---
title: "About Dan Podina"
description: "Dan Podina is a software architect in Cluj-Napoca, Romania: twenty years in backend systems, GraphQL and Go specialist, founder of SystemTrails, creator of LabraGo and lead architect of Sabra."
url: https://gqlteam.com/about/
markdown: https://gqlteam.com/about/index.md
type: page
date: 2025-01-01
lastmod: 2026-08-28
---

# About Dan Podina

> Dan Podina is a software architect in Cluj-Napoca, Romania: twenty years in backend systems, GraphQL and Go specialist, founder of SystemTrails, creator of LabraGo and lead architect of Sabra.

## Why architecture

The interesting problems are in the spaces between things: where one service trusts another, where two copies of the same fact drift apart, where a retry turns into a duplicate payment. Twenty years of building and rescuing backends taught me that those spaces are where systems fail, and that they are also where a small, early decision saves a very large, late one.

That is the work: making the boundaries explicit, the data honest and the failure modes known, then writing it down so the next engineer can see it too.

## Where I have done it

Healthcare (clinical trials, EHR integration, HL7 and FHIR, HIPAA and 21 CFR Part 11), payments (PCI-DSS Level 1), insurance and enterprise SaaS (SOC 2), and open source. I created LabraGo, an MIT-licensed Go and GraphQL backend platform, and I am the lead architect of Sabra, the club management product built on it. In 2026 I founded SystemTrails to give teams that built fast with AI a fast, honest way to find out whether it holds.

## How to work with me

Start with a free 30-minute call. Bring the diagram you are worried about, or the decision you cannot make. If I can help, you get a written scope with deliverables, timeline and price before anything starts. I am based in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and work remotely with clients in Europe and the United States.

## Selected revisions

- 2005: First production systems. Backend work across healthcare, fintech, SaaS and enterprise since.
- 2017: Specialization in GraphQL and Go: schema-first APIs, federation and high-throughput services.
- 2022: PCI-DSS Level 1 architecture for a payment processor scaling tenfold; first-pass QSA audit.
- 2023: Zero-downtime migration of two million patient records; GraphQL modernization of an insurance portal, three seconds to under 400 ms.
- 2024: Federated GraphQL gateway over seven legacy healthcare systems, eight seconds to 400 ms.
- 2025: Lead vendor architect for a clinical trial platform (HIPAA, 21 CFR Part 11). Independent consulting through GQLTeam SRL.
- 2026: SystemTrails, a review practice for AI-built products. Agentic system architecture. A public MCP server for this site.

## How I work

- Boundaries first: A system you can explain in five boxes is a system you can change. Most problems I am hired for are boundaries that leaked.
- Types are contracts: Schema-first APIs and typed services catch the expensive class of bugs before production. The compiler is the cheapest reviewer you have.
- Measure, then optimize: Sub-100 ms is a design outcome, not a wish. Profile the path that matters, fix the specific thing, prove it with a benchmark.
- Teach while solving: Every engagement leaves the team able to make the next decision without me. Documentation that matches reality is part of the deliverable.

## Ways to engage

- Advisory: Reviews, designs and decisions. One to two weeks of focused work, written deliverables, a walkthrough.
- Fixed scope: A migration playbook, a compliance gap analysis, an MCP platform design: scoped, priced and delivered as a unit.
- Retainer: Ongoing architecture support and code review, monthly, with implementation through senior engineers I have shipped with for years.

Contact: https://gqlteam.com/contact/ | Book: https://cal.com/dan-podina-snqasy/30min | MCP: https://mcp.gqlteam.com/mcp