Marcin Kurczewski

Freelance Python/JS developer

Specializing in backend work with a focus on quality and maintainability. Active in open-source projects that mix low-level programming and reverse engineering. Committed to communication and teamwork as a community manager.

E-mail: dash@wind.garden
WWW: https://wind.garden/
GitHub: https://github.com/rr-/
Location: Poznań, Poland

Employment history

PostMedia (News, Canada)

A leader in the Canadian press and media market, best known for National Post and Financial Post.
- Senior full stack developer (2023-08August 2023 — 2025-02February 2025)
- Managed news feed operations, production issues, and on-call duties.
- Enhanced UX and integrated with Apple/Google ecosystems.
- Independently maintained several core projects.
Nodal (Health, U.S.)

A platform for connecting pre-screened gestational donors and intended parents.
- Senior lead Python developer (2022-02February 2022 — 2023-08August 2023)
- Built the flagship product prototype from scratch and integrated multiple 3rd-party background check services.
- Ensured HIPAA compliance and developed a Stripe-based billing system.
- Scaled the team from 1 to 4, securing a key hospital contract.
Motoinsight (Automotive/E-commerce, Canada)

E-commerce platforms for luxury car brands and dealers.
- Senior full-stack engineer (2020-09September 2020 — 2023-04April 2023)
- Team lead (2020-04April 2020 — 2020-09September 2020)
- Full-stack engineer (2019-05May 2019 — 2020-03March 2020)
- Developed a preorder Stripe platform that sold out a high-profile car launch in under 10 minutes.
- Maintained and optimized key projects while influencing a company-wide shift to service architecture.
- Bridged Delivery, Product, and QA teams; supported on-call production issues and led candidate interviews.
Decernis (Food and beverage, U.S.)

Supply chain management and compliance solutions for American and European food markets.
- Senior technical team lead (2019-11November 2019 — 2021-01January 2021)
- Senior full-stack engineer (2019-04April 2019 — 2019-10October 2019)
- Regular full-stack engineer (2018-04April 2018 — 2019-03March 2019)
- Migrated from a legacy LDAP system to a relational database, reducing sync issues and enabling single sign-on.
- Ported the codebase from Python 2 to 3 and introduced Docker containerization.
- Led the team that started with 2 members and eventually grew to 7 people.
Career pivot to Python

Leveraged extensive experience from personal Python projects to refocus my career, capitalizing on Python's rich ecosystem and rapid prototyping capabilities.
Capgemini Polska sp. z o.o. (Insurance, Poland)
- C#/.NET software developer (2017-05May 2017 — 2018-02February 2018)
Forcom sp. z o.o. (Retail, Poland)
- C#/.NET developer (2013-01January 2013 — 2017-04April 2017)
Gammanet sp. z o.o. (Education, Poland)
- Part-time PHP developer (2012-03March 2012 — 2013-02February 2013)

Open source projects

TR1X – Tomb Raider I: Community Edition (2021-01January 2021 — present)
- https://github.com/LostArtefacts/TRX
An open source reimplementation of the renowned Tomb Raider I (1996) that revitalizes its classic gameplay and fixes long-standing glitches – all while staying true to the original spirit. What started as a personal decompilation project, has blossomed into a thriving global community effort, to whom I continue to serve as a BDFL. Today, the game is fully open source, free of proprietary dependencies and can be played natively on Windows, Linux and MacOS.
- C
- SDL
- OpenGL
- ffmpeg
TR2X – Tomb Raider II: Community Edition (2023-09September 2023 — present)
- https://github.com/LostArtefacts/TRX
A natural evolution from TR1X, this project brings the same dedication to Tomb Raider II (1997). While I led the reverse engineering efforts and the general project's architecture, the already established TR1X team took on itself implementing various features and enhancements known from the first instalment. Currently the project concentrates on merging both engine codebases.
- C
- SDL
- OpenGL
- ffmpeg
TRCustoms (2022-10October 2022 — 2023-03March 2023)
- https://trcustoms.org/
- https://github.com/rr-/trcustoms/
A community portal that hosts custom fan-made levels for the classic Tomb Raider games (there are over 3000 of them at the time of writing this!). Features tagging, a thoughtful review system, custom themes and more. The files are hosted in the cloud.
- Django
- DRF
- React
- Postgres
bubblesub (2017-07July 2017 — 2021-12December 2021)
- https://github.com/rr-/bubblesub
A subtitle editor that features live video preview, audio spectrograms, frame synchronization, playback tempo control with pitch correction, advanced plugin system and more.
- Python
- PyQT
- numpy
arc_unpacker (2014-11November 2014 — 2017-11November 2017)
- https://github.com/vn-tools/arc_unpacker
A big data-mining tool for extracting media from Japanese visual novel games; supports 450+ titles. I personally handled all aspects of the project, including the analysis and reverse engineering of game algorithms. The tool's popularity led to an increased demand for supporting additional games, showcasing its impact on the gaming community.
- C++
- IDA Pro
MALgraph (2013-07July 2013 — 2015-05May 2015)
- https://github.com/rr-/malgraph4
- https://myanimelist.net
A collaborative service built on MyAnimeList that provided detailed statistics and taste analysis based on user show ratings. It offered anime fans unique insights into their viewing habits through innovative data visualization and analysis.
- PHP

Location

Poznań, Poland –

Education

University of Adam Mickiewicz
- Master's degree (20122012 — 20142014)
  Thesis: Attacks on cryptographic hash functions
- Bachelor's degree (20092009 — 20122012)

Work values

Code maintainability and practicality
High team cohesion, good vibes
High code ownership, innovation
Work from my own equipment
Home office model, no travel

Key competences

Languages: English, Polish (native)
Full stack development
Reverse engineering, data mining
API integration, REST interfaces
Community & Team leadership
DevOps and Docker containerization
UX prototyping & compliance
Proficient with:
- Languages: Python, C, JS
- Web: Django, DRF, Flask, FastAPI, React
- Game: SDL, OpenGL, ffmpeg
- Desktop: PyQT
- Tools: Docker, nvim, pytest, Celery
Familiar with:
- Languages: C++, PHP, Zig
- Web: Angular
- SQL: PostgreSQL, SQLite
- Cloud: GCP, AWS
- Devops: nginx, Apache, LetsEncrypt
- Tools: autotools, meson, ninja
- IDA Pro