Overview
Leadership Talk Season 3 was built as part of my work at InternWare.
It was an event registration platform that handled real users, real registrations, and real payment processing for a large-scale leadership event.
The event ran across 2 days with 4 speaker sessions — 2 sessions per day. The platform handled 500+ registrations across those sessions combined.
Unlike most personal projects, this system had real operational consequences. A failed registration flow, incorrect seat allocation, or payment issue would directly impact attendees and organizers.
Why I Built It
Built backend systems and APIs powering the event registration platform for Leadership Talk Season 3.
The platform needed to support:
- Multiple speaker sessions.
- Different ticket purchasing combinations.
- Tier-based seating.
- Payment processing.
- Registration tracking.
Technical Decisions & Tradeoffs
1. Cart-Based Session Purchase System
Instead of forcing users to purchase all sessions together, I designed a cart system that allowed users to select sessions independently.
Example
If four sessions existed:
Scenario 1 — User purchases all 4 sessions together.
Scenario 2 — User purchases 1 session now and another later.
Scenario 3 — User purchases 2 sessions now and additional sessions later.
Benefit
Provided flexibility similar to ticket-booking platforms and supported different purchasing behaviors.
2. Tier-Based Seating
Implemented multiple seating categories:
Gold Tier Silver Tier
Users could modify seat tiers while sessions remained inside the cart.
After purchase, modifications were restricted.
Benefit
Allowed flexible pricing while maintaining seat inventory consistency.
3. Centralized Purchase Session State
Stored purchase session data centrally so it could be accessed throughout the application.
Benefit
Maintained consistency across the checkout and registration workflow.
4. Tier-Wise Seat Inventory Management
Stored seat availability tier-wise inside the database.
Benefit
Prevented overselling and ensured accurate seat allocation.
What I Learned
Payment Webhook Verification
This was my first time implementing payment webhook verification.
While building this flow, I learned:
- How payment gateways communicate asynchronously.
- Why webhook verification is important.
Cart System Design
Designed a purchase flow that allowed users to combine multiple speaker sessions into a single purchase journey.
This exposed me to ticketing-system style workflows and state management challenges.
Limitation
Abandoned Payment Flow
One edge case was not handled properly.
If a user opened the Cashfree payment modal and closed it without completing payment, the platform could continue showing a processing state.
Lesson
Real users expose edge cases that are easy to miss during development and testing.
Impact
Leadership Talk Season 3 processed real registrations and real payment transactions for a large-scale leadership event with real operational consequences for attendees and organizers.
Technologies Used
Built During
InternWare Experience →