About
Builder first. Partner by design.
I'm Ervandra Halim. Ervan to most people, Van to friends. For 15+ years I've built systems for global brands, national enterprises, and my own ventures. This page is the longer story.
The story starts in 2011, shipping websites for clients while still in university. Then years of high-volume delivery at a game publisher and a web studio, where speed and discipline became habits rather than goals. By 2016 that had grown into ervandra.com, an independent technology practice serving businesses across industries, on referrals alone.
At CIAYO, a media startup I co-founded, I got my first taste of real scale: leading the frontend of a comics platform that grew to 656,000 users. At R/GA I learned what world-class means, delivering Google Pixel, Grab for Business, and CDG Zig with teams across New York, Singapore, Tokyo, Sydney, and Melbourne, and picking up the Hall of Immortality award along the way.
Through all of it ran a pattern: I'm the person teams call when the system is broken and nobody can see why. A wellness startup, a regulated P2P lending fintech, a Finnish holding company, a national multifinance group: different industries, same call. That reputation became Syntax Solution, the consultancy I co-founded and now lead as CTO with a team of 20+ engineers, and later Magnificat Consulthink, my second venture.
Outside work I'm a husband and a dad to two boys, based in Tangerang just outside Jakarta. The grounding is deliberate: calm systems are built by people with calm lives.
How I work
Direct over polite
You'll always know where things stand: what's working, what's at risk, and what I would do. Honesty is cheaper than surprises.
Calm in a crisis
My career was built on being the call when the system is down and nobody can see why. Panic is not a process.
Documentation as a habit
Every decision, architecture, and runbook is written down as we go. Knowledge that lives in one head is a liability.
Your team owns it
Success is when the business runs without me. Dependency is a vendor business model, and I am not a vendor.
▸ Current focus
- Product Strategy & Roadmapping
- Solution Architecture
- AI Automation & Agents
- AI Implementation & Evaluation
- Business Intelligence & Analytics
- Custom Integrations & APIs
- Cloud & Automation
- Security & Compliance
- Cost Optimization