About
Hi — I'm Derartu, a software engineer with 2–3 years of hands-on experience. I'm full-stack oriented, but backend-heavy: most of my depth is in APIs, data, and infrastructure. At SKYKIN I owned backend systems end to end — API gateway design, Redis caching and performance tuning, rate limiting, and Telebirr payment integration — then containerized services with Docker so releases stayed repeatable.
I care a lot about system design: reverse proxies and Nginx, API gateways, caching strategies, rate limiting, and how services stay fast and protected under load. I can still ship the UI when needed (Next.js, React), but my home base is Django, NestJS, Node, and the systems around them — including RAG with LLMs, vector search, and local models.
Based in Addis Ababa. Outside of code you'll usually find me sketching architectures, refining infra I already shipped, or exploring how local LLMs can run without cloud APIs.
Experience
Jan 2026 — Aug 2026 Full Stack Developer · SKYKIN
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
- Architected RESTful APIs with Django and DRF so Next.js and React frontends shared one consistent API layer.
- Designed and built API gateway components — object storage, caching strategy, and rate limiting — to protect services from overload while keeping responses fast.
- Tuned backend performance with Redis caching to cut repeated database reads; containerized services with Docker for consistent deploys across environments.
- Applied system-design patterns for traffic control and edge concerns (rate limiting, caching, gateway routing) alongside authentication and input validation.
- Integrated Telebirr payments (SOAP + REST) and shipped across Node.js, NestJS, Django REST Framework, Next.js, and React — from API design to UI.
- Django
- DRF
- NestJS
- Node.js
- Next.js
- React
- Redis
- Docker
- API Gateway
- Rate Limiting
- Telebirr
Skills
Full-stack capable, backend-heavy. Strongest on APIs and systems — Docker and DevOps habits, Redis caching, rate limiting, reverse proxies, Nginx, and API gateways — plus the RAG and data work I ship day to day.
System design & DevOps
- Docker
- Nginx
- Reverse proxy
- API gateway
- Redis
- Caching strategies
- Rate limiting
- Microservices
- Object storage
- CI-friendly deploys
Backend & APIs
- Django
- DRF
- NestJS
- Node.js
- Express
- REST
- GraphQL
- SOAP & REST integration
AI & data
- RAG
- LLMs
- Embeddings
- pgvector
- Ollama
- Groq
- PostgreSQL
- Supabase
Frontend & languages
- React
- Next.js
- TypeScript
- Python
- Go
- Kotlin
- Tailwind CSS
Projects
AI Chatbot with PDF RAGLive
Multi-user chatbot with PDF-grounded Q&A. Solo-built RAG pipeline: parsing, chunking, Gemini embeddings, cosine retrieval via Postgres, plus RLS isolation and Groq streaming answers.
- Next.js
- Supabase
- pgvector
- Groq
- Gemini
Local LLM RAG SystemIn progress
Fully local RAG app with Qwen via Ollama for answers and MiniLM for embeddings — zero external API calls. In progress.
- Ollama
- Qwen
- MiniLM
Zemenay Blog System
Plug-and-play blog platform with auth, posts, users, and tags — JWT, RBAC, rate limiting, and Swagger docs.
- Next.js
- NestJS
- Rate Limiting
- JWT
Flipstar
Instagram-style social platform — feeds, posts, media sharing, and interactions — as a Django/React web app and React Native mobile client with PWA features.
- Django
- React
- React Native
