← Back to portfolio

Print or save as PDF for an ATS-safe copy.

Keegan Frieslaar

Senior Software Engineer

keeganfrieslaar@gmail.com · Cape Town, South Africa · https://keeganfrieslaar.com · linkedin.com/in/keeganfrieslaar/ · github.com/keeganfrieslaar

Professional Summary

Full-stack software engineer with 8+ years building and operating production web and cloud systems. Currently delivering MSA Grid at Safety iO (MSA Safety, NYSE: MSA), a safety-critical connected-safety platform, across Angular front-ends, Node/TypeScript APIs and owned AWS serverless infrastructure. Experienced in regulated fintech, test automation across unit, integration and end-to-end layers, and mentoring engineers within distributed international teams.

Experience

Software Engineer, Safety iO (MSA Safety (NYSE: MSA))

Mar 2023 — Present · Cape Town, South Africa

  • Build and operate MSA Grid end to end — Angular front-end, Node/TypeScript REST APIs and AWS infrastructure — for a safety-critical platform where reliability protects workers in hazardous environments.
  • Own and operate production AWS serverless infrastructure using Lambda, API Gateway, Step Functions, DynamoDB and RDS/PostgreSQL, scaling horizontally with concurrent demand.
  • Define infrastructure as code with Ansible-driven CloudFormation, and maintain automated Bitbucket Pipelines and Jenkins delivery promoting builds through demo, staging and production.
  • Maintain unit, integration and end-to-end test coverage with Jest, Testing Library and Playwright across front-end and back-end.
  • Instrument services with CloudWatch and Datadog, routing production alerts to on-call channels.
  • Diagnosed and resolved a production outage in which a high-frequency polling endpoint saturated an RDS cluster, restoring stability through targeted database indexing.
  • Mentor engineers and review code within a 6-person sub-team, working daily across time zones with distributed teams in Germany and the US.
  • Deliver internationalised interfaces with i18next for a globally deployed product.

Technologies: TypeScript, Angular, NGRX, Node.js, PostgreSQL, AWS Lambda, API Gateway, Step Functions, DynamoDB, RDS, CloudFormation, Ansible, Jenkins, Docker, Datadog, CloudWatch, Jest, Playwright

Software Engineer, Tenacious Digital

Jul 2018 — Mar 2023 · Cape Town, South Africa

  • Owned the React front-end of Xago, Africa's first XRP (Ripple) digital asset exchange — building real-time trading charts, Swagger-driven API integration and search against a regulated financial platform still live in production today.
  • Built a customer-facing e-commerce platform for Masterparts, enabling online purchasing across their automotive parts catalogue.

Technologies: React, JavaScript, Node.js, REST APIs

Technical Skills

Languages:
TypeScript, JavaScript, SQL
Front-end:
Angular, NGRX, React, i18next
Back-end:
Node.js, REST API design, PostgreSQL, DynamoDB, OpenAPI / Swagger
Cloud & infrastructure:
AWS Lambda, API Gateway, Step Functions, CloudFormation, Ansible, S3 / CloudFront, Linux (Arch)
Testing:
Jest, Testing Library, Playwright
Delivery & operations:
Jenkins, Bitbucket Pipelines, Docker, Datadog, CloudWatch, Git & code review

Certifications

  • AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate — Amazon Web Services (in progress)

Education

  • Full-stack & cloud engineering — Self-directed learning, 2018–present
  • Software engineering course — Life Choices Academy, 2017–2018
  • National Senior Certificate (Matric) — Bergvliet High School, 2012–2016