Senior Software Engineer · Nairobi, Kenya

Arshfod
Captano

8+ years building production systems across fintech, SaaS, and e-commerce — from multi-tenant payment backends to cross-platform mobile apps and LLM-powered automation. Currently sole technical lead at Avanamé; previously senior engineer at Pesapal serving thousands of businesses across East Africa.

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8+ Years experience
3 Platforms shipped
5 Countries worked
01

What I build

Fullstack & Backend

Multi-tenant SaaS backends, payment orchestration, async job queues, event-driven pipelines, and React frontends. From API design to production deployment on Linux.

Python / FastAPI Spring Boot Node.js PostgreSQL React 19 GCP

Mobile Engineering

Cross-platform and native mobile apps — Flutter, Kotlin/Jetpack Compose, Swift/SwiftUI, and React Native. Led mobile teams at Pesapal across Android, iOS, and Flutter products.

Flutter Kotlin / Compose Swift / SwiftUI React Native MVVM

AI & Automation

LLM-powered workflows, self-hosted inference with Ollama, RAG pipelines, agentic automation. Built AI-assisted outreach classification and reply generation for B2B sales platforms.

Claude / OpenAI Ollama RAG n8n Prompt engineering
02

Experience

Jan 2025
Present
Current
Lead Fullstack Engineer
Avanamé — Remote
  • Designed and built a multi-tenant B2B cold-outreach automation platform from scratch, replacing a fragile n8n/Google Sheets stack.
  • Built a PostgreSQL-backed async job queue (Procrastinate) orchestrating outreach sends, Gmail/Graph reply intake, and follow-up sequences.
  • Integrated LLM-driven reply classification, AI-assisted outreach generation, and a self-hosted Ollama inference instance.
  • Fernet-encrypted OAuth credential storage for Gmail and Microsoft Graph; Google SSO; strict multi-tenant data isolation.
Python 3.12FastAPIPostgreSQL React 19OllamaOAuth 2.0 Nginxsystemd
Nov 2020
Present
Current
Senior Software Engineer → Team Lead
Pesapal Limited — Nairobi, Kenya
  • Led backend architecture for three fintech SaaS products — merchant payment dashboards, float management, and a ticketing platform — serving thousands of businesses across East Africa.
  • Built Spring Boot microservices in Kotlin for payment orchestration, authorization, and settlement with full idempotency guarantees.
  • Progressed to Team Lead, taking ownership of mobile architecture across Android, iOS, and Flutter; designed a modular MVVM architecture improving component reuse and delivery speed.
  • Deployed containerized services on GCP (Cloud Run, Pub/Sub, API Gateway); implemented CI/CD with GitHub Actions.
Spring Boot (Kotlin)Node.jsPostgreSQL FlutterGCPDockerGraphQL
Apr 2021
Nov 2022
Lead Full-Stack Engineer
HudHud Express / CommercePal — Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (Freelance)
  • Built a Shopify-style multi-vendor e-commerce backend: product catalog, order state machine, payment integrations, and shipping provider APIs.
  • Led a team of three developers through delivery milestones with PR-based code reviews.
Node.jsPostgreSQLReactFlutter
Apr 2020
Mar 2021
Full-Stack Developer
Rays Microfinance — Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (Freelance)
  • Built the Sahay web banking portal and mobile banking app — real-time money transfers, webhook callbacks, idempotent retry logic for high-latency environments.
Node.jsPostgreSQLReactAndroid
Mar 2018
Jul 2020
Software Developer
PayConnect Limited — Nairobi, Kenya
  • Built enterprise integration services in Java Spring Boot and Node.js for payment processing; implemented an Enterprise Service Bus for orchestrating internal and external financial integrations.
Java Spring BootNode.jsREST APIsAndroid
Jun 2016
Feb 2018
Software Developer
Software Universe — Nairobi, Kenya
  • Developed backend services and hybrid app integrations connecting digital products to Core Banking System APIs (T24, Oracle Flexcube, Finacle), SMS gateways, and identity providers.
JavaIonicSMS APIsCore Banking
03

Technical skills

Backend
  • Python 3.12 · FastAPI · Uvicorn · Gunicorn
  • Spring Boot · Kotlin · Java
  • Node.js · Express
  • C# .NET Core
Mobile
  • Flutter · Dart
  • Kotlin · Jetpack Compose
  • Swift · SwiftUI
  • React Native · Expo
Frontend
  • React 19 · TypeScript · Vite
  • Tailwind CSS · Recharts
  • React Router
Data & APIs
  • PostgreSQL · Liquibase · RLS
  • Firestore · MySQL
  • REST · GraphQL · Webhooks
  • JWT · OAuth 2.0 · Gmail API · Graph
Cloud & DevOps
  • GCP · Cloud Run · Pub/Sub · API Gateway
  • Docker · GitHub Actions · CI/CD
  • Linux · Nginx · systemd
AI & Automation
  • Claude · OpenAI · Ollama (self-hosted)
  • LLM integration · RAG pipelines
  • n8n · Agentic workflows
  • Prompt engineering
04

Community

Lead Mentor, Software Development
Kamilimu · Nairobi, Kenya · Mar – Nov 2024

Designed and delivered the Cohort 8 curriculum covering TypeScript, React, Node.js, REST APIs, and PostgreSQL. Assessed progress through code reviews and 1:1 feedback sessions.

Open to opportunities

Let's build
something real.

Available for senior engineering roles, technical contracts, and consulting engagements across fullstack, mobile, and AI systems.

Email
arsh.captano@gmail.com
Phone
+254 727 205 709
GitHub
github.com/arshcaptano
Arshfod Captano · Nairobi, Kenya · Built with Tanaka Craft design system