Eric Waikau
Software Developer
I build and ship full-stack, cloud-based systems from concept to production. I'm open to collaboration.
I'm Eric, a software engineer with over four years of experience working primarily in TypeScript, Node.js and Python across Next.js frontends, service based backends and PostgreSQL data models, with a particular focus on payments, event driven architecture and operational quality.
My recent work centres on AI assisted developer tooling: agent driven services that generate and execute automated tests against ephemeral preview environments as part of the CI pipeline. I hold a Bachelor of Science in Software Engineering from KCA University, and I'm comfortable owning a system end to end, from schema design and third party integrations through to deployment, observability and load testing.
Experience
QA Lead, Test Automation and Tooling
March 2024 - Present
Thought and Function
- Design and build an event driven service in TypeScript (Hono, BullMQ, Redis, deployed on Railway) that generates end-to-end tests with the Anthropic SDK and runs them against ephemeral preview environments on every pull request.
- Build and maintain a Playwright and TypeScript automation suite in GitHub Actions, exposed as a self-service workflow so any engineer or PM can trigger a regression run without a hand off.
- Develop AI agent tooling using Claude Code subagents and MCP integrations that reads tickets from the issue tracker and produces structured, executable test specifications in Gherkin.
- Lead quality engineering for a cloud based SaaS product, owning test strategy and release readiness, and lead a distributed team of four testers across multiple regions.
Software Developer
January 2025 - Present
Hekima
- Build and operate a production creator marketplace on Next.js (App Router), Supabase and Vercel, covering authentication, storefronts, checkout, digital delivery and an internal operations dashboard.
- Implement marketplace payments using subaccounts and transaction splits for automated seller payouts, including identity verification and reconciliation of processor fees.
- Design an atomic booking system for capacity limited live sessions, with seat holds, row level locking in PostgreSQL functions, and idempotent webhook handling.
- Engineer a secure file delivery pipeline on S3 compatible object storage with pre-signed upload URLs and short-lived token based downloads.
- Write a Go microservice on Cloud Run that watermarks purchased PDFs on demand, called asynchronously through a queue.
Freelance Frontend Developer
July 2021 - September 2024
BrightSide Community
- Led development of an online presence for a community based organisation serving women, girls and youth in pastoral communities in Kajiado County, Kenya.
- Designed and maintained an accessible, user friendly website that became a key awareness platform, resulting in a 40% increase in visitors seeking information on community initiatives.
ICT Support Technician
February 2021 - September 2022
Ministry of Lands, Public Works, Housing and Urban Development
- Contributed to the development of a Lease Issuance Management System, reducing processing time by 30% and errors by 40%, and set up the local area network the system ran on.
- Resolved an average of 20 network support tickets per week within a two hour turnaround and trained more than 50 staff members on new systems.
Projects
Education
Bachelor of Science in Software Engineering
KCA University
May 2018 - Dec 2022
Stack
TypeScript
Primary Language
Next.js
Frontend Framework
PostgreSQL
Database
Supabase
Backend Platform
Node.js
Runtime
Cloudflare
Edge and Storage
Playwright
Test Automation
Claude Code
AI Agent Tooling
Summary
Software engineer with over four years of experience building and shipping full stack, cloud based systems from concept to production, with a particular focus on payments, event driven architecture and operational quality.
I'm comfortable owning a system end to end, from schema design and third party integrations through to deployment, observability and load testing. If you're looking for an engineer who can take a problem from concept to production, I'd love to connect.