Vaneyck Seme Otoki

Drove the technical design and implementation of a new Onboarding Platform and Customer KYC, achieving a steady 70% verification approval rate for South African Merchants using TypeScript (NodeJS) and AWS SST.

Pioneered automated functional and regression testing for frontend web applications, reducing manual QA time by approximately 4-8 hours per release and integrating test results with Jira (Zepha) for real-time release stability.

Led Generative AI experimentation, developing a prototype that reduced merchant onboarding time by 40 seconds by simplifying business category selection from over 1,000 options.

Championed monitoring and alerting improvements for Onboarding Systems in Datadog, enhancing tracing and logging practices to significantly reduce issue resolution time and improve system observability.

Contributed to talent acquisition by reviewing coding challenges and conducting interviews, successfully recruiting new engineers for the Ikhokha team.

Led a 40-person engineering team through the conceptualization, system design, and implementation of the Sendy Fulfillment Product.

Directed a 7-member fulfillment engineering team to build and launch the core backend, iOS, Android, and Web applications for Sendy Fulfillment, serving 300 active sellers and 6,000 monthly buyers across 4 African countries.

Collaborated with Product Managers and the VP of Engineering to define project scope and optimize team efficiency.

Partnered with Lead Engineers to integrate existing technologies and develop new solutions, creating a harmonized Fulfillment Product.

Engaged with Business Development to reduce cost-to-serve and increase Fulfillment Rate, enhancing order delivery success.

Optimized automated message processing platforms by diagnosing and resolving inefficiencies, enhancing system performance.

Scoped client projects and developed feasible project plans with the engineering team, ensuring timely delivery.

Collaborated with the CTO to build engineering team capacity, improving overall team capabilities.

Communicated technical plans and strategic goals to upper management, ensuring alignment.

Supported the COO in hiring and onboarding new developers, facilitating team growth.

Co-designed and developed core platform feature sets, contributing to foundational product functionality.

Co-designed and co-implemented FrontlineSync, an Android-based SMS gateway that enabled message sending and receiving via any Android phone.

Co-designed and co-implemented a recipe processing engine, enabling clients to build bespoke SMS-based message workflows, including chatbots.

Rebuilt a custom Android OS version to automate MPESA payments via SIM toolkit integration.

Pioneered and implemented internal projects, such as the 'Retro Board,' to streamline operations and facilitate end-of-sprint retrospectives.