Platform architecture

LookSuite has to put a polished video feed into other people's conferencing tools. Those tools only show a camera when a virtual camera driver is running on the machine: the driver takes the frames our application composes and hands them to the conferencing platform. A web app cannot reach core devices and cannot be that driver, so the product had to be a desktop application.

I built it in layers around that constraint.

• Desktop application: Electron does the video composition, and the driver supports it. Electron lets us write the interface in any JavaScript framework, so we used React: the whole team already knew it, it is compact and quick to learn, and it needed no real debate.
• Backend: Node.js, so the backend stayed simple while serving both the desktop application and the whole administration side. I chose Fastify over Express because it was faster and lighter at the time.
• Data: PostgreSQL, because it is a solid relational database that now handles everything we needed; I preferred it to MongoDB. Prisma gave us models, migrations and the SQL without hand-written glue. Redis takes the frequent calls to improve API performance.
• Identity: Keycloak. Every customer organization has its own identity provider, so instead of wiring each one into the API, the core API talks to Keycloak and Keycloak sends each login to the right provider.
• Around the core: an administrator portal for organization admins, a public application for the invite flow (React), and a separate Node service for link shortening.
• Cloud: GCP, because our company is a GCP partner and recommends it first to clients; that was a business choice, not a technical one.

• A web application: ruled out by the virtual driver.
• Tauri instead of Electron: it uses a Rust back end and is lighter and faster, but at that point Electron was far more mature, so I did not take the risk.
• Express instead of Fastify, MongoDB instead of PostgreSQL: both are fine choices; the speed and size of Fastify and the strength of a relational database decided it.

Led the end-to-end technical architecture across the LookSuite desktop application and supporting backend services.

Owned and contributed across the Electron + React desktop application, Node.js backend, API design, database schema modeling, authentication and authorization, application data flows, real-time media-processing components, and supporting cloud services.

Also managed ongoing technical operations across the desktop and backend applications, including architectural evolution, performance optimization, infrastructure, development workflows, and production-readiness concerns.

• Electron's weight: a larger install and more memory than a web app, and a native driver that has to be installed and supported on each machine.
• Tauri later: time and budget did not allow the lighter runtime then. A move to Tauri is on the list for when they do.
• Keycloak is one more system to run, secure and keep updated, and it adds a step to every login.
• Several services (desktop application, API, administrator portal, invite application, link shortener) mean more to deploy and watch than one application would.
• Fastify has a smaller ecosystem than Express: fewer ready-made packages and examples.

I owned the architecture end to end. The desktop application, the API, the data model, authentication, the real-time media components and the cloud services fit together, and each layer can change without rewriting the others.