About

From machinery to models.

I started as a mechanical engineer, designing machinery with CAD and simulation tools. I wanted to build ideas faster than physical prototypes allow, and that led me to software.

I completed ALX's intensive software engineering program, worked as a backend engineer, then spent four years at ALX Africa mentoring software engineers and building internal tools.

Today I work on AI tools and automation, and I build products around large language models: retrieval pipelines, AI tutors, structured generation, and the cost and observability layers that keep them reliable. My full-stack background means I ship the whole system, not just the model call.

I'm curious, systems-oriented and structured. I like knowing how things work under the hood.

Experience

2024 to present

Tech Supporter

ALX Africa
  • Since June 2026, on the AI Tools and Automation team, building internal AI tools with a focus on AI-assisted software development
  • Built activity, a cohort analytics dashboard that pulls data from internal APIs and gives programme leads on-demand health metrics
  • Took ProDev Backend Cohort 4 through to graduation: 94 learners, 94% tech support CSAT against a 75% target
  • Ran live Python and Data Analytics sessions, and mentored backend learners on Django, CI/CD, caching and message queues
Aug 2022 to 2024

Technical Mentor Analyst

Sand Technologies, for ALX Africa
  • Built Python data pipelines for learning analytics across 30,000+ learners, cutting insight turnaround from days to hours
  • Co-built a Slack mentor bot for async learner support
  • Mentored software engineering learners through ALX's 12-month program with code reviews and project walkthroughs
Jun 2022 to Aug 2022

Back-End Developer

BeU Delivery
  • Eliminated N+1 query patterns across a production Laravel (PHP) codebase, improving performance
  • Built new API-backed feature modules
2015 to 2022

Mechanical / Design Engineer

METEC · SamCon Engineering · Bale Ej Metal Fabrication · Gafat Engineering
  • CAD design (CATIA V5, SolidWorks), machinery maintenance and fabrication projects for industrial clients
Education

B.Sc. Mechanical Engineering

Addis Ababa Institute of Technology (AAiT) · 2016

Full Stack Software Engineering

ALX Africa · 2022

Skills

AI engineering

LLM APIs (Anthropic, Gemini, OpenRouter), RAG, hybrid search, embeddings, pgvector, structured outputs, prompt caching, MCP, LLM cost tracking

Backend

TypeScript, Node.js, NestJS, Python, Flask, PostgreSQL, Drizzle ORM, REST APIs, webhooks, OAuth, C

Frontend

React, Next.js, Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui

Infrastructure

Docker, Docker Compose, Caddy, GitHub Actions, Linux, Nx monorepos

Automation

Python scripting, API integrations, data pipelines, Slack bots

AI-assisted development

Claude Code, multi-agent workflows

Currently learning

LangGraph, Langfuse, LLM evaluation

Languages

Amharic (native), English (professional)