About
I'm Desmond, a backend engineer who likes the unglamorous middle of the stack: the API contracts, the database migrations, the deployment pipelines. The parts users never see but always feel.
Most recently I’ve been leading backend at the African Institute for AI, building an offline-capable literacy platform and the infrastructure it runs on. Before that I spent three years at STRV, scoping infrastructure, designing schemas, and shipping APIs for US-based startups that had to hold up as those products scaled. Earlier, at Pettysave, I built automation and backend systems that improved operational pipelines and team collaboration.
When I’m not writing code I’m usually tinkering with my homelab, listening to way too much music, or reading about distributed systems.
Currently
Oriweave — document your homelab as YAML and render it as a live topology.
Designing Data-Intensive Applications (again).
Proxmox, Docker, and too many side projects.