Dickens Alphonce Juma

Summary

Tech Lead and Senior Backend Engineer with 6+ years designing distributed systems across fintech, insurtech, AI, and SaaS companies serving Africa, Europe, and the US. Experienced leading backend architecture, mentoring engineers, and building high-availability platforms using TypeScript, Node.js, Java, Kafka, GraphQL, and AWS. Designed payment infrastructure processing 10,000+ monthly transactions, built multi-tenant SaaS serving 150+ businesses, and delivered production AI systems improving operational accuracy by 40%.

Core Skills

Languages: TypeScript, Node.js, Java, Python, GraphQL

Distributed Systems: Microservices, Event-Driven Architecture, Kafka, Saga Pattern, Outbox Pattern, Idempotency, CQRS

Cloud & DevOps: AWS (Lambda, ECS, EC2, S3), Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, GitHub Actions, CI/CD

Databases: PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, MySQL

Messaging & Integrations: Kafka, Twilio, EventBridge, Webhooks, Stripe, Flutterwave, M-Pesa

Security: OAuth2, JWT, IAM, SAML

Observability: Distributed Tracing, Structured Logging, SLO Monitoring, Prometheus, Grafana

AI: OpenAI, LangChain, Pinecone, RAG Pipelines

Selected Achievements

Designed payment infrastructure for 10,000+ monthly financial transactions.
Reduced deployment time by 60% through CI/CD automation.
Improved AI workflow accuracy by 40%; reduced hallucinations by 30%.
Built multi-tenant SaaS serving 150+ SMEs across Kenya.
Reduced backend latency by up to 30% across multiple production services.
Cut manual insurance processing from 3 days to 8 hours (-70% ops workload).

Professional Experience

Software Engineer (Senior Backend) - Residia AI (US PropTech / AI Startup)

Nov 2025 - Present

Stack: TypeScript, Python, LangChain, Pinecone, AWS, Docker

Led architecture and implementation of production LLM + RAG services supporting leasing and tenant operations across live US real estate environments.
Designed reusable AI backend services reducing inference latency by 30% and improving issue resolution times by 50%.
Improved workflow accuracy by 40% and reduced hallucinations by 30% through retrieval pipeline optimization.

Software Engineer (Senior Backend) - Nathan Digital (ERP SaaS, UAE/Kenya)

Nov 2024 - Oct 2025

Stack: Node.js, TypeScript, Kafka, MongoDB, Kubernetes, Terraform

Led migration to Kafka-based event-driven services, improving deployment independence and sprint predictability to over 90% acceptance rate.
Designed modular payroll and ERP services automating 80% of payroll workflows; reduced infra costs by 25%.
Deployed cloud-native services with Kubernetes and Terraform achieving 99.9% uptime.
Mentored junior engineers, established code review standards and engineering best practices.

Software Engineer - Old Mutual South Africa (FinTech / Insurance, Remote)

Feb 2024 - Jun 2024

Stack: Java, Spring Boot, GraphQL, PostgreSQL, AWS Lambda, Redis

Built backend services powering cross-border insurance products across Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria.
Improved average API latency by 20% through Redis caching and backend optimization.
Implemented OAuth2 and SAML authentication aligned with PCI and GDPR requirements.

Lead Backend Engineer - WayaMoney (FinTech, Remote Ghana)

Jan 2023 - Feb 2024

Stack: Node.js, Java, Kafka, GraphQL, AWS Lambda, PostgreSQL

Architected high-availability payment and wallet infrastructure processing 10,000+ monthly transactions.
Reduced transaction processing time by 30% via async event-driven workflows and idempotent handlers.
Deployed AWS Lambda notification and settlement pipelines; improved reliability under traffic spikes.
Automated CI/CD with GitHub Actions, Docker, and Terraform - cut deployment time by 60%.

Backend Developer - Lami Insurance (InsurTech, Kenya)

Nov 2021 - Jun 2023

Stack: Node.js, TypeScript, Kafka, PostgreSQL, AWS Lambda, AWS Cognito

Built onboarding and policy management APIs cutting manual processing from 3 days to 8 hours (-70% ops workload).
Built Kafka-based claims processing pipeline; throughput up 35% with automated error retries.
Integrated M-Pesa, Flutterwave, and Stripe; raised payment success rates by 25%.

Lead Software Developer - Bluewave Insurance (Microinsurance, Kenya)

Oct 2020 - Oct 2021

Stack: Node.js, Angular, PostgreSQL

Led development of a microinsurance USSD platform serving 50,000+ users across Kenya, Uganda, and Malawi.
Partnered with One Acre Fund to launch farmer insurance products in Malawi with real-time reporting.
Mentored backend engineers; reduced onboarding time by 40%.

Founder - Spark (SaaS for Beauty Industry)

Oct 2023 - Present

Built a multi-tenant SaaS platform serving 150+ SMEs with CRM, bookings, inventory, payments, and WhatsApp automation.
Architected event-driven backend services integrating payments, messaging, and AI workflows with Docker-based deployments.

Technical Leadership

Led architecture reviews for distributed backend systems.
Mentored engineers through code reviews and design sessions.
Established Git workflows, CI/CD standards and best practices.
Partnered with PMs to translate goals into scalable solutions.
Led production incident reviews across payment infrastructure.
Contributor of reusable payment and messaging integration patterns.

Education & Certifications

BSc Software Engineering - The Co-operative University of Kenya (2022 - 2026)
Remote Full-Stack Software Development - Microverse (2020 - 2021)
freeCodeCamp: Backend Development & APIs, JavaScript DSA, Responsive Web Design
AWS Developer Associate (in progress)
Azure Developer Associate (in progress)

Awards

Winner - Safaricom Hackathon (2019)
Promising Backend Developer - Connected Awards (2022)
Finalist - Hack for Africa Data Economy Challenge

Key Domains

DICKENS ALPHONCE JUMA