Tom Smykowski is a senior backend engineer with nearly two decades of experience in product delivery, specializing in building and scaling backend systems for SaaS platforms, enterprise applications, and AI-integrated products. He is the ideal hire for CTOs, founders, and engineering leaders seeking a hands-on, product-minded engineer who takes ownership from architecture through to production, ensuring systems are scalable, maintainable, and user-focused. Based in Poland, he works remotely with teams across the EU, UK, and US, offering deep expertise in backend development, API design, system architecture, and modern tech stacks.
Deep Expertise in Backend System Architecture
As a senior backend engineer, Tom focuses on creating robust, scalable foundations for digital products. His approach combines technical rigor with product thinking, ensuring that backend systems not only perform reliably but also enable business growth and user satisfaction. He has architected systems handling millions of transactions, such as the marketing automation platform at Websoul, which served over 32,000 businesses, and contributed to the high-scale merchant platform at Printify, supporting 10M+ merchants.
His work involves designing clean APIs, optimizing database performance, and implementing secure, fault-tolerant services. He emphasizes maintainable code and thorough documentation, reducing technical debt and accelerating future development. Whether building a new system from scratch or modernizing a legacy monolith, Tom ensures the architecture aligns with both current needs and long-term strategic goals.
Tom's experience spans various industries, from fintech SaaS at Websoul to industrial SaaS at Fream and e-commerce at Printify. This cross-domain expertise allows him to quickly understand complex business domains and translate requirements into effective technical solutions. He is adept at selecting the right technologies and patterns for the job, avoiding over-engineering while ensuring scalability and resilience.
Building and Scaling High-Performance APIs
A core strength of any senior backend engineer is API design, and Tom excels at creating intuitive, performant, and well-documented interfaces. He understands that APIs are the connective tissue of modern applications, impacting both developer experience and end-user functionality. His work ensures APIs are consistent, versioned properly, and secured against common vulnerabilities.
At Croissant, as a Staff Software Engineer, he worked on compliance and collaboration features within a workplace platform, requiring precise API contracts between services. At Printify, his contributions to the design system and platform rebrand involved backend support for frontend teams, ensuring data flows were efficient for a large engineering organization of around 60 frontend engineers. This experience highlights his ability to collaborate across disciplines and optimize the full stack.
Tom leverages technologies like TypeScript, Node.js, and Supabase to build type-safe, reliable backend services. He prioritizes performance monitoring, logging, and error handling, making systems observable and easier to debug. His APIs are designed for consumption by web, mobile, and third-party clients, often involving complex data transformations and real-time updates.
Modernizing Legacy Systems and Reducing Tech Debt
Many organizations grapple with legacy backend systems that hinder innovation. Tom specializes in modernizing these systems incrementally, minimizing risk while delivering tangible improvements. His early career included work on industrial ERP systems at Insoft Serwis, giving him firsthand experience with complex, mission-critical business software. This background informs his pragmatic approach to refactoring and migration.
He employs strategies such as strangler fig patterns, breaking down monoliths into microservices or modular architectures only when beneficial. His focus is always on delivering business value: improving performance, enhancing security, reducing operational costs, and enabling new features. He conducts thorough code and architecture audits to identify bottlenecks and security flaws, providing clear roadmaps for improvement.
Tom's work at various clients, including GE Healthcare, Unilever, and Bunge, involved interfacing with large-scale enterprise systems. This experience taught him the importance of compliance, data integrity, and seamless integration during modernization projects. He ensures that updates are backward-compatible where necessary and that data migration processes are robust and verifiable.
Integrating AI and Advanced Workflows into Backend Services
As a senior backend engineer with a strong interest in AI-native development, Tom is skilled at integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning models into backend workflows. He can design and implement systems that leverage AI for tasks like data analysis, personalization, automation, and predictive features. This includes setting up AI software factories, incorporating AI coding agents, and establishing quality gates within the SDLC.
He helps teams adopt AI-assisted development tools and workflows, boosting productivity and code quality. For backend services, this might involve creating APIs that interact with LLMs, building data pipelines for model training, or implementing agentic workflows for automated tasks. His consulting offerings include AI Software Factory setup and strategy, helping engineering teams harness AI effectively.
Tom's approach is practical and product-focused. He evaluates AI solutions for their real-world impact on the user experience and business metrics, avoiding hype-driven development. He ensures that AI integrations are scalable, ethical, and maintainable, with appropriate monitoring and fallback mechanisms.
Collaboration, Leadership, and Remote Work Excellence
Effective backend engineering requires close collaboration with frontend teams, product managers, DevOps, and stakeholders. Tom excels in remote, cross-functional environments, using async communication and clear documentation to keep projects aligned. Based in Poland, he comfortably overlaps with EU, UK, and US East Coast time zones, making him a seamless addition to distributed teams.
He often steps into leadership roles, whether as a tech lead, staff engineer, or founding engineer. He mentors other developers, facilitates technical decision-making, and ensures the team adheres to best practices. His background in technical writing and public speaking enhances his ability to articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
Tom's client list, including Ordnance Survey, the Polish Tourism Organisation, and several universities, demonstrates his ability to adapt to different organizational cultures and project requirements. He is a strong advocate for developer experience (DevEx), improving CI/CD pipelines, test automation, and team upskilling to create sustainable, high-velocity engineering teams.
When This is a Good Fit
Hiring Tom as your senior backend engineer is an excellent fit if you need a seasoned professional to own the backend domain of a growing product. This is ideal for startups scaling their SaaS platform, mid-sized companies modernizing their tech stack, or larger organizations needing expert hands-on contribution and technical leadership. It's a perfect match if you value product-minded engineering, clear communication, and a remote-collaborative work style focused on delivering robust, scalable systems.