Platform Engineer · Somerset West, ZA · Neurodivergent · AI-Augmented
AI-native platform engineer based in Somerset West near Cape Town, South Africa. I work across frontend, backend, AWS serverless systems, and delivery workflows that need to hold up once real users hit them. Most of my recent work sits at the point where product configuration becomes operational reality: builder UX, backend orchestration, analytics, and the systems around them. Currently at Inner Reality Limited.
I started coding in late 2022 alongside GPT-3.5 — AI is native to my engineering process, not adopted later. I do not claim deep expert knowledge in every domain. I deliver production systems across all of them, because AI-augmented engineering collapses the gap between understanding and shipping. This site runs its own AI agent — ask it anything about me.
I'm a platform engineer with a production-first mindset and a strong bias toward systems that reduce friction without making operations worse. I'm most useful where a team needs someone who can move between interface, service, workflow, and infrastructure without losing the thread.
I work across the boundary between product and platform, building systems that help teams launch, operate, and extend real features without creating brittle handoffs.
I do my best work in live environments where constraints are real, quality matters, and the system has to keep behaving after release.
Design, QA, photography, and engineering all fed the same instinct: make the thing clearer, reduce friction, and build with intent.
My current work at Inner Reality sits across campaign systems, backend workflows, integrations, and AWS delivery. That mix is a large part of why platform engineering feels like the right centre of gravity for me.
Product systems / Backend workflows / AWS
Co-engineered with the CTO a self-serve campaign platform for branded gamified experiences. The work spans builder UX, template-driven campaign setup, asset handling and moderation, serverless submission and processing workflows, campaign customisation through backend actions, status tracking, notifications, and analytics entry points. Product-facing on the surface, platform-shaped underneath.
Backend / Reliability / AWS
Moved quiz logic out of the client and into a backend service with server-side validation, S3-backed question delivery, and campaign-level configuration so gameplay behaviour could be controlled more safely and consistently.
Architecture / Integrations / Conversational systems
Designed the routing model for Infobip-based WhatsApp flows, including session correlation, webhook routing, and capability exposure patterns to make conversational features easier to integrate cleanly.
Platform / Data / Operational clarity
Implemented region-aware behaviour so campaigns could respond correctly to boundaries, rules, and location-gated experiences without turning delivery logic into spaghetti.
Not a list of claimed expertise — these are the environments where I have shipped real production work using AI-augmented engineering:
Architecture, decomposition, and judgment still matter. The tools move faster now, but the craft is still in how you shape the system.
The real unlock is not hype. It is lowering the cost of trying good ideas, so engineers can think bigger and test directions that were previously too expensive.
These machines are useful because people bring taste, care, and responsibility to them. The technology is leverage, not the point.
Creative counterpart to the engineering profile, not a separate identity. Strong themes: portraits, editorial, archive work, still life, visual restraint, clarity, composition. The photography work highlights an older portfolio from Luke's creative background in graphic design and studio photography.
Based in Somerset West in the Western Cape, near Cape Town. Comfortable with remote-first teams across South Africa, the UK, and distributed product environments. Strong fit for teams looking for a platform engineer who can move between delivery, systems thinking, and implementation.
Selectively open for the right opportunity. Remote only. Minimum 12-24 month engagements. Targeting platform engineering, pair founding engineer, and co-founding engineer roles.