SIALKOT → DUBAI → THE CLOUD
I'm Faiq Ahmad — an AWS Certified Solutions Architect from Sialkot, Pakistan, based in Dubai. I design cloud infrastructure the way my hometown makes sports goods: precisely, reliably, built to perform under pressure.
ARCHITECTURE / LIVE
↑ hover — the architecture serving this page
01 — THE STORY
I grew up in Sialkot, Pakistan — a city most people have touched without ever knowing it. If you've held a FIFA match football, laced up boxing gloves, or swung a professional cricket bat, there's a good chance it was stitched, molded, or finished in my hometown. Sialkot makes the majority of the world's hand-stitched footballs, and it has been exporting precision craftsmanship for over a century.
Growing up there teaches you something specific: quality is not an accident. It's the product of process, repetition, and caring about details nobody else will see. I carried that lesson into my Software Engineering degree at the University of Sialkot — and it's the same lesson I apply today when I design a VPC or set an IAM policy.
"Sialkot taught me that world-class work can come from anywhere — it just has to survive inspection."
My path hasn't been a straight line, and I've stopped apologizing for that. During university I started freelancing — building websites for real businesses, including e-commerce sites for sports goods exporters like ranfasports.com and zohamasports.com — the very industry my city runs on. That freelance practice never stopped; it still continues today. After graduating, I worked as a Junior Software Engineer building production features in Java, JavaScript and MongoDB.
Then life brought me to the UAE, where I've now lived for almost four years. I took a role far outside software: Authorities Liaison Officer at a leading Dubai architecture and engineering consultancy, coordinating government approvals and permits across Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah for a construction portfolio worth over AED 500 million. On paper, it's not an IT job. In practice, it was systems engineering with humans: dozens of interdependent approvals, strict compliance rules, zero tolerance for a broken step.
But I never left technology. In the evenings and weekends, I went deep into cloud computing — earning my AWS Cloud Practitioner certification, then my AWS Solutions Architect – Associate, and building real infrastructure projects on AWS to prove the knowledge isn't just theoretical. The site you're reading right now runs on architecture I designed and deployed myself.
Now I'm bringing it all together — the craftsman's discipline from Sialkot, the developer's foundations, the operator's calm from managing high-stakes approvals — and returning to the field I trained for. I'm open to AWS and cloud engineering roles. If you're looking for someone who ships carefully and learns relentlessly, keep scrolling.
02 — SELECTED WORK
Every AWS project below is built hands-on, documented end to end, and designed the way production systems are — with security, cost and failure in mind from the first line.
The site you're on. A globally distributed static platform served through CloudFront's edge network with an Origin Access Control-protected S3 origin, custom domain DNS on Route 53, and TLS via AWS Certificate Manager. Designed for near-zero running cost, sub-second global load times, and HTTPS everywhere — the reference architecture for modern static hosting, implemented end to end.
A fully event-driven backend with zero servers to manage. API Gateway receives submissions, a Python Lambda function validates and persists them to DynamoDB, and SES dispatches instant email notifications. IAM roles follow least-privilege throughout, and the entire service scales from zero to thousands of requests without a single capacity decision — and costs nothing at rest.
A production-pattern architecture spanning two Availability Zones: an Application Load Balancer in public subnets, EC2 application servers in private subnets, and a Multi-AZ RDS MySQL database in isolated data subnets. Route tables, NAT gateways and security groups are engineered so that no tier is reachable except through the one above it — the availability and defense-in-depth model behind most of the web.
FinOps in miniature: a scheduled Lambda function interrogates account spend through the Cost Explorer API, compares it against defined budget thresholds, and pushes SNS alerts the moment spend trends toward overrun. Built with infrastructure-as-code (CloudFormation, with a Terraform variant) so the entire monitor can be recreated in any account in minutes.
Freelance web development for Sialkot's export economy — the industry I grew up around. Delivered business websites for sports goods manufacturers and exporters, including ranfasports.com and zohamasports.com, giving traditional manufacturers a professional digital storefront for international buyers. Freelance practice ongoing since my student years, spanning multiple business sectors.
03 — CERTIFICATIONS
SAA-C03
Validates the ability to design secure, resilient, high-performing and cost-optimized architectures on AWS — the industry's benchmark credential for cloud architecture.
CLF-C02
Foundational certification covering AWS core services, the shared responsibility security model, cloud economics and architectural best practices.
04 — EXPERIENCE & EDUCATION
Arif & Bintoak Consulting Architects & Engineers — Dubai, UAE
Coordinate government approvals, building permits and NOC submissions across Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah regulatory bodies for a multi-project construction portfolio exceeding AED 500M. Own end-to-end submission tracking, compliance documentation and stakeholder communication between architects, engineers and authorities.
AWM Systems
Built and maintained production features in Java, JavaScript and MongoDB within an Agile team — shipping real functionality to real users while completing my degree.
AWM Systems
Joined the engineering team as an intern, contributing to feature development and testing — converted to the Junior Software Engineer role on the same team.
Independent
Started freelancing during university and never stopped. Design and deliver websites for businesses across sectors — including e-commerce and corporate sites for sports goods exporters ranfasports.com and zohamasports.com.
University of Sialkot, Pakistan
Four-year engineering degree covering software design, databases, networks and distributed systems.
06 — CONTACT
Open to AWS Cloud Engineer, Solutions Architect and DevOps roles. If you're hiring — or just want to compare notes on architecture — my inbox is open.
