Five years of commerce platforms, told chapter by chapter — from Hyderabad.
For 5+ years I've lived inside enterprise commerce platforms — the carts, orders, consignments, and integrations that quietly move real money every day. Most of it on SAP Commerce Cloud (Hybris) and Java/Spring Boot, for a high-traffic international storefront.
I led the migration that replaced a third-party marketplace with an in-house platform. Then I started leading an AI-implementation team — folding LLMs into the manual workflows around commerce. And on nights and weekends, I built a whole commerce platform of my own, just to prove I could do it end to end.
I'm Avinash Rapolu ✦
Senior Software Engineer · open to senior backend, platform & AI roles
Designed & built solo 597 backend tests AI-powered search Admin + storefront
After years of working inside commerce platforms, I wanted to know if I could build one from an empty folder. Capsule Commerce is the answer: a headless platform on Spring Boot 4 — promotion engine, business-process engine, cronjobs, ImpEx-style data tooling — with an OpenSearch + LLM natural-language search sidecar, a React admin console, and a Next.js storefront.
It's built the way the enterprise systems I respect are built: 597 tests, adversarial security reviews, Flyway migrations, Dockerized one-command deploys. The full case study walks through every decision.
Our platform ran its seller marketplace on Mirakl — capable, but external. The company decided to build its own. I led the integration and migration: analyzed the incumbent to extract the functional spec, engineered the data models, and built the real-time sync APIs between SAP Commerce and 8 Spring Boot microservices so products, offers, orders and consignments flow both ways without a human in the loop.
The part I'm proudest of is the config-driven integration layer — new product changes stopped requiring redeploys, and deployment frequency fell by half. Order and consignment efficiency rose ~60% after the audits and re-engineering that came with it.
Now I also lead the AI-implementation team on this platform: we folded LLM orchestration, configurable prompts, and the Model Context Protocol into the product-creation workflow, so sellers get grounded, validated AI assistance instead of copy-paste drudgery.
8
Spring Boot microservices
Auth → reportsArchitecture
−50%
deployment frequency
Config-driven integrationDesign win
FROM THE DIARY
"Analyze the platform you're replacing until you know it better than its docs do."
This is where the craft comes from: five years deep in SAP Commerce Cloud on a high-traffic international B2C platform — item-type data modelling, cart and checkout flows, order and consignment processing, ImpEx, FlexibleSearch, cronjobs, Solr, WCMS, Backoffice customization, and the business-process engine. Every track below shipped to production. Open the ones you're curious about.
01Shared cart — collaborative shoppingMulti-user carts for staff & family · new item types, validation APIs
Designed and shipped a shared-cart feature letting staff users build collaborative carts with friends and family — new item types, cart-merge rules, entitlement checks.
Built the REST APIs validating shared-cart operations against complex business rules: who can add, who pays, what's eligible.
A visible UX win on the platform — smoother collaboration, higher engagement.
SAP CommerceJavaREST APIsCart & checkout
02Two complete e-commerce mini-sites — end to endAuction/bidding site + inquiry-based ordering site · item types to go-live
Auction site: led end-to-end development — custom auction and wishlist item types, event-driven background processes, cronjob-automated merchant emails keyed to customer activity.
Inquiry site: a made-to-order storefront — Solr search suggestions and results, SendGrid-templated alerts to business users and customers.
For both: a full API architecture covering every page, built to Figma designs, requirements gathered directly from the business team.
Automated merchant-specific daily sales files (JRXML/XML) — generation embedded in the consignment process, delivered to merchant SFTP folders on schedule.
Masked customer PII in every outbound file to meet data-protection requirements.
Onboarded merchants individually; built proactive failure-recovery strategies for time-sensitive feeds.
SAP CommerceJavaJRXML · XMLSFTPAWS
05Compliance-grade user-data managementRegulatory data jobs · SQL tuned −70% · secured outputs
Implemented user-data management jobs honouring regulatory and user requests — scheduled checks plus manual runs for irregular cases.
Optimized the SQL behind the jobs: ~70% reduction in execution time.
Secured end to end: password-protected outputs on SharePoint, SendGrid-automated notifications keyed to job results.
SAP CommerceJavaSQLSharePointSendGrid
06Legacy platform modernizationModularized legacy Hybris code · lower run costs · team enablement
Spearheaded modularization and modernization of the legacy Hybris codebase — contemporary standards, notable operating-cost reduction, better maintainability.
Fixed critical bugs and shipped client-requested features; ~30% system-performance gain from code and query refinement.
Set milestones with PMs, documented technical workflows, onboarded and mentored new engineers.
SAP CommerceJavaSpringSQLAWS
Beginnings
Srida Infotech · Jun — Dec 2021 · and before
My first six months in the industry were spent on Oracle Hyperion DRM/DRG and EDMCS — enterprise master-data for a US manufacturer. Versions and hierarchies, property definitions, action scripts automating node operations, validations, access-control groups, conditional approval workflows. It taught me the discipline of systems where data correctness is the whole product — a lesson commerce platforms reward daily.
Before that: a B.Tech from Bapatla Engineering College (2016–2021), Andhra Pradesh. I speak English, Hindi, and Telugu — and I've been comfortable in global, cross-cultural teams ever since my first standup.
B.Tech · 2016–2021 English · Hindi · Telugu Oracle DRM · EDMCS
Started this diary. Five years of building commerce platforms, one marketplace migration, one AI team, and one platform built solo from scratch — Capsule Commerce — all get their chapters here. The full case study is already up.
ARNext entry — draftingLinkedIn · the Capsule Commerce launch post
The launch post, demo videos, screenshots, and the lessons-learned thread will be pinned here as they're published. This feed re-hosts each post natively — with a link back to the original.
Watch this space—
The toolbox
highlighted = deepest, longest-running work
SAP Commerce Cloud (Hybris)
5+ years · versions 1905, 2105, 2211 · B2B and B2C