Prakash NayakPayments architecture and engineering leadership

Architecture and delivery help for payment and banking systems

I help companies design, review and ship systems that move money: from a second opinion on an architecture, to setting up the pipelines and practices that keep releases safe. I have done this work for nearly ten years at Fiserv and across a 25-year career in banking and payments.

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How I can help

  • Architecture review

    Usually one to two weeks

    An independent look at an existing system: single points of failure, scaling limits, security gaps, release risk and technical debt. You get a written report with findings ranked by risk and a practical order to fix them in.

  • Payment system design

    For new builds and re-platforming

    Design for the hard parts of moving money: idempotency and retries, timeouts, reconciliation and settlement, failure handling, and the integration points with banks, networks and gateways.

  • CI/CD and DevOps set-up

    Hands-on

    Build or repair the pipeline from commit to production: automated builds and tests, environment promotion, release automation and rollback. Experienced with Jenkins, Azure DevOps, TeamCity and Octopus Deploy.

  • Delivery and team set-up

    Advisory or interim leadership

    Help for engineering leaders: setting up an offshore or distributed team, architecture governance, Agile delivery across several squads, production and incident discipline, and hiring.

Domains and technology

I have worked across most of retail banking and payments rather than a single product line.

  • Cards, digital payments and merchant transaction processing
  • Lending, investment services and retail banking
  • Money transfer and remittance
  • Credit reporting, payroll and salary payments

Technology I work with

.NET and C#, ASP.NET Core and Web API, Angular, SQL Server and Oracle; Jenkins, Azure DevOps, TeamCity, Octopus Deploy and SVN; AWS, including voice applications on Alexa. I still work hands-on: I write pipelines, review code and build prototypes, not only slides.

How an engagement works

  1. A short call

    You describe the system and the problem. I tell you honestly whether I am the right person for it.

  2. A written proposal

    Scope, what you will receive, timeline and fee, agreed in writing before any work starts.

  3. Work and handover

    Regular check-ins while the work runs, and a written handover your team can act on after I leave.

Common questions

Do you work remotely?

Yes. I am based in Pune and work with teams anywhere online. I have delivered for US businesses from California and worked on site with a client in Qatar, so I am used to working across time zones.

Will you sign an NDA?

Yes. Reviewing a real system means seeing real code and designs, so I expect to sign one before we start.

How large are the engagements?

Anything from a focused one-week review to a longer part-time arrangement. We agree the scope together so you pay for what you need.

Do you also train teams?

Yes. I run sessions for engineering teams on how payment systems work, on system design for payments, and for engineers stepping into their first management role.

Tell me about your system.

A few lines on what it does, the problem you are facing and your timeline are enough to start.

Discuss a project