BEN·01 // field report · rev 7
available --:--:--
file ben·01 · lat 6.524°N · lon 3.379°E · base lagos, ng · clearance public

Benedict Onyebuchi.

backend · data agents · cloud & scalable systems
— with a second shift in robotics · embedded · computer vision

scroll to begin  ↓
▸ click to toggle mode
j1+000.0°
j2+000.0°
j3+000.0°
j6+000.0°
modeidle
/ 01

Subject brief.

Five years of building the unglamorous half of the internet — the APIs, the pipelines, the queues, the scrapers, the alert rules that wake someone up at 4 a.m. I lead teams, ship products, and obsess over the moment when a system stops being a diagram and starts actually running in production.

Lately I've been taking that instinct off the screen. Planetary gearboxes designed in Fusion 360, robot arms with limit switches and home routines, an offline English–Russian learning app that runs on-device AI, hand-tracking with OpenCV. Software is the day job. Hardware is where I'm learning again.

Also a student at Moscow Polytechnic — working through the Russian preparatory course alongside the day-job. Keeps the brain busy between deployments.

/ 02

Transmission log.

five years · reverse-chronological · bullets are load-bearing, not decorative.

  1. #01 2025 — present amsterdam, nl · remote full-time · current

    OnlyGrowth / Senior Software Engineer

    • Own and evolve the core infrastructure — originally stood up for the flagship product, now the substrate for the sister micro-SaaS we've launched on top of it.
    • Scaled our in-house phone farm from 1 → 30+ devices via Kubernetes, AWS, and a microservice split — the orchestration, the routing, the failure recovery.
    • Shipped the FastAPI surface powering the web app. Typed contracts, clean boundaries, migrations that don't wake anyone up.
    • Implemented Instagram automation plugins on uiautomator2 + adb. Deterministic enough for production; tolerant enough for real devices.
    • Added LLM-driven data agents wired through Gemini 2.5 Pro and o3-mini, with LightRAG and Playwright behind them.
    • Own a self-hosted n8n alert system monitoring the whole fleet — the pager, basically.
    pythonfastapikubernetesawsdigitaloceanuiautomator2adblightragplaywrightgemini 2.5o3-minin8n
  2. #02 2024 — 2025 remote lead

    Tranga Labs / Lead Backend Engineer

    • Led end-to-end on an AI-driven data platform — ingesting live audio streams, transcribing with Whisper, and producing structured insight through a pipeline of MongoDB, OpenAI, vector stores, message queues, and Playwright.
    • Conducted quality tests across APIs and microservices, aligning with business needs — scaled users from 0 → 3k.
    • Designed a high-performance analytics backend that later absorbed a 200% workload increase on Kubernetes, Redis, Grafana, and Pydantic Logfire.
    pythonmongodbopenaiwhispervector storeskubernetesredisgrafanalogfireplaywright
  3. #03 2023 — 2024 uk · remote team lead

    Infinity / Software Engineer → Team Lead

    • Built Magicreview — a business review management platform — launched in Dubai and onboarded 5+ partners.
    • Scaled a dev team's output 5× and was awarded Team Lead for the communication and project-management side.
    • Built scraping agents for partner work — Magicpitch, bridging365 UK — on Playwright and Selenium, routing proxies past Cloudflare, Datadome, and fingerprinting defences.
    • Operated a MongoDB cluster serving 8+ services in Docker containers.
    • Co-planned core product direction with the CTO.
    pythonplaywrightseleniummongodbdockerproxiesanti-bot
  4. #04 2022 — 2023 e-commerce · remote engineer

    WePerch / Software Engineer

    • Built a pricing-aggregation pipeline squeezing speed out of asyncio at every layer.
    • Worked closely with the CTO on solution design for the hard calls.
    pythonasyncioscraping
  5. #05 2021 — 2023 independent freelance

    Freelancer / Software Engineer

    • Shipped 40+ applications across healthcare, marketing, and education on Flutter, Django, FastAPI, React, and Selenium.
    • Advised 20+ clients on scalable microservices and system architecture for high availability.
    • Taught 15+ students software engineering and programming fundamentals.
    flutterdjangofastapireactseleniumteaching
/ 03

Lab — after hours.

the second shift · gears, print beds, soldering irons, fusion 360 iterations.

sun · input · 3s/rev carrier · output · 123s/rev 6 × planet · bearing-mounted
03·A / featured specimen

41 : 1 planetary gearbox.

Six iterations in Fusion 360. Two months of evenings squeezed against a full-time job. A compact housing with bearings on all six planets and on the output shaft — the kind of detail you can only get right the sixth time.

ratio
41 : 1
planets
6, bearing-supported
iterations
6 in fusion 360
duration
~2 months
fabrication
3d print · pla
follow-up
stability test #1 passed · limit switch + home routine on middle joint
build log on x.com/bengabp  ↗
03·B robotics · in progress

Robot arm

Multi-joint build running off the 41:1 gearbox. Broken joint reprinted at higher infill; middle joint got a limit switch and a home routine. Stability test #1 in the logbook.

esp32stepperslimit switchhome routine3d print
03·C mobile · on-device ai

Dvukh  —  русский словарь

Offline-first English→Russian learning app. On-device AI generates word pairs; timed drills in the Duolingo tradition. Built for my own Russian studies first — if it works on me, it works.

flutterdarton-device llmsqliteoffline-first
03·D computer vision

Hand-track interactions

Real-time hand tracking and gesture control on OpenCV. Calibrated for cheap webcams and bad lighting, because that's every webcam and every room.

opencvmediapipe-esquepythonreal-time
03·E embedded · sensors

Bench experiments

ESP32, Arduino Uno/Nano, Raspberry Pi Pico — wired into NFC modules, RTCs, OLEDs, IR sensors, rotary encoders, joysticks, and 7-segment displays. Small things, but they're how software becomes furniture.

esp32arduinopi piconfcrtcoledrotary7-seg
/ 04

Stack manifest.

not a wishlist · tools i've actually put into production or onto a breadboard.

// languages
  • Pythonprimary · 5 yrs
  • SQL
  • Dartflutter
  • JavaScriptworking
  • C++arduino-side
// backend & data
  • FastAPI
  • Flask
  • Django
  • Pydantic
  • Playwright
  • Selenium
  • asyncio
  • message queues
  • vector stores
// data stores
  • MongoDB
  • Redis
  • PostgreSQL
  • SQLite
// cloud & infra
  • Kubernetes
  • Docker
  • AWS
  • DigitalOcean
  • Grafana
  • Logfire
  • n8n
  • Linux · CLI
// ai · ml · agents
  • LLM agents
  • Gemini 2.5 Pro
  • OpenAI · o3-mini
  • Whisper
  • LightRAG
  • on-device LLM
// computer vision
  • OpenCV
  • hand tracking
  • real-time pipelines
// mobile
  • Flutter
  • offline-first
  • on-device inference
// hardware · embedded
  • ESP32
  • Arduino Uno/Nano
  • Raspberry Pi Pico
  • Fusion 360
  • 3D printing
  • NFC · RTC · OLED
  • stepper · encoder
// mobile automation
  • uiautomator2
  • adb
  • phone farms
  • anti-bot bypass
// non-engineering
  • team building
  • project management
  • technical hiring
  • teaching
  • R&D
/ 05

Languages.

working in · thinking in · learning in.

native

Ìgbò

igbo · mother tongue

native — home, family, the first one.

C2

English

british · working

proficient

A2

Русский

russian · preparatory

elementary, climbing

pre·A1

Français

french · self-study

beginner — a few words, no conversation yet.

—

next.

to be scheduled

reserved

/ 06

Currently learning.

education · in progress

Moscow Polytechnic

student · Russian preparatory course

Working through the preparatory course in Russian language. A slow, steady second track that runs alongside the day-job — and quietly sharpens everything else.

self-study

Mathematics

trigonometry · inverse kinematics · algebra

Reasoning about gears, motor torque, and trajectory planning keeps pulling me back to the math. So I'm building it, properly, on purpose — trigonometry, inverse kinematics, and algebra, all self-taught.

craft

Robotics

3D design & print · material optimization · modules & sensors

Sharpening 3D modelling, design and printing in Fusion 360 — tuning parts for material efficiency — and going deeper with modules and sensors. The feedback loop is slower than software, which is exactly why it's good for me.

off duty

Calisthenics

bodyweight · strength · mobility

The one engineering project I carry with me everywhere. Slow compound progress on pull-ups, push progressions, static holds — the kind of system that only gets better if you don't skip reps.