Information Technology

University of Waikato, Hamilton — 2026 to present

120 points: 60 points of coursework plus a compulsory 400-hour industry internship. I chose all three papers around one theme — building backend systems that stay secure in the cloud.

  • Security for Advanced Networks Network-layer threats, secure protocol design and defending distributed systems — the layer beneath the APIs I build.
  • Secure Cloud Application Engineering Identity, secrets management, least privilege and secure deployment on cloud infrastructure. Feeds directly into my AWS work.
  • Programming Project — COMPX576-26B The capstone. A full-stack multi-tenant SaaS platform, built solo over twelve weeks: HRM PLUS, above.

These weren't the easiest three papers available. I picked security and cloud because they were the gaps I kept hitting as a backend developer, and the project paper so the degree would leave me with something running rather than only marked.

Bachelor of Computer Science

Daffodil International University — 2015 to 2018

Four-year engineering degree covering data structures and algorithms, databases, operating systems, computer networks and software engineering — the fundamentals I still reach for when a framework stops being enough.

English proficiency

PTE Academic, January 2026

Overall score
63
By skill
  • Listening 58
  • Reading 62
  • Speaking 70
  • Writing 57

Resume

Full CV with education, projects and technical detail. Opens in the page — no download needed.

Download PDF

Let's talk about a placement.

If you have work that needs a backend engineer who already knows what production feels like, I'd like to hear about it. I reply the same day.

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