Summary
Nkululeko Phakela is a seasoned application developer and serial co-founder with 16 years of experience building cloud-native, integration-first solutions from Gauteng, South Africa. He specializes in serverless architectures on AWS and deploying Quarkus + GraalVM native images to Kubernetes, while also having deep expertise in WSO2 integration platforms, payments integrations, and BPMN-driven workflows. His background spans full-stack development—Spring-based web services, MEAN stack frontends, Node.js backends, and mobile apps from Swift to Flutter—enabling him to bridge product, mobile and backend teams effectively. He has led engineering and delivery teams, applying Agile and release management practices to scale enterprise deployments and banking integrations. Notably, he combines academic rigor (BSc Hons in Computer Science) with hands-on systems integration experience gained across universities, startups and security firms, making him equally comfortable designing APIs or architecting cross-border instant payment flows.
16 years of coding experience
18 years of employment as a software developer
BSc Honors, Computer Science, BSc Honors, Computer Science at University of the Witwatersrand
Bachelor Of Arts, Computer Science, Biochemistry, Bachelor Of Arts, Computer Science, Biochemistry at Wheaton College Massachusetts
International Baccalaureate, International Baccalaureate at UWC-USA