Giflove

The Challenge

Giflove is a digital greeting card platform. Behind the playful cards, the backend had to be dependable:

• Scheduled delivery: Paid cards must arrive on the day the sender chose
• Payments: Several pricing tiers, with every payment event verified
• Reliable releases: Ship changes often without breaking production
• Fast iteration: Adding a card design shouldn't need a database change

The Approach

I architected the backend data infrastructure with Python, Django and PostgreSQL.

Background Processing

• Implemented asynchronous background task queues with Celery and Redis to manage and enforce scheduled card deliveries and other background data processing

Secure Payment Pipeline

• Integrated HMAC-verified payment webhooks (Paddle) across a 4-tier pricing model, so only authentic payment events change an order

Releases

• Set up automated CI/CD pipelines with GitHub Actions for reliable releases across three isolated environments

Card Designs

• A type-safe static registry holds the card designs, so a new design ships purely as code, with no database migration
• The React front end has 13 gesture-driven cards, such as blowable candles and interactive envelopes

Technical Highlights

• Django and PostgreSQL backend
• Celery and Redis task queues for scheduled delivery
• HMAC-verified payment webhooks across four pricing tiers
• GitHub Actions CI/CD across three environments
• React front end with 13 gesture-driven card designs