I Built an AI Assistant in a Weekend That Monitors My Entire Information Diet
How I used OpenClaw, Node.js, and Python to create a self-hosted AI that tracks Telegram, X, Reddit, and performs daily stock analysis — for $0/month.
Principal Engineer · Da Nang, Vietnam
Hieu Tran
12+ years building systems that scale, leading teams that ship, and turning complex problems into elegant solutions.
I specialize in distributed architecture, cloud infrastructure, and AI adoption — helping companies modernize their tech stack and engineering culture.
About me
I'm a Principal Engineer based in Da Nang, Vietnam, with over 12 years of experience building software that matters. My journey has taken me from writing my first .NET applications to architecting systems that handle millions in revenue.
What drives me is the intersection of great architecture and great teams. I've led engineering organizations, migrated legacy monoliths to cloud-native microservices, and helped companies adopt AI into their workflows — always with a focus on pragmatic solutions over hype.
When I'm not deep in code or architecture diagrams, you'll find me exploring the latest in AI tooling, contributing to open source, or mentoring the next generation of Vietnamese engineers. I believe the best technology serves people — and the best engineers never stop learning.
Work Experience
Principal Engineer
2024 — Present · Da Nang, Vietnam
Driving architecture decisions and engineering excellence across the organization. Leading AI adoption strategy, establishing engineering standards, and mentoring senior engineers. Focused on building scalable, maintainable systems that enable rapid product iteration.
Head of Engineering & .NET Tech Lead
SmartDev LLC
2021 — 2024 · Da Nang, Vietnam
Led a 12+ member engineering team while serving on the Head of Technology leadership group. Migrated a critical Food Ordering System from .NET Framework to .NET Core with microservice architecture deployed on Azure Kubernetes Service (Terraform IaC). The system processes €10M/month in revenue across Ireland with 200+ B2B users.
Key achievements:
■ Organized 5+ DevOps workshops, driving DevOps culture adoption across ODC teams
■ Led junior team to build SmartDev Platform and SmartDev App (flagship internal products)
■ Defined OKRs and career growth paths for all team members
Senior .NET Developer
MagicMemories
2018 — 2021
Architected and built MagicMemories OS v2 — a ground-up microservices platform powering digital transformation for the world's largest theme park photo company. Delivered significant cloud cost savings through infrastructure optimization and modern architecture patterns.
Software Developer
2013 — 2018
Built full-stack web applications and Android apps across multiple domains. Developed strong foundations in .NET ecosystem, database design, and agile delivery. Progressive growth from junior to senior roles.
Education
Bachelor of Computer Science
Ho Chi Minh University of Science (HCMUS)
2008 — 2013
Specialized in Software Engineering at one of Vietnam's top computer science programs. Built the foundation for a career spanning distributed systems, cloud architecture, and engineering leadership.
Skills & Expertise
The tools and practices I bring to every project.
System Architecture
Designing distributed systems, microservices, and event-driven architectures that handle millions in transaction volume.
Cloud & Infrastructure
Azure, AWS, Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform — building and operating production infrastructure at scale.
Engineering Leadership
Growing teams from 5 to 15+, defining career paths, running effective 1:1s, and building a culture of ownership.
.NET & Backend
12+ years in the .NET ecosystem — from Framework to .NET 8, ABP, Entity Framework, gRPC, and high-performance APIs.
AI & Automation
Adopting AI into engineering workflows — from LLM integration to building intelligent automation pipelines.
DevOps & CI/CD
GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, Docker, Helm charts — automating everything from build to production deployment.
My Engineering Philosophy
Principles that guide how I build and lead.
Pragmatism Over Perfection
Ship something that works, then iterate. The best architecture is the one your team can actually maintain.
Teams > Technology
A great team with average tools will outperform a mediocre team with the best stack. Invest in people first.
Automate Everything
If you do it twice, script it. If you do it three times, build a pipeline. Human time is too valuable for repetitive work.
Learn in Public
Share what you know, admit what you don't. The tech community grows when we teach each other openly.
Featured Projects
Real systems, real impact.
Allsop RASP
Global food distribution management system
Challenge:
Migrate a monolithic .NET Framework food ordering system to a modern, scalable architecture — without downtime — for a business processing €10M/month across Ireland.
Solution:
Designed and implemented a microservice architecture using .NET Core + ABP Framework, deployed on Azure Kubernetes Service with Terraform IaC. Built CI/CD pipelines for zero-downtime deployments across multiple regions.
MagicMemories OS v2
Microservices platform for digital transformation
Challenge:
MagicMemories needed to transform their legacy photo processing system into a cloud-native platform, reducing operational costs while scaling to handle theme park traffic spikes worldwide.
Solution:
Built MagicMemories OS v2 from the ground up as a microservices system. Implemented event-driven architecture for real-time photo processing, optimized cloud resource utilization, and delivered significant cost savings.
AI-Powered Intelligence Assistant
Weekend project that runs my information diet
What it does:
A self-hosted AI assistant that monitors 14 Telegram channels, tracks X/Twitter timelines, scrapes Reddit across 11 subreddits, performs daily stock & crypto technical analysis, and delivers hourly intelligence summaries.
Built with:
Node.js, Python (yfinance, pandas, ta), Telegram API, X API, OpenClaw framework. Self-hosted on a $5/month VPS. Total monthly cost: $0 for core functionality.
Let's build something great
Whether you need architecture advice, engineering leadership, or just want to talk tech — I'm always up for a good conversation.
From the blog
View all posts »Thoughts on engineering, architecture, AI, and building things that matter.
How I Led AI Adoption Across a 50+ Person Engineering Org
From skeptics to power users — the playbook I used to integrate AI tools into our development workflow at SmartDev, and why most AI adoption fails.
Lessons from Migrating a €10M/Month Monolith to Microservices
What I learned leading a .NET Framework to .NET Core migration on Azure Kubernetes — without taking down a system that processes millions in food orders.
How We Rebuilt MagicMemories' Photo Platform from Monolith to Microservices
The story of transforming the world's largest theme park photo company's legacy system into a cloud-native microservices platform — and the hard lessons learned along the way.