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I’m a software engineering leader with 13 years building distributed systems across South Africa, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. I’ve shipped at early-stage startups and enterprise platforms, and I’ve seen the same gap emerge: not a shortage of talent, but a shortage of senior people who stay close to the work, speak honestly about risk, and care deeply about whether things ship well. If you’re building something and you’re unsure whether your technical foundation will hold, or you want an honest second opinion from someone who has been in the room where these decisions get made, I’m easy to reach. I’m hands-on, focused on trade-offs, and I measure success by whether the solution solves real problems and ships reliably.…I’m a software engineering leader with 13 years building distributed systems across South Africa, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. I’ve shipped at early-stage startups and enterprise platforms, and I’ve seen the same gap emerge: not a shortage of talent, but a shortage of senior people who stay close to the work, speak honestly about risk, and care deeply about whether things ship well. If you’re building something and you’re unsure whether your technical foundation will hold, or you want an honest second opinion from someone who has been in the room where these decisions get made, I’m easy to reach. I’m hands-on, focused on trade-offs, and I measure success by whether the solution solves real problems and ships reliably.

Zandre Witte

Full Stack Developer, Back-End Developer, Front-End Developer, +4

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I’m a software engineering leader with 13 years building distributed systems across South Africa, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. I’ve shipped at early-stage startups and enterprise platforms, and I’ve seen the same gap emerge: not a shortage of talent, but a shortage of senior people who stay close to the work, speak honestly about risk, and care deeply about whether things ship well. If you’re building something and you’re unsure whether your technical foundation will hold, or you want an honest second opinion from someone who has been in the room where these decisions get made, I’m easy to reach. I’m hands-on, focused on trade-offs, and I measure success by whether the solution solves real problems and ships reliably.…I’m a software engineering leader with 13 years building distributed systems across South Africa, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. I’ve shipped at early-stage startups and enterprise platforms, and I’ve seen the same gap emerge: not a shortage of talent, but a shortage of senior people who stay close to the work, speak honestly about risk, and care deeply about whether things ship well. If you’re building something and you’re unsure whether your technical foundation will hold, or you want an honest second opinion from someone who has been in the room where these decisions get made, I’m easy to reach. I’m hands-on, focused on trade-offs, and I measure success by whether the solution solves real problems and ships reliably.

Available to hire

I’m a software engineering leader with 13 years building distributed systems across South Africa, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. I’ve shipped at early-stage startups and enterprise platforms, and I’ve seen the same gap emerge: not a shortage of talent, but a shortage of senior people who stay close to the work, speak honestly about risk, and care deeply about whether things ship well.

If you’re building something and you’re unsure whether your technical foundation will hold, or you want an honest second opinion from someone who has been in the room where these decisions get made, I’m easy to reach. I’m hands-on, focused on trade-offs, and I measure success by whether the solution solves real problems and ships reliably.

Skills

Experience Level

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

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Expert

Expert

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Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

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Expert

Intermediate

Intermediate

Intermediate

Language

English

Fluent

Work Experience

Head of Technology at 1 Centre Limited

October 1, 2024 - October 28, 2025

Led the engineering function and technology strategy, oversaw CI/CD improvements, and redesigned the underlying infra to be scalable, secure, and maintainable. Drove cross-functional collaboration across design, product, and QA to deliver value quickly. Implemented IaC and containerization using Kubernetes and Docker, and used Terraform for scalable deployments. Optimized AWS usage by 50–60% through modernization of infrastructure and services. Re-architected the platform to support rapid delivery and easier deployment from an IaC perspective, mentored engineers, and established QA processes to sustain quality and reliability. The work also included enabling better telemetry and customer insights to guide product decisions.

Technical Lead (Head of Cloud) at Bluebird Power

August 1, 2024 - August 1, 2024

Led cloud and integration efforts for an EV charging platform. Built backend services in Go and Scala, leveraging Cassandra, Kafka, and RabbitMQ. Containerized services with Docker and orchestrated them on Kubernetes. Migrated infrastructure from EC2 to Kubernetes, implemented Terraform-based provisioning and Ansible-driven configuration, and contributed to front-end work. Mentored the backend team and helped define the roadmap, delivering a scalable, observable, and maintainable platform with improved deployment velocity.

Senior Software Engineer at SPAN Digital

September 1, 2017 - September 1, 2017

Senior software engineer on the backend stack for a social network; primarily Python back-end (Flask) with Redis and Kafka-based microservices. Focused on performance improvements, API design, and data ingestion pipelines; contributed to monitoring and reliability efforts in a consulting environment across multi-tenant projects.

Full Stack Developer at Lunatech

May 1, 2018 - May 1, 2018

Backend data ingestion platform development using the SMACK stack (Spark, Mesos, Akka, Cassandra, Kafka). Built and extended data pipelines for large-scale ingestion; focused on backend services in Scala and Java with MongoDB. Contributed to building scalable data infrastructure and coordinating data processing workloads; worked as part of a Scrum-based consulting team.

Technical Lead (Integrations) at Stack State

August 1, 2023 - August 1, 2023

Led the Integrations/Agent team on an observability platform. Focused on edge telemetry collection using Akka Streams and Scala/Java back-end services. Expanded the team scope to cover the Stack State platform, including back-end and some front-end work. Implemented Kubernetes-based deployment patterns, data pipelines, and telemetry ingestion; mentored engineers and contributed to architecture and code quality across the front-end and back-end.

Technical Lead at Bluebird Power

August 1, 2024 - August 1, 2024

Led cloud-oriented integrations and backend development for an EV charging start-up. Built robust back-end services using Go/Scala, with Cassandra, Kafka, and RabbitMQ; implemented containerized deployments with Docker and orchestrated on Kubernetes; designed data pipelines and provisioning workflows with Terraform and Ansible.

Head of Technology at 1 Centre Limited

October 1, 2024 - October 28, 2025

Currently leading technology strategy and engineering delivery. Driving platform modernization, cross-team collaboration, and continuous improvement in CI/CD, monitoring, and telemetry. Focused on building scalable, reliable software and growing the engineering team to support future growth.

Technical Lead / Senior Software Engineer at SPANDigital

September 1, 2017 - September 1, 2017

Supported backend/Scala/Java development, implemented Redis-based caching, contributed to Python backend, and helped migrate and extend infrastructure. Led backend initiatives and IoT platform efforts, focusing on scalable architectures and reliability.

Java Frontend Engineer / Backend Engineer at Epinion Services (formerly ZapOP)

August 1, 2016 - August 1, 2016

Initially worked as a Java frontend engineer, later taking on backend responsibilities in Java/Scala. Led scalable microservice architecture development, mentored junior engineers, and contributed to IoT platform initiatives monitoring sensor data.

Technical Lead (Integrations) at SUSE (formerly Stack State)

January 1, 2020 - August 1, 2023

Promoted to Technical Lead of the Integrations team, overseeing a group of 11 engineers with diverse experience. Drove the evolution of the Stack State platform, redesigned underlying infrastructure, improved CI/CD, and established processes to enhance communication and collaboration across design, customer support, and growth teams.

Backend / Software Engineer at Stack State (SUSE)

May 1, 2018 - August 1, 2023

Started as a backend software engineer focusing on telemetry providers using Akka Streams, then expanded into edge telemetry collection and topology work. Contributed to the platform’s reliability, scalability, and data infrastructure.

Full Stack Developer at Lunatech

October 1, 2017 - May 1, 2018

Built and extended backend and frontend components, contributing to data pipelines and backend services. Worked on Scala/Java-based backends and frontend integrations.

Software Engineer / Backend Engineer at SPAN Digital

September 1, 2013 - September 1, 2017

Joined as a backend engineer, evolving into full-stack responsibilities on a number of projects. Implemented microservices architectures, data processing pipelines, and system integrations using scalable patterns.

Head of Cloud at Bluebird Power

August 1, 2023 - August 1, 2024

Led cloud-related initiatives for an EV charging startup, focusing on scalable cloud architecture, deployment automation, and reliability of critical services. Drove migration to Kubernetes and modern CI/CD practices to support growth.

Founder | Technical Lead at WAZI

January 1, 2026 - Present

Building technology that impacts lives and empowering engineers to thrive. WAZI exists to close the gap between founders needing a technical engine and teams needing senior hands and honest leadership. I stay hands-on, navigate trade-offs, and help determine whether we should build something and whether it actually solves a real problem. I focus on delivering reliable, scalable systems while mentoring teammates and ensuring value for customers.

Head of Technology at 1Centre

October 1, 2024 - December 1, 2025

Led the engineering team and cross-team integration, implemented infrastructure-as-code (Terraform) to improve scalability and maintainability. Re-designed the underlying infrastructure for the 1Centre platform, reduced AWS bill by 50-60%, and modernised CI/CD to improve build times and developer experience. Contributed to the Ruby on Rails codebase, built Golang reporting tools, and partnered with QA to automate quality across the SDLC. Responsible for performance reporting, 1:1s, hiring, and people development.

Technical Lead - Cloud / Integrations at BluebirdPower

August 1, 2023 - August 1, 2024

Focused on platform availability, reliability, and cost efficiency while building MVP-grade capabilities. Migrated deployment from EC2 to Kubernetes, expanded the Golang backend, and improved MongoDB usage. Introduced Victoria Metrics for time-series data and NATS for real-time messaging; built out segments of the mobile app and defined a future-facing architecture while delivering critical features.

Technical Lead - Integrations at StackState

May 1, 2018 - August 1, 2023

Led a team of 11 engineers (edge collection, telemetry providers, and StackState Agent). Designed and implemented Kubernetes, AWS, and Dynatrace integrations; drove two quality improvement cycles to improve resilience and performance, including automated testing with Terraform/Ansible test infrastructure. Mentored team members, helped shape the software vision, and collaborated with stakeholders to deliver quick value under constraints.

Software Engineer at SPAN Digital

August 1, 2016 - September 1, 2017

Backend Python engineer with experience supporting a soccer social network; implemented Redis caching, designed microservices with Kafka-based messaging, and contributed to front-end work using React/Redux and RxJS as part of a polyglot engineering team.

Software Engineer at ZaPOP (Epinion Services)

September 1, 2013 - August 1, 2016

Java-based front-end engineer progressing to backend work; led the front-end team for a major investment management client, helped design a scalable microservices architecture using Scala, Kafka, RabbitMQ, and MongoDB, and contributed to data-driven reporting; mentored junior engineers and collaborated across teams.