$
root@siby
01~/home02~/writes03~/lab04~/services05~/products06~/about_
available
$ contact
~/about/profile.sh
Clayton Siby
AVAILABLE FOR WORK
$whoami

Clayton Siby

Senior Software Engineer · Infrastructure & Platform · Security Engineering

I'm a Senior Software Engineer at Helm with 6+ years of production experience. I lead engineering on WhatsApp-based LLM conversational products for regulated financial-services clients in South Africa, working with Helm's platform and product teams across conversation design on Helm Engine, LLM task APIs, the Django/Wagtail CMS, and the GKE/Kubernetes infrastructure beneath them.

Before Helm, I worked on background processing (Sidekiq, Redis) and transactional email for a high-traffic Rails ticketing platform at Platform45. At Flexperto, I contributed to the Node.js and TypeScript services behind a video-consultation platform with AI transcription, and maintained its Jenkins pipelines. At SIMU.IQ, I monitored and upgraded servers across Africa and Europe and introduced token-based authentication for internal resources. I started out in freelance full-stack development and Microverse's remote engineering programme, where I learned to own delivery end to end.

Security runs through all of this work, with a focus on application security, abuse mitigation and LLM guardrails. At Helm, that includes building bot-detection and rate-limiting controls in response to live spam campaigns, contributing to an internal security auditing reference alongside the Platform Engineering team, and responding to production incidents across Kubernetes, Cloud SQL and RabbitMQ.

Outside of work, I'm studying part-time for a BSc in Computer Science at Goldsmiths, University of London, exploring Android application security, and building a multi-tenant event-ticketing platform. I also stream Call of Duty as Skywalker. Based in Johannesburg.

6+
Years Exp
1M+
Users Reached
5
Roles
→

$ cat skills.json

// Technical expertise & tools

⚙️Software Engineering
  • →Python / Django / FastAPI
  • →TypeScript / Next.js / React
  • →Ruby on Rails
  • →Elixir / Phoenix
  • →PostgreSQL / Redis
  • →LLM integration (Anthropic, Groq, OpenAI)
🚀DevOps & Cloud Infrastructure
  • →Docker / Kubernetes (GKE)
  • →GCP / Railway / AWS
  • →CI/CD — GitHub Actions, Jenkins, CircleCI
  • →RabbitMQ / Celery / Sidekiq
  • →Linux Administration
  • →Monitoring — Sentry, Grafana, GCP Alerting
🔐Security & Systems
  • →Application Security / OWASP Top 10
  • →LLM Guardrails & Prompt-Injection Defence
  • →Abuse Mitigation & Bot Detection
  • →Threat Modeling & Secure SDLC
  • →Android App Security (Frida, jadx, MASTG)
  • →CIS Controls v8 / SOC 2 / ISO 27001 / POPIA
→

$ git log --experience

// Professional journey & milestones

Helm Digital
Oct 2023 – Present
Helm Digital

Senior Software Engineer

Lead engineer on a production WhatsApp chatbot platform on the Meta Cloud API, operating at scale across multiple enterprise clients. Responsibilities span infrastructure architecture, security, automation tooling, and AI integration.

→Architected scalable systems delivering structured WhatsApp campaigns to millions of active users via the Meta Cloud API — bulk delivery pipelines, opt-in flows, and webhook-driven campaign triggers.
→Built abuse-mitigation and bot-detection infrastructure: layered MSISDN format validation, Redis-backed rate limiting, fuzzy username deduplication, and composite risk-scoring with allow/challenge/block thresholds.
→Authoring an organisation-wide security auditing reference covering seven core control layers in collaboration with senior Platform Engineering colleagues.
→Lead engineer on WhatsApp-based LLM conversational flows for regulated South African financial-services clients — flow design on Helm Engine, LLM task APIs with guardrail validation, and Django/Wagtail CMS integration.
→Integrated LLMs (Anthropic, Groq) into production chatbot flows — tone detection, latency benchmarking across providers, and structured-response patterns for enterprise customer engagement.
→Production incident response on GKE — memory-saturation and autoscaler tuning, RabbitMQ queue backlogs, and Cloud SQL alerting.
→Served as Lead Engineer on multiple client-facing products — translating business requirements into technical specifications, architectural diagrams, and delivery timelines.
Flexperto
Apr 2023 – Sep 2023
Flexperto

Software Engineer

Full-stack engineer on a SaaS platform for real-time business-to-customer video communication with AI-assisted transcription.

→Contributed to a microservices-based platform powering live video sessions and AI-driven transcription, working across Node.js services and TypeScript frontend modules.
→Maintained and extended Jenkins CI pipelines to support automated testing and reliable deployment, reducing release friction across multiple services.
→Collaborated cross-functionally with engineering, design, ML, and client-facing teams to improve performance and end-user experience.
→Applied OOP, SOLID, and clean-code principles consistently — testing, documentation, and architectural rigour — to ship maintainable production features.
Platform45
Apr 2022 – Apr 2023
Platform45

Rails Full-Stack Engineer

Production Rails platform serving high-traffic ticketing and live-event workflows.

→Built and optimised background-processing systems (Sidekiq + Redis) to handle peak-load ticketing scenarios with millions of active users, improving throughput and reducing queue lag.
→Developed transactional email infrastructure for an e-commerce product, lifting customer notification reliability for sales and campaign workflows.
→Designed intuitive e-commerce UIs that measurably reduced support overhead, and shipped real-time data and automation features to support the operations team.
→Delivered well-tested code via unit and integration tests; integrated Sentry, CircleCI, and webhook-driven event flows into the production pipeline.
SIMU.IQ
Sep 2021 – Apr 2022
SIMU.IQ

Technical Support Engineer

Infrastructure and security operations across a distributed Africa- and Europe-spanning server fleet.

→Monitored production servers in real time and performed system upgrades to maintain service reliability across a distributed fleet.
→Built an internal automation system for client-device detection and configuration, materially reducing onboarding overhead.
→Implemented token-based authentication to harden access to sensitive resources — hands-on exposure to applied security engineering.
→Performed on-premises server assessments to improve client data security and physical-device security posture.
Upwork
Feb 2019 – Jun 2021
Upwork

Freelance Full-Stack Developer

Full-stack web solutions for international clients across e-commerce, APIs, and interactive applications.

→Delivered e-commerce platforms with Stripe payment integration and responsive UIs for international clients.
→Designed REST APIs with documentation, database schemas, and shopping-cart/transaction systems.
→Built interactive browser-based applications including 2D games, optimising performance across devices.
→

$ cat education.md

// Academic foundation & formal training

BSc Computer Science

Software Engineering & Cybersecurity

Goldsmiths, University of London

2023 – Present (in progress)

University of London

Studying part-time alongside full-time engineering work, with a specialisation track in Software Engineering and Cybersecurity.

$key_areas:
→Current modules: Computational Mathematics, Discrete Mathematics
→Specialisation track: Software Engineering & Cybersecurity
→

$ ls certifications/

// Professional credentials

Microverse

Full Stack Web Development

1,300+ hours covering algorithms, data structures, and full-stack delivery — Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, React, Redux, remote pair programming, Git workflows, and daily standups with international teams.

MicroverseMar 2020 – Aug 2021
freeCodeCamp

Advanced Algorithms and Data Structures

300+ hours of algorithmic problem-solving and data-structures fundamentals.

freeCodeCamp2019
→

$ cat off_duty.log

// The human behind the terminal

🎮
Gaming & Streaming

// Call of Duty — live as Skywalker on Twitch & TikTok. Warzone is the closest thing to a real-time distributed systems test

@skywalkersiby
🏍️
Motorcycles

// Riding is the reset — and half of the gaming + moto short-form channel

Rider
📚
Studying

// BSc CS at Goldsmiths, University of London — part-time alongside full-time engineering

In progress

// Full gear list & setup → /lab

~/connect
$ echo "Let's work together"

Interested in Collaborating?

I'm always open to discussing new projects, creative ideas, or opportunities.

get_in_touchview --projects