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I'm

Lester Rusike

Full-Stack Engineer, AI / LLM & RAG Engineer, Mobile & Web Developer, Cloud Architect (GCP · AWS)

I'm a full-stack and AI engineer. I build LLM-powered products, the cloud backends they run on, and the web and mobile apps people actually touch. Mostly TypeScript, Dart and Python, on GCP/Firebase and AWS.

Nine years shipping production software across fintech, cybersecurity, property, e-commerce and media, for teams in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nigeria, the UK and the US. I started in mobile and now build end to end: LLM integration and retrieval, APIs, infrastructure, and the clients on top.

Open to remote roles and contracts

Built

Career

  1. 2024 – nowFull-Stack Engineer · Southland Regional
  2. 2025Front-End Engineer · AI Products · Cyber Alliance
  3. 2024 – 2025Senior Developer (Flutter & Node.js) · TBGA Consulting Group
  4. 2024Flutter & Front-End Developer · Intelli Africa Solutions
  5. 2021 – 2023Full-Stack Developer · ShopSavvy Zim

Earlier: mobile lead at Disciplesoft and Dripdata in Johannesburg, 2017 – 2020.

Stack

AI & LLM
LLM APIs, RAG pipelines, Natural-language search, Embeddings & vector search, Agents & tool calling
Cloud & DevOps
Google Cloud / Firebase, AWS, Serverless architecture, Docker, CI/CD
Backend
Node.js / Express, TypeScript, Python / Flask, PHP / Laravel, REST & WebSockets
Web
Next.js, React, Angular, Vue, Tailwind CSS
Mobile
Flutter, React Native / Expo, Swift, Kotlin / Java, Ionic

Find me

Lester Rusike · Harare, Zimbabwe

I build LLM-powered products, the cloud they run on, and the apps people touch.

Nine years shipping production software for fintech, cybersecurity, property and e-commerce teams across Africa, the UK and the US. I take products end to end: LLM integration and retrieval, APIs and infrastructure on GCP and AWS, and the web and mobile clients on top.

Download CV Email mePrintable CV.docx
Portrait of Lester Rusike
years shipping
9+years shipping
products delivered
40+products delivered
countries served
5countries served
app-store releases
10+app-store releases

01What I do

Focus

AI & LLM features

RAG over your documents, agents that call your APIs, MCP servers, and evals to keep them honest.

  • PlumbSANS

    Natural-language search over curated SANS answers, in four South African languages.

  • Sally AI

    AI security analyst over SIEM, endpoint, identity and cloud signals.

  1. Docs
  2. Chunk + embed
  3. Vector search
  4. LLM + tools
  5. Grounded answer

Web platforms

Next.js, React and Angular apps with dashboards, payments, search and role-based access.

Mobile apps

Flutter, React Native and native iOS/Android, taken from design through to store release.

Cloud architecture

Serverless backends on GCP/Firebase and AWS, CI/CD and cost-aware infrastructure.

02Experience

  1. Aug 2024 — Present

    Harare · Hybrid

    Full-Stack Engineer at Southland Regional

    Internal ERP and security platforms across property development and professional-services business units.

    • Architected and delivered a property-security application for the company's gated residential estates, with access control, visitor management and real-time alerts through Firebase Cloud Functions, Firestore and push notifications.
    • Delivered the web (Angular) and mobile clients for residents, security staff and estate administrators.
    • Designed and built a multi-SBU ERP covering the infrastructure project lifecycle, from investor-readiness tracking through engineering, construction progress and co-funding management.
    • Implemented role-based access control and per-business-unit data segmentation so each department sees only its own operations.
    • Angular
    • TypeScript
    • Firebase
    • Cloud Functions
    • Firestore
    • FCM
    • Python
    • Flutter

  2. Jan 2025 — Sep 2025

    North Carolina, US · Remote

    Front-End Engineer · AI Products at Cyber Alliance

    AI-powered cybersecurity products for enterprise and government customers.

    • Built product surfaces for Sally AI, an AI cybersecurity analyst that aggregates SIEM, endpoint, identity, cloud and vendor signals into one view for threat detection, vulnerability assessment and risk insight.
    • Built features for Sally AI's integration layer, normalising multi-source security signals for the AI analysis pipeline.
    • Delivered assessment flows, scoring interfaces and reporting for CyberTrustIQ, a validated diagnostic that benchmarks cybersecurity decision-making across five cognitive dimensions.
    • Shipped iteratively in an agile product team, keeping AI-driven features aligned with security compliance and governance requirements.
    • React
    • Next.js
    • TypeScript
    • LLM integration
    • REST APIs

  3. Aug 2024 — Jan 2025

    Harare

    Senior Developer (Flutter & Node.js) at TBGA Consulting Group

    • Designed and built fintech mobile apps in Flutter with Bloc, using Firebase Auth, Firestore and Cloud Functions for real-time data.
    • Built REST and serverless APIs with Node.js/Express and Cloud Functions, with WebSockets for real-time updates and tuned database access patterns.
    • Flutter
    • Bloc
    • Node.js
    • Express
    • Firebase
    • WebSockets

  4. Jan 2024 — Dec 2024

    Harare

    Flutter & Front-End Developer at Intelli Africa Solutions

    • Built fintech mobile apps in Flutter (Bloc) with Firebase authentication, real-time database and Cloud Functions.
    • Built scalable fintech dashboards in Angular (NgRx) and React (Redux), integrating REST APIs for real-time transaction data.
    • Flutter
    • Angular
    • NgRx
    • React
    • Redux
    • Firebase

  5. Jan 2021 — Dec 2023

    Harare

    Full-Stack Developer at ShopSavvy Zim

    Online shopping platform.

    • Built the customer web app in Angular/TypeScript with Angular Material for the ShopSavvy online shopping platform.
    • Defined API contracts with the backend team and owned client-side validation, error handling and performance.
    • Angular
    • TypeScript
    • Flutter
    • Node.js

  6. 2022 — 2022

    Indianapolis, US · Remote

    Full-Stack Developer · Contract at Alliance Management Resources LLC

    • Built internal web applications with Angular, Next.js, TypeScript and Node.js, including API design and form-heavy workflows.
    • Angular
    • Next.js
    • Node.js

  7. Feb 2022 — 2023

    Harare

    Flutter Developer · Part-time at Xash Solutions

    • Built Flutter apps for Android POS devices, integrating third-party APIs for airtime, DSTV subscriptions and prepaid electricity.
    • Set up Fastlane CI/CD pipelines to automate build, test and release.
    • Flutter
    • Provider
    • Bloc
    • GetX
    • Fastlane

  8. Jan 2020 — Dec 2020

    Johannesburg, SA

    Mobile & Web Developer at Dripdata

    • Delivered client mobile apps in Flutter, Ionic and React Native, with push notifications, geolocation and social sharing.
    • Flutter
    • Ionic
    • React Native

  9. Jan 2017 — Sep 2019

    Johannesburg, SA

    Lead Mobile Developer at Disciplesoft

    • Led Flutter and Ionic app development; flagship app rated 4.8★ on the app stores.
    • Built authentication, push notifications and real-time sync with Firestore, and integrated Laravel REST APIs; ran code reviews and performance work.
    • Flutter
    • Ionic
    • Angular
    • Firebase
    • Laravel

03Selected work

37 projects · every project, personal and client work

04Skills

AI & LLM

  • LLM APIs (Claude, OpenAI, Gemini)
  • RAG pipelines
  • Natural-language search
  • Embeddings & vector search (pgvector, Pinecone)
  • Agents & tool calling
  • Model Context Protocol (MCP)
  • Prompt engineering & evals

Cloud & DevOps

  • Google Cloud / Firebase (Cloud Functions, Firestore, Cloud Run, FCM)
  • AWS (Lambda, S3, API Gateway, EC2)
  • Serverless architecture
  • Docker
  • CI/CD (GitHub Actions, Fastlane)
  • Vercel
  • Supabase

Backend

  • Node.js / Express
  • TypeScript
  • Python / Flask
  • PHP / Laravel
  • REST & WebSockets
  • PostgreSQL
  • Firestore / MongoDB / MySQL
  • Algolia
  • Payments (Paystack, Payfast, Paynow)

Web

  • Next.js
  • React
  • Angular (NgRx, Material)
  • Vue
  • Tailwind CSS
  • WordPress / WooCommerce

Mobile

  • Flutter (Bloc, Riverpod, Provider, GetX)
  • React Native / Expo
  • Swift
  • Kotlin / Java
  • Ionic
  • Flame game engine
  • App Store & Play Store release

Practices

  • System design
  • Role-based access control
  • Testing (Jest, flutter_test)
  • Agile / Scrum
  • Code review & mentoring

05 · Contact

Let's build something.

Hiring for AI, full-stack, mobile or cloud work, or have a product in mind? I reply within a day.

+263 775 658 123