Makokha Mark Kitts
Software Engineer
Backend · Data Engineering · Cloud
I design and build reliable backend systems, distributed data pipelines, and cloud infrastructure that scale from prototype to production.
Engineering Snapshot
The 30-second version. Everything below links to deeper detail.
Engineering Metrics
Real-time metrics from GitHub. These show my current activity, contributions and open source engagement.
Architecture Previews
Simplified system architecture for selected production systems. These demonstrate how I think about data flow, service boundaries and infrastructure.
Enterprise GIS Synchronization Platform
Designed and implemented automated ETL pipelines that synchronized real-time spatial data across three enterprise GIS platforms, eliminating manual reconciliation and achieving 100% data integrity with full audit trails.
Event-Driven Payment Platform
Built an event-driven payment platform that integrated multiple payment gateways and reduced processing latency by 60%, scaling to 10,000+ daily transactions with idempotent processing and automatic failure recovery.
Selected Projects
A sample of production systems I have designed and built.
Cross-Platform Spatial Data Sync
Designed and implemented automated ETL pipelines that synchronized real-time spatial data across INCMS, DCS, and ArcGIS Enterprise, achieving 100% data integrity and eliminating manual reconciliation.
Real-Time Notification System
Built an event-driven notification system that delivered sub-second messages across web and mobile clients, handling traffic spikes with at-least-once delivery guarantees.
Multi-Gateway Payment Integration
Built a unified payment abstraction for M-Pesa, Stripe, and PayPal that reduced processing latency by 60% while ensuring idempotent transactions and automatic recovery from failures.
Experience
Career progression through measurable engineering impact.
GIS Developer Consultant
ESRI Eastern Africa · Nairobi, Kenya
Designed and implemented automated ETL pipelines that synchronized real-time spatial data across three enterprise platforms while eliminating manual reconciliation.
Software Engineer
Evenezer Tech · Nairobi, Kenya
Built event-driven payment and notification systems that reduced processing latency by 60% and delivered sub-second notifications across 10K+ daily transactions.
Web Application Developer
BSystems Kenya · Nairobi, Kenya
Migrated a legacy monolith to AWS microservices with 99.9% uptime, cut query latency by 50%, and accelerated delivery cycles by 40% through CI/CD automation.
Engineering Principles
How I think about technical decisions after building the systems above.
Build for simplicity before scale
Start with the simplest solution that works. Add complexity only when measured data demands it.
Optimize only after measuring
Never guess at bottlenecks. Profile, measure, then optimize the actual constraint.
Design APIs that are intuitive and stable
An API is a contract. Make it easy to use correctly and hard to use incorrectly.
Skills
Technologies I use in production, grouped by domain.
Programming Languages
Backend
Frontend
Data Engineering
Cloud
Infrastructure
Latest Articles
Recent writing on software engineering, data engineering and cloud infrastructure.
Building Event-Driven Systems with RabbitMQ and FastAPI
A practical guide to designing event-driven architectures for real-time applications. Covers exchange types, consumer patterns, and failure handling.
ETL Pipeline Design for Spatial Data
Lessons from building cross-platform spatial data pipelines. Covers schema design, audit tables, and data integrity validation.
The Strangler Fig Pattern in Practice
How to migrate a monolith to microservices without downtime. A case study from the GVIVE platform migration.
Terminal Mode
Explore the portfolio from a terminal. Type 'help' to get started.
Let us build something.
I am open to software, data and cloud engineering roles. If you are hiring or want to collaborate, reach out.