Full-stack developer in Pretoria, South Africa.
Enterprise Java by day · Spring Boot + Angular/React after hours · tests, docs and trade-offs included.

I write enterprise Java web applications during the day, the kind with long-lived business rules, workflow engines and a QA process behind every release. After hours I build the other half of the stack: Spring Boot APIs and Angular/React front ends.

That split is deliberate. Work taught me how software survives in production. My own projects are where I go deep on the modern stack (stateless JWT auth, Angular Signals, WebGL, transactional checkouts) and then write down why I chose what I chose.

• 💼 3 years of professional full-stack experience, since June 2023
• 🎓 BSc Information Technology, North-West University (2023)
• 🧭 "Less but better": simple interfaces, dependable code, honest docs
• 🕹️ Side quests: producing music, soccer, reading, and far too much anime 🗡️
• 🐍 The snake at the bottom of this page eats my commit history. Stick around for it.

• 🔨 Shipping: taking GameStore from localhost to live. Docker, a production profile and CI on every push come first, then a public deploy.
• 📚 Studying: AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner · Oracle Certified Associate, Java SE 8 Programmer (1Z0-808)
• 🤖 Next up: AI engineering in Java, starting with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and running LLMs locally with Ollama.

Languages

Frontend

_{➕ Angular Signals · RxJS · React Router · WebGL (OGL)}

Backend & Data

_{➕ Spring Security · JWT · Spring Data JPA · Flyway · Java EE · Oracle SQL}

Testing & Quality

_{➕ JUnit 5 · MockMvc · H2 · Jasmine · Karma · ESLint · Prettier}

Tools & Platforms

_{➕ Claude Code for AI-assisted development}

Started as a React UI exercise. I kept asking what an actual store needs behind the pretty grid, and it turned into a full-stack app with the whole loop: discover → wishlist → cart → checkout → own.

• Two audiences, one API. Customers search the catalogue with live suggestions, keep a wishlist, check out and build a personal library. Admins get a separate portal with full CRUD over games and users.
• Checkout that respects money, even fake money. One transaction snapshots each line's price, grants ownership and returns a DEMO- receipt. The rewards ledger (earn 10 points per R1, redeem 100 points for R1 off) is always recomputed on the server, and card details never leave the browser.
• Security is the backbone, not a bolt-on. Stateless JWTs, USER/ADMIN roles in one ordered filter chain, identity taken only from the token (never from a ?userId=), and authorities reloaded from the database on every request.
• Built to be trusted. Flyway owns the schema, 63 integration tests run against in-memory H2, and both repos ship an interactive engineering handbook plus a plain list of known limitations.

🔗 Backend · Frontend

Plenty of tutorials stop at "login works". I built this one to find out where token-based auth actually leaks: the seam between an API that trusts nothing and a client that has to remember everything.

• Java 17 / Spring Boot 3 REST API over employee records: CRUD behind a Spring Security 6 filter chain that issues and verifies JWTs on every request.
• The Angular side holds up its end. An HTTP interceptor attaches the token to outbound calls; route guards keep protected routes protected instead of just hiding the nav link.
• A UI that only promises what it does. Light and dark themes with measured WCAG AA contrast, a dense table that drops columns by priority on smaller screens, and distinct loading, empty, no-results and error states. Buttons that led nowhere were removed, not styled.
• Decisions on paper. The API ships an architecture and MVP roadmap doc; the client records its theme and layout choices as ADRs.

🔗 Backend · Frontend

A code-themed card matching game that I tore down and rebuilt on Angular's standalone components and Signals. The rewrite was the point.

• Game state as derived state. One service holds the raw state in writable signals, and everything else (multiplier, accuracy, rank) is computed from it, which killed a whole class of stale-UI bugs.
• Actual game design. Three difficulties, each with its own grid, lives and par time. Consecutive matches ramp a combo multiplier up to 3×, and every win is graded S, A, B or C.
• Neo-brutalist "Paper & Ink" design system built on CSS custom properties, with 3D CSS card flips. Every button splits into a stationary hit box and a moving face, so a press can't slide off its own target.
• Playable by everyone. Keyboard controls, screen-reader announcements for every flip and match, full reduced-motion support, and unit tests on the game rules.

🔗 Repository · Live Demo

I didn't want a résumé with a nav bar, that's boring. This one is a single continuous scroll: five destinations that wrap into a seamless loop, floating over a WebGL aurora.

• No router. The whole site is one scroll loop with a cloned first section at the end, so reaching the bottom wraps back to the top without a jump or a route change.
• One frame loop drives everything. A GLSL aurora rendered with OGL and an SVG constellation that morphs between the five destinations both run on a single shared requestAnimationFrame pulse outside Angular's zone, which keeps change detection off the 60 fps hot path.
• Every real decision is an ADR. Ten so far, including the ones I tried and rejected. The repo also ships an interactive onboarding guide for anyone reading the code cold.
• Nothing reaches production unchecked. Every push runs lint, a format check, unit tests on the pure scroll and motion maths, and a build that generates the Content-Security-Policy.

🔗 Repository · Live Demo

• Decisions get written down. Ten ADRs in the portfolio (rejected ideas included) and three in Employee Manager. GameStore ships an interactive engineering handbook that spans both of its repos.
• Tests live where the logic lives. 63 integration tests cover the GameStore API against in-memory H2. The portfolio keeps its maths in pure, unit-tested functions, and CI checks every push.
• The schema is code. Flyway owns the GameStore database through versioned migrations with ddl-auto=validate, so schema drift stops the app at startup instead of hiding.
• Accessibility is part of done. Keyboard play, screen-reader announcements and reduced-motion support in Code Pairs; measured WCAG AA contrast in both Employee Manager themes.
• Limitations are stated plainly. Both GameStore READMEs keep a "Known limitations" section: what doesn't work yet, and why.