Full-Stack Developer — AI Integration & Production SaaS
Cihan Alcin
I build and ship production systems end to end — from PostgreSQL row-level security to RAG pipelines to Stripe billing. Based in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Open to full-stack, AI-integration, and QA-automation roles — Halifax or remote.
Featured project · production beta
PrepPath
preppath.app ↗A multi-tenant exam management and assessment SaaS for education businesses.
Designed, built, and operated solo — from the first database migration to the Stripe customer portal. PrepPath lets tutoring centres and course providers author sectioned exams, generate questions with AI from their own documents, deliver timed attempts to students, and see how everyone did.
- Role
- Designed, built & operated solo
- Status
- In production beta
- Test suite
- 190+ Playwright E2E tests
- Languages
- English · French · Turkish
Multi-tenant architecture
Organizations contain workspaces; owner, instructor, helper, and student roles are enforced with PostgreSQL Row Level Security plus app-layer authorization — tenant isolation is guaranteed in the database, not just in the UI.
Exam engine
Sectioned exams with timers, question pools, attempt limits with per-student overrides, and availability windows. Every attempt runs against an immutable, server-built exam snapshot with answer keys stripped before delivery, and save-and-resume works on a continuous wall-clock timeline.
AI question generation
Two modes: document-grounded, through a custom RAG pipeline (PDF parsing → chunking → Voyage embeddings → pgvector similarity search), and direct generation from a topic or spec. Runs on Anthropic Claude via the Vercel AI SDK; an earlier iteration ran self-hosted models with Ollama, FastAPI, Redis, and RQ.
Billing & compliance
Stripe end to end — checkout, webhooks, customer portal, and metered AI usage quotas. GDPR-compliant deletion with grace periods.
Quality
190+ cross-browser Playwright end-to-end tests cover the product, alongside automated WCAG A/AA accessibility checks with axe-core.
Internationalization & theming
Fully internationalized in English, French, and Turkish, with dark and high-contrast themes throughout.
Stack: Next.js 16 (App Router)React 19TypeScriptTailwind CSS 4shadcn/uiSelf-hosted Supabase (PostgreSQL, GoTrue)Docker / Dokploy on two hardened VPS instances
PrepPath is in production beta and sits behind authentication, so the product is shown here through screenshots rather than a live demo.
Selected work
Other projects & roles
Jarvy — AI assistant
Personal project · v1 & v2
A voice-enabled AI assistant, built twice. Jarvy answers by text or voice, calls tools for things like weather and user notes, and keeps MongoDB-backed memory of the conversation so context carries across sessions. v1 ran GPT-4 behind a Flask API; v2 moved to GPT-4o-mini with tool use, streaming responses, and Clerk auth.
Built with: TypeScriptPythonNext.jsFlaskMongoDBClerkOpenAI GPT-4 / 4o-mini
Barredlist
Personal project · web app for security personnel
A web application that helps security teams manage barred patrons. Managers create and update records while staff get view-only access, enforced through Clerk middleware with support for multiple roles and organizations — including private bans scoped to a single organization. Dynamic forms with validation and defaults, datatables with search, filters, and custom columns, and automatic expiry of time-limited bans.
Built with: Next.jsTypeScriptMongoDBClerkReact Hook FormZodshadcn/uiTailwind CSS
DUGO Systems
QA Automation Developer · 2023–2024
Built the company's Cypress automation suite, cutting regression runs by roughly 20x and documenting 100+ defects along the way. Worked in an Agile team with Jira-driven planning.
Built with: CypressJavaScriptAgileJira
Lunch Buddies
Front-end Developer · 2023–2024
Built 100% of the UI for a startup MVP that connects people for lunch meetups — login, profile management, matching, requests, and messaging — along with a reusable TypeScript component library.
Built with: ReactTypeScriptMaterial UI
Client work
Latest websites
Halifax Airport Hotel
Marketing site for an independent hotel by Halifax Stanfield airport.
Lunch Buddies
Marketing site for a Halifax startup on a mission to make sure nobody eats alone.
About
How I work
I build and ship software end to end. Several products so far, each taken from an empty repository to something real people can use: database schemas, auth, front end, payments, tests, and deployment.
I do AI integration and quality assurance as well. I built a RAG pipeline for AI question generation in my latest app, and spent a year in QA automation where my Cypress suite cut regression runs by 20x.
I work primarily in Next.js 16, React 19, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS 4, and shadcn/ui on the front end, with Supabase (PostgreSQL), Docker, and MongoDB behind it.
Before software, I founded and ran a training organization for seven years, growing it to hundreds of members and training the instructors who taught there. Earlier still, I took a graphic design degree and led a design department producing national print media, from concept through to press. Neither is a detour: running a business is why I think about what a customer will actually pay for, and design is why I care what happens after the code works.
- NSCC IT Programming (2024)
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
- Google UX Design Professional Certificate
Currently open to full-stack, AI-integration, and QA-automation roles in Halifax or remote.
Contact
Let’s talk.
Hiring for a full-stack, AI-integration, or QA-automation role — or curious about PrepPath? My inbox is open.