Turkmenistan's unified portal for government services. I was one of two backend developers on the platform, which grew to more than 40 online services by early 2024.
My role
One of two backend developers (June 2022 – December 2023). Worked on the Go/PostgreSQL backend, integrations with government and payment services and the platform's ongoing development.
Stack
Go
PostgreSQL
The problem
Every online service on the portal depends on external systems — government agencies and payment providers — each with its own protocol, data format and availability. The platform had to keep adding new services without every integration becoming a one-off.
Architecture
Citizens use the web portal, which talks to the Go backend. The backend stores applications and their statuses in PostgreSQL and communicates with government agency systems and payment providers through dedicated integrations.
Key decisions
01Each external system behind its own integration module
Why
Agency and payment systems differ in protocols and reliability. Isolating each one behind a consistent internal interface — with its own timeouts, error handling and logging — keeps the core service logic independent of provider details and makes adding a new service routine.
Trade-off
An extra layer of abstraction, and provider-specific features sometimes need special handling.
02Payment status changes inside database transactions
Why
Payment callbacks can arrive late, twice or out of order. Recording state transitions transactionally in PostgreSQL keeps the application status and the payment status consistent with each other.
Trade-off
A stricter status model to maintain, and reconciliation is still needed for edge cases.
03Go for the service layer
Why
Predictable performance, simple concurrency for calling several external systems in parallel, and single-binary deployments.
Trade-off
More explicit code compared to dynamic languages.
What I built
Backend development in Go with PostgreSQL
Integration of government agency services
Integration of payment services
Platform growth to 40+ online services by early 2024