20+Years shipping
200+Projects delivered
20M+Users served
2Exits
Senior enough to own the architecture, still in the pull requests. I embed with SaaS teams, early-stage to scale-up, as the engineering lead who owns delivery. Two decades shipping, two CTO roles, one studio sold. Remote from GMT+2, full EU and US East overlap.Experience
Role & organisationPeriod
FounderJan 2024 – Present
Underwulf · Cape Town · Remote
- Founded a custom software studio: MVPs, web platforms, API integrations, and LLM features.
- Lead every engagement personally as the senior engineer, from architecture to production code.
Co-founderSep 2022 – Present
Machine Republic · London · Remote
- Co-founded a London consultancy building custom software and LLM features for product teams.
- Set architecture and CI/CD standards, mentored the engineers, tied delivery to client ROI.
Founder · Lead ArchitectMar 2020 – Present
Indiemaker · Remote
- Built and scaled the largest marketplace for buying and selling side projects and micro-SaaS.
- Led the Laravel to Rails migration. 1,000+ new makers a month at 99.9% uptime.
Senior Engineer & Solutions Architect · CTO (2021–22)Oct 2020 – Sep 2022
Code Maven · Cape Town · Hybrid
- Led architecture and full-stack delivery for Pepkor NexTech, one of Africa's largest retailers.
- Stepped up as CTO through the acquisition, owning strategy and stakeholder relationships.
- Ran the cloud migration and CI/CD across a Java, Go, Python, PHP, and JavaScript stack.
CTO & Co-founderDec 2018 – Mar 2021
MyPerks · Cape Town
- Co-founded a B2B perks and rewards platform and took it to acquisition as CTO.
- Built the Flutter apps and Rails backend: payments, Google Cloud Vision, infrastructure.
Co-founder & Senior EngineerJul 2010 – Oct 2019
Wixel · Stellenbosch · Remote
- Co-founded a profitable studio, sold in 2019. 200+ projects across fintech, gaming, and big data.
- Architected BLU Loyalty, an enterprise platform serving 9M users for a major MENA retail group.
- Won a Frost & Sullivan Excellence Award.
Senior Full-Stack EngineerJan 2008 – Sep 2010
Yola.com · Remote
- Early engineer at one of the first no-code website builders, from 10K to 11M users.
- Built the core PHP framework, payment system, and public APIs.
Products & open source
CraaftFounder · Kanban SaaS for teams that plan and ship without bloat.craaft.io EckoCreator · Rust-based programming language with AI as a primitive.ecko.sh Payments PlaybookAuthor · Book on building payment systems that survive real customers.payments-playbook.com NitroCreator · Python static site generator, and it builds sswn.dev.nitro.sh DesignClipboardCreator · One-click Chrome extension for colours, fonts, and styles.Chrome Web Store Open sourceGUMP (thousands of sites) · Amethyst · Nitro CLI · Nitro UIgithub.com/sn Capabilities
- Engineering leadership and delivery
- Production AI: RAG, agents, and evals
- AI coding tool rollout across teams
- Architecture that survives 10x growth
- Cloud infrastructure and reliability
- SOC 2 readiness and security review
- Technical due diligence and code audits
- Incremental legacy modernisation
Stack & credentials
LanguagesPython · TypeScript · Go · Rust · Ruby · Java · JavaScript · PHP
PlatformRails · Django · FastAPI · Flutter · PostgreSQL · Redis · AWS · GCP · Stripe
CertifiedGoogle Cloud Certified Professional Cloud Architect (2025) · AWS Certified Solutions Architect (2017)
“At Wixel we always joked that we do the impossible. Much of that was possible because Sean was our CTO.”
Beverley Merriman · CEO, WixelAvailable for embedded leadership, contract engagements, and senior roles.Contract work starts with a two-week sprint. If I'm not adding value, we stop.References available on request.
sean@sswn.dev