As the lead technical architect and developer, I was responsible for the full-stack delivery of the platform:

Infrastructure Management: Provisioned and configured a managed Xneelo (formerly Hetzner) server to handle high-concurrency traffic and expanded PHP memory limits.

Backend Engineering: Developed a custom submission engine using WordPress and Gravity Forms to handle automated entry validation, unique ID generation, and dynamic custom post creation.

API Integration: Engineered a seamless bridge between the platform and the Dropbox API to offload video storage, ensuring high performance while providing a familiar interface for the judging panel.

I am most proud of the scalability and longevity of the solution. By offloading heavy video assets to Dropbox and optimising the server environment, I built a system that could handle thousands of simultaneous users without a single second of downtime. Seeing the platform remain operational and effective years after the initial build is a testament to the robustness of the architecture.

The Challenge: The primary risk was a potential system crash caused by the “bottleneck effect” of thousands of users uploading large video files simultaneously during peak entry windows.

The Solution: I overcame this by migrating to a dedicated managed server environment for better resource control and implementing a cloud-storage workflow. By using the Dropbox API as the primary storage and review hub, I successfully decoupled the heavy media processing from the website’s core performance, ensuring a smooth experience for both entrants and judges.

The backend infrastructure required three months of intensive development, followed by a two week frontend build. The platform officially launched on July 15th of 2020.

“A wonderful success indeed.”