Software products, engineered to last.
A product studio building its own software — and a fractional CTO for teams that need a seasoned builder in the room.
ContactA product studio building its own software — and a fractional CTO for teams that need a seasoned builder in the room.
Contact
2038 Labs LLC is the product studio and engineering practice of Youssuf ElKalay, founded in 2018.
We design, build, and ship our own software end-to-end — from HIPAA-compliant SaaS to custom IoT hardware — owning every layer from architecture to release.
When we are not building our own products, Youssuf partners with a small number of startups as a fractional CTO: setting technical direction, hardening architecture, and leading engineering teams with the same hands-on rigor we bring to everything we ship.
Youssuf ElKalay is a software engineer and technical leader with over two decades of experience driving architectural strategy, scaling high-throughput distributed systems, and leading cross-functional teams.
Throughout his career, Youssuf has successfully championed major system migrations, institutionalized engineering best practices, and delivered significant improvements in performance, reliability, and cost-efficiency. His expertise spans the design of event-driven architectures, performance optimization, and cloud infrastructure, having supported systems processing hundreds of millions of daily events.
Currently a Staff Software Engineer at Prove, Youssuf focuses on modernizing Java-based services and migrating Oracle-based tools to event-driven architectures. Previously, as Lead Software Engineer at Teleparty, he was instrumental in scaling services for over 10 million active users and optimizing cloud expenditures. Beyond his roles at major organizations, Youssuf is the founder of 2038 Labs, where he develops products like Milelogix, and has contributed to open-source projects such as Greenmail and produced The Ship Show podcast.
He holds an MSc in Software Engineering from DePaul University and a BA in Cognitive Science from the University of California, San Diego.
A HIPAA compliant calendar based mileage tracker supporting any exportable ICS file.
Details
A HIPAA compliant calendar based mileage tracker for large teams integrating with Google Workspace Calendar.
DetailsBeyond our own products, Youssuf partners with a select group of startups as a fractional CTO — owning technical strategy, architecture, hiring, and hands-on delivery. The same rigor that ships our products, applied to yours.
Start a ConversationPolyglot software engineer and engineering leader with over a decade of experience building and designing n-tier software systems. Deep background in backend development, distributed architecture, automation, and performance engineering — as an individual builder and as a hands-on technical lead.
LinkedinI’ve worked with Youssuf for years at small, medium and large scale operations. He is a top notch engineer who has a hands on mentality, is strategic, quality and architecturally focused but has an ability to execute as part of any team and act as a force multiplier because of his vast knowledge of the intricacies of software & systems engineering
Youssuf is a top tier engineer with a wide array of expertise and always ships high quality, performant, and reliable software. He can drop into an existing team and be immediately impactful, take on projects end-to-end solo or as part of a team, collaborate with all aspects of an organization, balance business and technical needs, handle strategic and tactical decisions, and is someone I trust to work directly with customers in delicate situations. He's reliable and someone I seek to work with whenever I can.
For several years now, we have hired Youssuf ElKalay for both consultation and hands-on systems architecture and software development projects. Youssuf is in our trusted circle of advisers because he doggedly pursues solutions and communicates effectively with management. Youssuf's analysis skills are second-to-none and his advice is highly regarded.
