Redis Clone (C++)
A from-scratch reimplementation of Redis's core: a RESP protocol parser, an in-memory key-value store with TTL/expiry via lazy deletion, and a socket-based server handling concurrent clients.
C++20CMake
Software engineer, Backend & Systems
Systems-minded backend engineer: comfortable from the socket layer up to the REST API.
man mike
About
- NAME
- Mike — software engineer focused on backend development and systems engineering.
- DESCRIPTION
- I like understanding what's actually happening below the abstraction — memory layout, event loops, the wire protocol. Most of my recent work has been building a Redis clone from scratch: a RESP parser, a key-value store with TTL/expiry, and a networking layer, all in C++. That same instinct for low-level correctness shows up in a client/server encryption system built over raw TCP sockets, and on the backend side, I design REST APIs and data-backed services — from a hybrid search engine with embeddings and reranking to a Django + PostgreSQL application deployed end to end.
- GOAL
- Looking for backend or systems engineering roles where correctness, performance, and reliability actually matter — services and infrastructure people depend on, not just ship and forget.
- STACK
- C++CPythonGoCMakePostgreSQLDjangoREST APIsDockerLinux
ps aux --user=mike
Projects
RAG Search Engine
A retrieval-augmented search engine supporting keyword, semantic, and hybrid search — sentence-transformer embeddings with cosine similarity, BM25 combined with semantic scores via weighted interpolation and reciprocal rank fusion, and Gemini-powered query expansion, rewriting, and spell-checking, exposed through a CLI.
PythonSentence TransformersBM25Gemini APICLI
Secure Password Manager
A full-stack password manager where the backend never sees plaintext vault data — the React frontend derives an encryption key from the master password via the Web Crypto API and encrypts everything client-side before it ever reaches the Django REST API. Backed by PostgreSQL, with email and TOTP multi-factor authentication.
ReactDjangoDjango REST FrameworkPostgreSQLWeb Crypto API
Chirpy
A backend HTTP API for a Twitter-style microblogging service, written in Go on the standard library's net/http router. Users post short "chirps", authenticate with Argon2id-hashed passwords, and hold a short-lived JWT access token paired with a long-lived, revocable refresh token. Persistence is PostgreSQL, accessed through type-safe query code generated by sqlc rather than an ORM.
Gonet/httpPostgreSQLsqlcJWTArgon2id
mail -s "hello" mike
Contact
email → mmcle009@gmail.com
phone → 343-777-7934
github → github.com/Mike-Mclean
linkedin → linkedin.com/in/michael-mclean-676100179/