Designing production systems @ TikTok

Marcus Peh.

Software Engineer @ TikTok · Backend & Frontend.

Building distributed systems and maintaining the operator surfaces on top. Side projects include a Telegram spending bot and a personal trading algorithm. Previously Google, ByteDance, and GovTech.

Resume GitHub LinkedIn

01 — Experience

Now, and before.

Currently shipping distributed systems and maintaining the operator surfaces on top. Previously: engineering internships where I learned to operate at scale.

Now · Current role

Software Engineer · Backend & Frontend

@ TikTok

Apr 2024 — Present

Singapore

Software engineer on TikTok LIVE's user intelligence platform. Primary focus is backend: owning a distributed rule evaluation engine and a designed-from-scratch user group analysis system, with end-to-end ownership of execution semantics, async fan-out, latency budgets, and observability. On the frontend: maintaining the operator dashboards and components the team uses to author rules and inspect cohorts, adapting them as business requirements evolve.

GoPythonTypeScriptReactNext.jsMySQLRedisClickHouse

Before · Engineering internships

Google

Software Engineering Intern · Google Pay

May 2023 — Aug 2023

Cut QR code loading by 93.5% (1.38s → 0.09s) by removing redundant RPC calls on the hot path.

JavaProtocol BuffersgRPC

ByteDance

Software Engineering Intern · Global Payments

Aug 2023 — Dec 2023

Improved API performance by 90%+ for a payments channel platform processing $7.5B+ monthly.

GoMongoDB

GovTech

Software Engineering Intern

May 2022 — Jul 2022

Improved server query response time by 200× through API restructuring under load.

TypeScriptReactJSPostgreSQL

02 — Side projects

Projects on the side.

Things I've built or actively maintain outside of work

01 / 03

Home Lab, Docker & Observability

Self-hosted infrastructure running Docker, Prometheus, Grafana, and an internal service mesh — a sandbox for distributed-systems experimentation.

Personal staging environment for validating deployment patterns, failure modes, and observability wiring before applying them at work.

Ubuntu ServerDockerPrometheusGrafana

02 / 03

Spending Tracker (Telegram Bot)

Telegram bot that polls an email inbox for transaction records and auto-logs each one into a personal expense ledger.

Lightest viable surface for expense capture: transactions are pulled straight from email, so logging happens without me opening anything.

PythonIMAP / Gmail APITelegram Bot APISQL

View on GitHub

03 / 03

Algorithmic Trading & Backtester

Private algorithmic-trading system I run for myself — research, backtesting, and a live execution path against my own account.

Kept off GitHub. Focused on disciplined backtesting, risk controls, and the unglamorous plumbing that makes live execution survivable.

GoPythonBacktestingMarket data

03— Currently

Where my attention is.

Research and infra work happening alongside production systems.

Algorithmic trading & backtester

Personal project: backtesting, risk controls, and live execution.

Personal project: backtesting, risk controls, and live executionIn progress

Spending tracker (Telegram bot)

Polls an email inbox for transaction records and auto-logs them.

Polls an email inbox for transaction records and auto-logs themExploring

Home server & observability stack

Prometheus, Grafana, and containerized self-hosted services.

Prometheus, Grafana, and containerized self-hosted servicesBuilding

OMSCS — Computer Systems

Studying computer systems, databases, and software engineering.

Studying computer systems, databases, and software engineeringStudying

04 — About

In short.

I'm a software engineer at TikTok building distributed systems and the operator tooling that runs on top of them.

I enjoy designing scalable infrastructure, working on complex systems problems, and maintaining the operator-facing surfaces that sit on top. Primarily backend, with frontend components owned as they evolve.

Based in: Singapore
Focus: Distributed systems & tooling
Background: NUS · CS
Studying: Computer Systems

05 — Get in touch

Open to senior backend + frontend roles and systems conversations.

Especially interested in distributed infrastructure, decisioning platforms, and product-focused engineering teams.