I joined Tap Payments in February 2020, almost eight years after walking into Infosys as a fresh software engineer. Just a few weeks later, the COVID-19 pandemic began reshaping the world, lockdowns, remote work, and a level of uncertainty none of us had planned for. I didn’t know then that I was stepping into a journey that would span six years and shape me in ways I couldn’t have scripted.
Today, I step into a new role: Acceptance Experience Manager.
And I want to mark this moment honestly, not with a one-liner, but with the real story behind the journey.
From Infosys to Payments
Eight years at Infosys shaped me in ways I’m still unpacking. I went from writing code as a junior engineer to leading technical engagements as a Technology Analyst. But somewhere along the way, I felt the pull toward something closer to the product, closer to how technology actually reaches people.
Near the end of that chapter, I was asked to take on the payments module of a major project for a US-based telecom company. It was high-pressure, production-critical work. Real money, real consequences, real accountability. That experience gave me something no training could: the confidence that I could handle whatever the domain threw at me. Someone believed I was ready before I did, and that kind of trust changes you.
Then came a family decision to move to Kuwait. And with it, a new opportunity, a payment gateway called Tap.
The Early Days at Tap
The early days were about learning from the ground up. I sat alongside colleagues who had been doing this work long before me, watching, asking questions, absorbing how merchant support actually worked in practice. From live chat to integration scoping, from payment flows to API behaviour, every day added a layer.
One assignment stands out. I was asked to integrate Tap’s payment APIs into a live website, limited documentation, first time doing it for real. I was stuck. I reached out to a developer friend who walked me through it on a call and pointed me in the right direction. I built a working solution, demoed it, and something clicked into place.
I can only look back at that moment and call it grace of God, that the right people showed up at the right time, and that a door opened when I needed it most.
That’s how the journey really started.
Building a Team from Scratch
For a while, I was the integrations team. Just me, figuring out processes, handling merchant queries across the MENA region, learning what “scale” would eventually need to look like.
What we have today looks nothing like where we started. We now cover all MENA countries, with a globally distributed team, young, talented engineers across different time zones and cultures. I’ve had the privilege of sitting in technical hiring rounds, of training people who have gone on to carry this work forward with real ownership. Watching that happen never gets old.
The Chapter Nobody Talks About
Here is something I don’t think gets said enough in career posts: building a team, losing that team, and building again is one of the hardest things in my professional life.
You invest in people. You train them, you grow alongside them, you build systems together — and then they move on. And you start over. This happened more than once during my time at Tap.
Each time, it forced me to think differently. Instead of relying solely on people, I started building things, processes, tools, documentation, that would outlast any one person. That shift was powerful.
Lessons from Integrations and Payment Systems
I’ve had the privilege of working across merchant integrations, technical scoping, and technical support, often across multiple markets simultaneously. I’ve sat in the complexity of real merchant problems: different setups like marketplaces, platforms, cross-border payment flows, currency management, integration complexities across technologies, channels etc. Each case taught me something that no certification could.
I’ve also had the chance to build internal tools that make the team’s work more precise and repeatable. That developer instinct, inherited from years of engineering, never really left me. It just found new problems to solve.
I’ve come to believe that the most important work rarely makes noise when it’s happening. The system you document at 11pm. The junior engineer you spend an hour with because they’re stuck. The process you build so the next person doesn’t have to figure it out from scratch. The merchant problem you solve that nobody outside the team ever hears about.
Every little step counts. It all adds up to something larger than you can see in the moment.
What’s Next
As Acceptance Experience Manager, I’m stepping into a role that sits at the intersection of everything I’ve been working with, developer experience, integration and technical support, scoping, and team leadership. I’m excited about what lies ahead, and I’m under no illusion that it will be easy. It won’t. But I’ve never been more ready for it.
If you’re somewhere in the middle of your own climb, unsure whether the grind is adding up, I’d say this: it is. The quiet years count. The systems you build when no one’s watching count. The team you rebuild after losing good people counts. Keep going.
This blog is just a nutshell of what I have experienced in building a career in payments, integrations, and developer experience leadership, and I hope something in it speaks to yours.
