Employment

Machine Learning & Software Engineering

Capitec

Since Nov 2025 · Hybrid

Capitec began disrupting the South African banking sector in the early 2000s by offering simple, affordable, and reliable banking services for everyone. The bank has won numerous awards over the years, and currently serves more clients than any other bank in South Africa. I joined Capitec in late 2025 as a machine learning engineer, where I focus on problems related to the detection and prevention of fraud and money laundering.

Takealot

Jan 2020 - Oct 2025 · Remote

I joined South Africa's largest online retailer in 2020, and spent the better part of six years as a machine learning software engineer focusing specifically on search and recommendations. Building customer-facing ML systems comes with a host of challenges - scale, reliability, quality, and personalisation, to name a few. In the latter years of my tenure I became the technical lead for recommendations. In this position I was responsible for designing and implementing an architecture that would support future recommendations projects, while also monitoring and maintaining existing recommender systems. I'm proud of my many impactful contributions, and I enjoyed seeing my work directly benefiting our customers.

3D-IMO

Nov 2020 - Dec 2022 · Freelance

This US-based startup aimed to create investment and administrative offerings in the livestock and agricultural sectors. I worked to create a biometric livestock identification tool which does not rely on tags (which can break and fade) or RFID chips (which are invasive and could be removed). My objective was to create a proof of concept algorithm capable of uniquely identifying an animal given a smartphone photograph of its snout, using techniques similar to human fingerprint recognition. My work focused initially on building an image processing pipeline for image quality assessment, segmentation, and feature extraction. The project came to an end due to funding constraints.

Internships

Aerobotics (Pty) Ltd

Dec 2018 - Jan 2019

As part of my engineering studies, I took part in a six-week internship at Aerobotics (Pty) Ltd, where I was very involved in image processing and worked to streamline the process of stitching hundreds of images into a single orthographic image for further processing. This was my first encounter with photogrammetry, and I found the concept quite fascinating. One day I'd like to revisit this topic, and possibly integrate the technique into my 3D CAD workflow.

Teaching

Club Electron

2017 - 2019

At school, I enjoyed tinkering with electronics in my spare time, which was a huge help in preparing me for engineering at UCT. I started working with Club Electron in 2017 because I believe that more kids need to be exposed to electronics and coding at a young age, hopefully inspiring them to pursue hobbies or careers in STEM fields. The program is run as an extra-curricular activity at schools all over Cape Town, and aimed at grades 4-7. During my studies, I worked as an instructor at a number of schools, guiding kids through various topics, and helping them understand, build, and test their creations.

SkillUp Tutors

2016 - 2020

I began working with SkillUp as a private tutor in 2016, which has allowed me to share my love of math and science with others. What began as a way to earn a little pocket money has become a passion for empowering struggling students to achieve the results they know they are capable of. I have worked with students in high school and at university, from all over the Southern Suburbs. I tend to work most on math and physics, and I love seeing my students grapple with and grasp the content which they previously found challenging. I particularly enjoy building lasting relationships with my students, where I can be a part of their progress towards achieving the results they desire.