Summary
Călina Cenan is a freelance Senior Backend Engineer with 11+ years of hands-on experience and 15+ years in the industry working across PHP (Laravel, Symfony) and Python (Django, Flask) to design and maintain robust APIs and data-driven systems. She runs Kaolin Technologies, combining hands-on engineering with company management, client-facing consulting and mentoring, and has delivered production services for international clients in fintech, green-energy lending, crypto (OCEAN Protocol) and e-commerce. Her strengths include refactoring legacy systems, architecting CI/CD and testing strategies, async job and cache management (Celery/Redis) and secure integrations with web3, Stripe and Keycloak. She’s led mixed backend/frontend teams, contributed Python libraries and published packages, and handled deployment and server configuration at scale. Based in Cluj-Napoca and fully remote, she moonlights as a history podcaster and technical writer—an unusual blend that sharpens her storytelling in documentation and client communication.
11 years of coding experience
8 years of employment as a software developer
User Friendly Design and Innovation for Senior Citizens, User Friendly Design and Innovation for Senior Citizens at JAMK University of Applied Sciences in Jyväskylä, Finland
Computer Science, Computer Science at Ideas & Projects Workshop
Master's degree, Information Technology in Economics, Master's degree, Information Technology in Economics at Universitatea Tehnică din Cluj-Napoca
Liceul Teoretic "Nicolae Bălcescu" Cluj-Napoca
English, French, German, Spanish