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TWC Innovations · Field-sales operations · Intern → architect

The architect behind a five-product field-sales suite shipped across Asia

SalesSuite digitised field sales end-to-end — order capture, routing, inventory and content across one modular suite of five products. I designed and architected the products, rebuilt the mobile and backend foundations, and owned the platform's technical direction as it grew from intern brief to de-facto architect.

Role

Intern → architect (~4 years)

Scope

Five-product modular suite

Reach

Shipped across Asia

Hero outcome

Field sales, digitised end-to-end

Recreated mockup — confidential engagement.

The business problem

Field sales ran on paper, phone calls, and a day's delay

Sales agents walked retail outlets with paper notebooks, phoned head office to place orders, and re-keyed the day's work after hours. For an FMCG distributor running hundreds of touchpoints, that meant stockouts, fuel burned on guessed routes, and performance data that was always a day behind.

The job was never one feature. It was digitising the entire field-sales lifecycle — and building it modular enough that a distributor could adopt one piece or the whole suite.

What I architected

One modular suite — standalone, or fully integrated

Five products that each stand alone yet share data and workflows when deployed together. The architecture is what makes that choice the client's, not the vendor's.

1 · Modular product suite

SFA, CRM, CMS, and a Client Portal — each runs on its own or shares data and workflows when co-deployed, with an internal HelpDesk behind them. I designed the suite so a distributor can start with one module and grow into the full integrated platform without a re-architecture. Modular by design is harder up front; it's what let one product line serve very different businesses.

Recreated mockup — confidential engagement.

2 · Offline-first field automation

SFA captures orders offline and syncs when the signal returns — designed for agents working areas with unreliable connectivity, where a dropped order is a lost sale. Real-time GPS and route optimisation, live inventory, credit-worthiness checks, and dynamic catalogues turned a six-step paper workflow into one live system in the agent's pocket.

Recreated mockup — confidential engagement.

3 · API-first rebuild and cross-platform reach

I replaced the legacy PHP/CakePHP backend with an API-first Node architecture, and migrated the mobile apps from native Android to a single cross-platform codebase — one build for iOS and Android — which opened the iOS market without duplicating the work. I designed the deployment infrastructure (Nginx, environment isolation for multi-tenant deployments) and stood up CI/CD on GitHub Actions, cost-tuned for a budget-constrained startup.

Recreated mockup — confidential engagement.

I moved into the architect role as senior engineers left, and grew the team behind me — I hired, trained, and mentored the interns and recruits who shipped alongside me, and ran code reviews across every project.

The outcome

A real product suite, owned end-to-end and shipped at scale

Across Asia

Shipped across FMCG, automotive, and apparel. One product line serving very different industries.

iOS, opened

A single cross-platform codebase took an Android-only product onto both the Play Store and the App Store, without a second build.

Intern → architect

Progressed intern to de-facto architect in ~4 years, then designed and architected the products — owning the architecture, code reviews, and mentoring.

The client and the numbers stay private. What I can show is the architecture, the reach, and a four-year line from intern to the person who owned it.

Built with

  • Cross-platform mobile (iOS + Android)
  • API-first Node backend
  • Offline-first sync
  • MySQL + MongoDB
  • Nginx · multi-tenant
  • CI/CD · GitHub Actions
  • Modular product suite

Next case study

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Building a product that has to scale?

Modular architecture, one cross-platform mobile codebase, and an API-first foundation that won't fight you at the next 10x.