Aston Yao
Resume 2026

Aston Yao

Senior Software Engineer

Senior Software Engineer with experience designing scalable full-stack platforms, event-driven systems, and AI-augmented engineering workflows.

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

I work best on problems where product thinking, system design, and pragmatic delivery need to come together. Over time I’ve gravitated toward cloud-native systems, distributed workflows, search and data platforms, and the kind of full-stack products where architecture matters as much as implementation.

Summary

My approach is all about finding the right tools for the job and keeping things straightforward. I focus on delivering exactly what’s needed, iterating based on real-world feedback, and keeping systems simple enough to evolve.

The work I enjoy most sits at the intersection of system design, full-stack product development, and cloud architecture. I like shaping the technical path, making trade-offs visible, and then helping build the thing for real.

I fully embrace AI-augmented engineering workflows. I use tools such as Codex and Claude to accelerate exploration, prototyping, implementation, and iteration, while still treating engineering judgment, testing, and maintainability as the quality bar.

Contact

yao.aston+resume@gmail.com

LinkedIn

GitHub

Core capabilities

System Design

  • •Distributed systems
  • •Event-driven architecture
  • •Workflow orchestration
  • •Service integration
  • •Reliability and resilience

Architecture

  • •Cloud-native platforms
  • •Legacy modernisation
  • •Data and search systems
  • •API and platform design
  • •Scalable backend services

AI-Native Engineering

  • •Agentic coding workflows
  • •LLM-assisted development
  • •Rapid prototyping
  • •AI product integration
  • •Human-in-the-loop technical judgment

Delivery and Quality

  • •Testing strategy
  • •Safe releases
  • •Observability
  • •CI/CD
  • •Cross-functional collaboration
Selected experience

Commonwealth Bank of Australia

Senior Software Engineer (via Mantel Group)

Dec 2024 - Present

Kotlin, Temporal, Kafka, AWS Services, IBM Sterling B2B, OpenSearch, Node.js, Python, TypeScript

Working across banking platforms where system design, reliability, and integration constraints matter as much as feature delivery.

Sep 2025 - Feb 2026

Business Banking - Payment File Translation Service

Replaced legacy payment file processing with a cloud-native translation platform designed for secure ingestion, validation, transformation, and delivery.

  • •Designed and delivered a distributed payment file processing service on AWS and Temporal.
  • •Used Temporal workflows to model durable multi-step processing with retries, state persistence, and operational traceability.
  • •Integrated enterprise messaging and file connectivity through Kafka and IBM Sterling B2B.
  • •Worked within a highly regulated banking domain where reliability, auditability, and operational clarity were core requirements.

Tech: Kotlin, Temporal, Kafka, AWS Services, IBM Sterling B2B

Dec 2024 - Sep 2025

CommSee 2.0

A cloud-native data and search platform supporting real-time customer search across millions of records.

  • •Helped shape a distributed data platform processing more than 30 million daily records through event-driven services.
  • •Built real-time ingestion and processing workflows across SQS, S3, EC2, Lambda, Kafka, and OpenSearch.
  • •Integrated an agentic AI workflow to automate card replacement processes and reduce manual operational effort.

Tech: TypeScript, Node.js, Python, OpenSearch, Kafka, AWS

DiUS

Software Engineer, Consultant

Jul 2019 - Sep 2024

Consulted across retail, energy, and product teams, with a focus on shaping practical architecture and delivering systems that could survive real production constraints.

  • •Worked across enterprise and startup environments where architecture needed to balance speed, scalability, and maintainability.
  • •Partnered closely with clients, product, and engineering teams to turn ambiguous requirements into working systems.
  • •Built a broad base across backend systems, frontend delivery, cloud infrastructure, and consulting-style technical leadership.

Datarock

Consulting Software Engineer (via DiUS)

Oct 2022 - Jul 2024

AWS Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, SQS, Node.js, Python, React, Svelte, TypeScript

Worked across both backend and frontend platform capabilities in a product handling complex geological and image-based workflows, where performance, scale, and user experience all mattered.

  • •Delivered backend and frontend platform capabilities for high-scale image and geological data workflows.
  • •Designed and maintained internal and external APIs that supported both operational tooling and customer-facing product features.
  • •Worked on Deep Zoom and image-processing workflows that improved how large, detailed datasets could be explored in the product.
  • •Improved service reliability and integration discipline through stronger API design and contract testing between services.
  • •Contributed across the stack, which meant balancing platform concerns with real user-facing outcomes.

Kmart

Consulting Software Engineer (via DiUS)

Nov 2020 - Feb 2022

AWS, Lambda, EC2, CloudFront, API Gateway, DynamoDB, SNS/SQS/S3, React, GraphQL, TypeScript

Worked across multiple retail teams on systems that sat close to customers and operations, where scale, reliability, and delivery pace all had to coexist.

  • •Worked across multiple teams on retail platforms with high traffic and operational sensitivity.
  • •Helped rebuild stock and commerce services using event-driven and cloud-native architecture patterns.
  • •Delivered features across backend services and micro-frontend experiences, giving me strong exposure to full-stack delivery in a large retail environment.
  • •Worked on identity-linked customer features and supporting integrations, moving from early spikes into production-ready delivery.
  • •Contributed to systems that needed to remain reliable during releases and peak retail demand, which sharpened my focus on rollout safety and operational discipline.
Education

University of Sydney

Double Major in Computer Science and Information Systems

2013 - 2016

  • •Built a technical foundation across algorithms, distributed systems, databases, and software engineering.
  • •Studied artificial intelligence before the current AI wave, which now informs how I approach modern AI-enabled systems.
  • •Computer Science gave me strong technical grounding, while Information Systems helped me think more clearly about how technology fits real organisations and products.
  • •That combination still shapes how I work today: technically deep, but always tied back to practical outcomes and delivery context.
Earlier experience

Bolttech

Consulting Software Engineer (via DiUS)

Apr 2020 - Jul 2020

Worked across mobile and backend delivery for a digital warranty and insurance product, contributing to feature work, API implementation, and testing workflows.

Tech: AWS Services, MongoDB, Node.js, Flutter

University of Melbourne

Consulting Software Engineer (via DiUS)

Sep 2019 - Dec 2019

Built features for a space management application and worked directly with stakeholders to shape improvements that supported operational decision-making.

Tech: React, Apollo, GraphQL, TypeGraphQL, TypeScript

Powersensor

Mobile Software Engineer (via DiUS)

Jul 2019 - Sep 2019, Jan 2020 - Apr 2020

Worked on a Flutter mobile app that helped customers set up and manage energy monitoring devices, with a strong focus on delivery speed and product usability.

Tech: Flutter, Dart, Bitrise

eMersion Media

Software Engineer (Contract)

Feb 2019 - Jul 2019

Helped deliver a new mobile publishing product in Flutter under tight timelines, contributing across both application and supporting backend work.

Tech: AWS Lambda, Node.js, Flutter, Dart, Bitrise

FairDigital

Software Engineer

Feb 2018 - Feb 2019

Worked on software delivery in an early product environment, building the broad base that later carried into consulting and platform work.

Tech: Web product development, backend services, delivery collaboration

MonPurse

Web Developer

Apr 2017 - Dec 2017

Built ecommerce-facing web features and gained early hands-on experience shipping product work in a customer-facing setting.

Tech: Web development, ecommerce product delivery

InnuendoDigital

Web Developer

Sep 2016 - Apr 2017

Early professional role building web experiences and learning the practical foundations of delivery, iteration, and client work.

Tech: Web development, client delivery