Available for interesting problems

Hi, I'm Vipul Popli

I build

Software Engineer with 6+ years architecting scalable backend systems and shipping AI-driven products. Currently SDE 4 at First Club, leading a team of 5 engineers across payments, pricing, checkout and AI infrastructure.

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Vipul Popli
Team Lead 5 Engineers
Experience 6+ Years

01 · About

A bit about my work

I'm a backend-focused software engineer based in Bengaluru, currently working as SDE 4 at First Club, where I architect and own the end-to-end backend system that powers the platform. Before that, I spent over 4 years at Cleartrip (Flipkart Group), growing from an intern to SDE III while working on real-time inventory, pricing, and supplier integrations for one of India's largest travel platforms.

These days I split my time between core systems — payments, pricing, checkout, wallets — and AI-driven products, having built FC-GPT and Friday, an internal chatbot that helps CX agents resolve queries in real time, along with the MCP server that powers AI interactions across the platform. I also lead a team of 5 engineers, setting the coding standards and review practices we build on.

6+ Years of Experience
5 Engineers Led
5x Promoted, Intern → SDE 4
2 Companies, Zero Gaps

02 · Experience

Where I've worked

SDE 4

Sep 2025 — Present

First Club Pvt Ltd. · Bengaluru, India

  • Architected and managed the end-to-end backend system, re-engineering it for scalability to support the org's growing operational and strategic demands.
  • Designed and deployed multiple AI-driven systems, including FC-GPT and Friday — an intelligent chatbot for real-time CX query resolution.
  • Built and integrated the MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, enabling seamless AI-powered interactions across the platform.
  • Diagnosed and resolved critical scalability and latency bottlenecks in legacy architecture, materially improving performance and reliability.
  • Led a team of 5 engineers, establishing coding standards and review practices for clean, maintainable code.

Senior SDE

Jan 2025 — Sep 2025

First Club Pvt Ltd. · Bengaluru, India

  • Built a flexible cart system with inventory checks, order limits, and real-time pricing.
  • Designed a modular checkout system for address validation, delivery slots, and payment orchestration.
  • Developed a rule-based pricing engine enabling dynamic markups and markdowns.
  • Engineered a secure, pluggable payments infrastructure with fallback and idempotency.
  • Created an internal wallet system with FCFS expiry-based deduction and balance reservation logic.

SDE III

Apr 2024 — Jan 2025

Cleartrip Pvt Ltd. (Flipkart Group) · Bengaluru, India

  • Revamped the Inventory Management System using OpenL Tablets to manage fare rules and optimize caching.
  • Migrated Redis to Aerospike, reducing costs while maintaining performance parity.

SDE II

Oct 2022 — Mar 2024

Cleartrip Pvt Ltd. (Flipkart Group) · Bengaluru, India

  • Developed Distribution Core handling fare markups, filtering, splitting, and personalization logic.

SDE I

Mar 2020 — Sep 2022

Cleartrip Pvt Ltd. (Flipkart Group) · Bengaluru, India

  • Designed and implemented a real-time inventory management system using analytics-powered expiry logic.

SDE Intern

Feb 2019 — Feb 2020

Cleartrip Pvt Ltd. (Flipkart Group) · Bengaluru, India

  • Migrated airline supplier integrations (e.g., INDIGO, SPICEJET) to microservices and onboarded new partners.

03 · Skills

What I work with

Languages

JavaPythonJavaScriptCSQL

Backend & Frameworks

Spring BootRESTful APIsJUnitMicroservices

Data & Messaging

NoSQLRedisKafkaDatabase ScalabilityReal-time Analytics

Infra & Tools

AWSDockerGit

AI & Emerging

MCP (Model Context Protocol)LLM-powered Chatbots

Leadership

Team LeadershipCode ReviewSystem Design

04 · Projects

Selected work

2025

Wallet & Payment Orchestration

Implemented a pluggable, fail-safe payment system supporting retries and fallbacks across gateways. Built a ledger-based wallet with expiry enforcement and compliance rules.

JavaSpring BootKafkaAWS
2025

Pricing & Checkout Systems

Developed modular services for pricing and checkout supporting dynamic rule evaluation and high resilience under peak traffic.

JavaSpring BootRedisAurora
2025

FC-GPT & Friday

Designed and deployed AI-driven systems including an intelligent CX chatbot for real-time query resolution, backed by a custom-built MCP server.

AI/LLMMCPJava

05 · Education

Academic background

B.Tech, Computer Science and Engineering

Chitkara University · Punjab, India

Graduated 2020 9.6 CGPA

06 · Contact

Let's talk

Open to interesting conversations around backend systems, AI infrastructure, or engineering leadership. The fastest way to reach me is email.

popli.vipul080@gmail.com linkedin.com/in/vipul-popli github.com/vipulpopli7534