Subscription Platform · 2025 · Live
Align Music Platform
role
Full stack engineer
Align is a subscription-based music platform: listeners browse a curated catalog, build playlists and stream continuously, while the team manages releases, artists and plans from an internal dashboard.
the problem
Streaming products fail on two boring things — playback that stutters when the tab changes, and a billing state that disagrees with what the user can actually access.
what I built
A single source of truth for entitlement, a persistent player that survives navigation, and a MongoDB catalog model designed around playlists rather than files.
architecture
React SPA with a persistent audio player kept outside the route tree Node.js and Express API with role-based access for listeners, artists and admins MongoDB schemas modelled around playlists, releases and subscription entitlements Signed, expiring media URLs so streams cannot be hot-linked Subscription lifecycle webhooks reconciled into a single entitlement record
Engineering highlights
01
Player that never resets
Playback state lives above the router, so navigating the catalog never interrupts a track or re-buffers a stream.
02
Entitlement as one record
Plan changes, renewals and failures all resolve into a single computed access record — no scattered boolean flags.
03
Catalog tooling
Internal dashboard for uploads, artwork and release scheduling, so the team ships music without a developer in the loop.