My Programming Life in a Nutshell

Started teaching myself QBASIC when I was 11. Having played Warcraft, my future profession was set - I wanted to make games. In school, learnt some Pascal and Delphi, got top in my class. BSc(InfoSys) was my degree of choice when entering Rhodes University. Picked up all sorts of new skills and languages including C#, ASM and Haskell. Had a single semester of web development (basic CSS and HTML) and I was hooked at the speed of thought to visual result. Game design was put on the back burner (for now).

Started my own freelance web design (PHP & MySQL) company while at university, Giffin Studios. Moved to Mombasa a couple years later and worked with MSS (Media and Software Studio) doing more PHP via the Kohana Framework. Spent 5 years in Namibia at Westcosoft building a desktop application using XOJO while learning and rebuilding the application in Ruby on Rails. Built (and still maintain) JuggleBee, the first online auction platform in Namibia. Needing a bigger challenge, decided to come to London and join the real rat race. Currently based in the UK, having worked at some fantastic companies such as LifeStream and Kallidus.

Linkipoos

Skills

Ruby, Ruby on Rails, TDD, BDD, PHP, HTML / HAML, (S)CSS, JavaScript, YAML, Mysql, PostgresQL, Neo4j, DynamoDB, MongoDB, AWS, Problem Solving, Leadership, Communication, Tutoring, Documentation, VIM, bash

Work Experience

Kallidus (Sapling Team)

Position: Senior Backend Ruby Engineer

Duration: July 2023 - May 2025

Revamped and optimised the CircleCI pipeline for our test suite, reducing build times from ~50 minutes to under 20 minutes.

I restructured the pipeline from a single, heavily-parallelised job into multiple discrete jobs, categorised by test type, which enabled quicker reruns of failed tests. I introduced fast-running code quality checks (Reek, Rubocop) early in the pipeline, and implemented test coverage enforcement to prevent untested code from merging. These improvements significantly reduced CI credit usage, accelerated developer feedback loops, and improved code quality across the board.

Refactored a legacy, unmaintainable reporting system into a clean, modular framework using the Builder design pattern.

Inherited complex, poorly structured code and incrementally transformed it into a robust and testable reporting foundation. This new architecture not only standardised how new reports were developed but significantly improved performance and maintainability. A new report I built using this approach was delivered in just a few weeks — demonstrating how the refactor accelerated development and enabled easier handoff to other engineers.

Led the transition to a trunk-based development workflow, streamlining releases and improving collaboration across engineering and QA.

Moved the team away from a slow, single-branch QA process to weekly releases on the main branch, significantly reducing QA overhead and enabling faster, more reliable delivery. Introduced git conventions for branch naming and commit messages, which integrated seamlessly with GitHub’s release tooling to generate automated changelogs. Documented the new workflow to ensure consistency and ease of adoption across the team.

Lifestream (previously BigSofa Technologies Ltd)

Position: Backend Tech Lead

Duration: May 2017 - July 2023

Successfully converted a monolithic Ruby on Rails application into a streamlined backend API utilizing microservices, resulting in the removal of over 40,000 lines of legacy code.

Developed and implemented various microservices, including a language transcription provider that leverages third-party transcription and translation services, a python-built facial recognition and obfuscation service using pre-trained YOLO data model, and a pipeline microservice responsible for batch processing media.

Implemented a standalone IDP and SSO gateway, as well as Neo4j to capture media data points for better insights, and DynamoDB to improve performance on loading project dashboard data.

Established and documented pull request, issue creation, design, review, merging, and deployment processes, and maintained a StackOverflow Teams knowledgebase.

Facilitated a weekly developer meeting to promote knowledge sharing and team building, and designed the processes around the use of GitHub Projects to manage teams and sprints, including creating, scoping, timeboxing, and assigning tasks.

JuggleBee

Position: Cofounder and Developer

Duration: Mar 2014 - Present

Cofounder, developer and maintainer of JuggleBee (jugglebee.com), Namibia’s online auction platform of choice.

Technologies used:

Westcosoft

Position: Principal Software Developer

Duration: Nov 2012 - Jan 2017 (4 yrs, 2 mos)

Media & Software Studio (MSS)

Position: Web Developer

Duration: Jan 2011 - Mar 2012 (1 yrs, 2 mos)

Assisted MSS in developing bespoke websites and web software solutions using the PHP based Kohana Framework.

Griffin Studios

Position: Sole Proprietor

Duration: Feb 2008 - Feb 2011 (3 yrs)

Eastcape Midlands College

Position: Lecturer

Duration: Apr 2008 - Dec 2010 (2 yrs, 8 mos)

Taught three subjects:

Awarded a Certificate for attaining a 100% pass rate in Data Communication and Networking for my class of 2009.