Embedded Systems Developer & IoT Problem-Solver
I design low-power ESP32-based hardware and reliable data flows — from BLE beacons to LoRa telemetry — turning prototypes into field-ready tools.
Skills Showcase
Demonstrating key skills and techniques.
Engineering Fundamentals
Comfortable moving between bare-metal bring-up and higher-level frameworks, I focus on establishing reliable baselines: clocks stable, GPIO maps correct, sensors returning coherent values. Once the fundamentals are deterministic, higher abstractions (BLE flows, telemetry pipelines) can be layered with confidence.
Tools & Stack
Tooling is chosen to minimize friction: ESP-IDF/Arduino for device-side work, LVGL for display logic, Python for instrumentation and quick ET₀ checks, Node/Express or simple REST endpoints when backends are needed. I prefer composable, loosely-coupled layers where each part can be tested and reasoned about in isolation.
- ESP32 (ESP-IDF & Arduino), peripheral bring-up, board/pin configuration
- Low-power design: external 32 kHz crystals, sleep scheduling, current profiling
- BLE advertising/scan response tuning; simple GATT flows
- LoRa/LoRaWAN telemetry, frame parsing for metering
- LVGL + TFT displays; basic on-device UX
- Sensor interfacing (SDI-12 and common digital/analog sensors)
- Lightweight REST/JSON pipelines and basic dashboards
- Prototyping, field testing, and documentation
- Hardware–software integration and partner coordination
- Usability-first provisioning and setup flows
- Clear issue triage, iteration, and hand-off docs
About me
I grew up on a farm in South Africa, where fixing things with whatever was on hand was often the only option — that's probably where my love of practical engineering started. I still get a strange satisfaction out of solving problems with minimal tools, whether that's debugging a stubborn ESP32 peripheral or finding a way to repair a cracked plastic enclosure with cable ties and epoxy. Outside of work, I've always had a fascination with aviation. I spent several years with the Australian Airforce Cadets, which taught me discipline and teamwork, but also gave me a lifelong obsession with aircraft cockpits, checklists, and the quiet order of airfields. If I'm not tinkering with electronics, I'm probably reading up on flight systems or watching planes take off. I'm also the kind of person who dives deep into small details: I care about battery draw down to the microamp, I enjoy reading datasheets like most people read novels, and I'll happily spend hours comparing how two different compilers optimize the same code. But I'm not all circuits and sensors — I enjoy the outdoors as much as the lab bench. A long walk clears my head, and I often come back with better ideas for both code and hardware.