Jurie-Jan Botha LinkedIn GitHub Software Architect/Engineer About I got into software at the age of 10 when games captured my imagination, and I've been hooked on technology ever since. I started out in technical support and systems roles, went on to design and develop four award-winning mobile games, and have spent the years since building products across the full stack, from firmware and back-ends to web and mobile. In more than 20 years I've worked as an engineer, architect, technical lead and CTO, and I care as much about what a product should do as how it's built. I'm currently available for new opportunities. Experience Contracting Principal Full Stack Engineer - OneFootball March 2025 - October 2026 Berlin, Germany | Remote Principal engineer on the FanPass product, covering its back-end and web application and serving at least 20,000 registered users a month. Designed and built the FanPass back-end and web application. Set architecture and technical direction, working across multiple teams. Reviewed code and set engineering standards. Shaped product scope together with product and design. Launched the product and its token airdrop. Skills: Leadership, Architecture, Product Tools: Go, TypeScript, React, Flutter, Dart, PostgreSQL, Kubernetes, Grafana, AWS, HTML, CSS Founder and Lead Software Architect/Engineer - Culture Systems January 2019 - February 2025 South Africa | Remote Led design and development of full-stack products for clients, covering product ownership, project management and hands-on engineering. Ran the business end to end: accounting, marketing and engineering. Analyzed client requirements, authored proposals and specifications, and chose the tools and technologies for each solution. Designed and built back-end systems and protocols with a focus on live streaming the latest data. Built front-end applications, mainly for Web but also Android and iOS, factoring shared functionality into reusable libraries and components. Broke work into feature sets and tasks, distributed it across team members and external contractors, and reviewed submitted work while leading discussions on architecture/engineering choices. Provided documented development environments for every project to improve collaboration and minimize setup time. Set up bare-metal and cloud infrastructure for back-end systems and applications, and designed hardware and firmware for communications devices. Skills: Leadership, Management, Architecture, Product, Analysis, Documentation, UI/UX, Firmware, Electronics Tools: Rust, Go, Dart, Flutter, JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML, CSS, gRPC, AWS, Firebase, etcd, Docker Contracting Software Architect/Engineer - CodeCollective February 2021 - September 2023 Cape Town, South Africa | Remote Led development across multiple projects and built a single team able to work on all of them as required. Explored back-end and front-end libraries for inter-component communication. Advised on UI/UX design to maintain coherence and optimize development effort. Led development of reusable libraries and components shared across projects. Reviewed work from team members and contractors, giving feedback and leading discussions on architecture/engineering choices. Skills: Leadership, Architecture, UI/UX Tools: Dart, Flutter, C#, Azure, SQL, GraphQL, OpenAPI, Firebase Contracting Software Engineer - OpenUp June 2020 - January 2021 Cape Town, South Africa | Remote Consulted on planning for the next iteration of the Municipal Money (https://municipalmoney.gov.za/) project, assisted with documentation, and implemented changes across the entire stack of the platform. Skills: Architecture, UI/UX Tools: Python, Django, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, MySQL Lead Software Architect/Engineer - Finlight January 2019 - May 2019 London, United Kingdom | Remote Restructured the entire technology stack to improve productivity and platform scalability. Led project management, specification and development. Skills: Leadership, Architecture, UI/UX, Product Tools: Python, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Nginx Contracting Software Architect/Engineer - VML May 2017 - December 2018 Cape Town, South Africa | Remote Worked on the Old Mutual South Africa Transformation project as a developer, architect, consultant and team leader across several browser-based applications. Skills: Leadership, Documentation, UI/UX Tools: JavaScript, HTML, CSS Software Architect/Engineer - Lightstack March 2015 - March 2017 Cape Town, South Africa | Remote Led specification and development of the browser-based application component of the Firstrade Navigator project, with particular emphasis on exploring and applying scalable patterns and optimization techniques. Skills: Leadership, Architecture, Documentation, UI/UX Tools: JavaScript, Node.js, HTML, CSS, OpenAPI Chief Technical Officer - Ashanti Help March 2014 - February 2015 Klerksdorp, South Africa | Remote Worked to streamline internal business processes and increase scalability. Explored product development in the insurance sphere and built the flagship product, which focused on directing insurance claims to service providers. Skills: Leadership, Architecture, Documentation, UI/UX, Product Tools: Go, Node.js, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, MongoDB, Android Chief Technical Officer - NumberPicture September 2013 - January 2014 Sofia, Bulgaria Led development, managed the team and advised on product direction for an infographic generation platform. Skills: Leadership, Architecture, Documentation, UI/UX, Product Tools: JavaScript, Node.js, HTML, CSS Lead Software Architect/Engineer - Edge Campus April 2012 - December 2013 Stellenbosch, South Africa Led development of the Qurio platform, which provided assessment tools for the education sector. Also managed the project, built the team and improved development processes. Skills: Leadership, Architecture, Documentation, UI/UX, Product Tools: JavaScript, Node.js, HTML, CSS Contracting Software Engineer - Unomena April 2011 - December 2011 Cape Town, South Africa | Remote Worked on projects ranging from micro-sites for marketing campaigns to user-generated content portals. Skills: Communication, Engineering Tools: Python, Django, JavaScript, HTML, CSS Senior Software Engineer - XO Africa March 2010 - February 2011 Cape Town, South Africa Selected development tools, patterns and platforms and built the flagship product for creating and managing bespoke tours. Skills: Leadership, Documentation Tools: Python, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, MySQL, SQLAlchemy Founder and Lead Software Architect/Engineer - OCO Mobile January 2009 - February 2011 Johannesburg, South Africa Managed all aspects of the company while developing mobile sites, applications and games. Notably designed and developed 4 award-winning mobile games for corporate clients. Skills: Leadership, Architecture, Documentation, UI/UX, Product, Game Design Tools: Java, Java ME, Java EE, Python, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, MySQL Intermediate/Senior Software Engineer - Helm April 2006 - December 2008 Johannesburg, South Africa | Remote Built custom content management systems for clients in the broadcasting and publishing industry. Skills: Leadership, Documentation, UI/UX, Product Tools: Python, Django, Java, Java EE, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, MySQL Technical Specialist - Vodacom June 2005 - March 2006 Johannesburg, South Africa Developed, supported and administered the Vodafone Live platform and adjacent services. Skills: Communication, Engineering, Documentation Tools: Java, Java EE, Oracle Database, SQL, Unix Technical Specialist - BP May 2004 - December 2004 Milton Keynes, United Kingdom Automated maintenance tasks for point-of-sale systems and credit card authentication terminals, and provided third-line support. Skills: Documentation, Support Tools: C++, SQL, TCP/IP Publications Grunt.js Cookbook - Packt Publishing June 29, 2015 Grunt Cookbook offers a host of easy-to-follow recipes for automating repetitive tasks in your web application's development, management, and deployment processes. This book will introduce you to methods that can be used to automate basic processes and your favorite tools. By following the recipes, you will soon be comfortable using Grunt to perform a wide array of advanced tasks in a range of different scenarios. Education Grade 12 (A-Levels) - Klerksdorp College - 2001