About
About the Founder — Distinguished Engineer & Architecture Consultant
NorthStarArchitecture.com exists because organizations deserve architecture guidance from someone who's actually built and scaled these systems — not from slide decks.
Maxime Najim
Founder & Distinguished Consultant
LeadDev Featured Author & Conference Speaker
I'm a result-oriented full-stack software architect and published authorwith over two decades of experience building resilient, scalable systems. I've had the privilege of working with engineering teams at Target, Atlassian, Amazon, Walmart, Netflix, Apple, and Yahoo! — partnering closely with directors, VPs, SVPs, and principal architects to navigate complex technical challenges and align architectural decisions with business goals.
My approach means driving experimentation, fostering cultural shifts, and helping teams adapt how they work to enable growth and innovation. Whether it's digging into the root cause of persistent issues or shaping strategic initiatives, I focus on surfacing patterns, clarifying trade-offs, and guiding teams toward pragmatic, scalable solutions.
I founded North Star Architecture because I saw the same patterns repeating across organizations: growing technical debt, half-finished migrations, teams pulling in different directions, and a widening gap between what the business needs and what the technology can deliver.
I'm passionate about learning and sharing what I've learned, which has led to publishing a book with O'Reilly Media, creating a video series with Packt Publications, and contributing as a LeadDev featured author and conference speaker on Staff+ engineering leadership.
Experience
Target
Distinguished Engineer
Shaping technology strategy for Target's digital experiences, platforms, and foundational services within the Digital Engineering leadership team.
Atlassian
Lead Principal Architect
Core Architecture Team in the Office of the CTO. Defined technology strategy for the Atlassian Economy (500+ engineers) and led architecture & design process improvements.
Amazon
Principal Engineer
Senior leadership role in Kindle Ingestion Experience (KIX), leading a team of 250 engineers. Architected content publishing and risk management systems.
Walmart
Sr. Software Architect
Lead architect for walmart.com and grocery.walmart.com unification. Architected e-commerce platform services and led Black Friday readiness for massive-scale traffic.
Netflix
Sr. Software Engineer / Architect
Cloud-native distributed architecture for globally available billing and payments. Migrated data center applications to cloud services using Netflix OSS.
Apple
Senior Software Engineer
Lead engineer for checkout applications in the Apple Online Store. Led geo expansion projects and platform technology stack modernization.
Yahoo!
Software Engineer → Principal Engineer
Built campaign optimization engines and scalable enterprise applications for Yahoo's Search Marketing Platform (Panama). Seven years of growth from engineer to principal.
Publications & Thought Leadership
How I Work
Root Causes, Not Symptoms
Most architecture problems are symptoms of deeper organizational or structural issues. I dig until I find the real problem — then fix that.
Opinionated, With Receipts
You're hiring me for recommendations, not a menu of options. Every recommendation comes with rationale, trade-offs, and evidence from real-world experience.
Practical, Not Theoretical
I've shipped these architectures. I know what works in the messy reality of production systems, team dynamics, and business constraints — not just on whiteboards.
Let's talk about your architecture.
I'm always happy to have an initial conversation — no commitment, no sales pitch. Just a discussion about where you are and whether I can help.
Schedule a Conversation