Chapter 1
My name is Ali Khalaf, and I’m a software engineer from Bahrain. I finished school in 2021 and started a Software Engineering degree at the University of Bahrain the same year.
S.M.O.B.B., a text adventure about AI and the people around it, got its first commit in July 2023. I kept coming back to it for three years.
Chapter 2
In 2024 I joined Reboot Coding Institute alongside university. Much of my early work there was in Go, and it set a habit I still have: learn by building real things. A CHIP-8 emulator, a raycasting engine, an ant-pathing solver, a maze game with a multiplayer mode and a forum all came out of that stretch.
On team projects I often ended up connecting frontend and backend, so that the pieces held together as one product.
Chapter 3
Games are where I experiment. S.M.O.B.B. grew into a released Rust game with a terminal version and a web build. skoobl is a free multiplayer drawing-and-guessing party game with English and Arabic word packs. Smoke Break is a maze game where you hunt for someone who has slipped away on a smoke break.
Chapter 4
My first jobs were short and fast. In 2025 I interned at DOO Mena, building a backend system for one of their sections, and joined Croozz Technologies, a small team shipping updates as quickly as we could. At Tech Bay IT Solutions I trained on Dynamics 365 and worked with clients, many of them government bodies. At Babel Pastries I built a TV slideshow application with an admin panel, deployed it, and trained a new developer on Laravel and React.
In 2026 I graduated from both Reboot, with DevOps, and the University of Bahrain, and joined Tanami as a Software Engineer.
Software Engineer · Tanami
A free multiplayer drawing-and-guessing party game with English and Arabic word packs.
DevOps · Reboot Coding Institute
Graduated.
Bachelor's in Software Engineering · University of Bahrain
Graduated.
A text adventure about AI, written in Rust, released with a terminal and web version.
Full-stack Developer · Croozz Technologies
Part-time in a small, fast-moving team shipping frequent updates.
Full Stack Engineer · Babel Pastries
Built a TV slideshow application with an admin panel and engine, deployed it, and trained a new developer on Laravel and React.
Junior Software Engineer · Tech Bay IT Solutions
Trained on Dynamics 365 and internal systems, and worked with clients, many of them government-related.
Software Engineer Intern · DOO Mena
Built a backend system for one section and started work on their frontend.