I'm a senior full-stack software engineer with 12+ years of experience building software [professional since 2013, wrote my first line of code in 2010]. By day I'm a Developer Success Engineer at Vercel, helping teams ship faster on the web. By night I build companies. I learn fast, love a hard problem, and think the best engineers are also good teachers.

Entrepreneur Innovator is a better word for me: I love creating. My current ventures:

1. Chia - subscription billing over mobile money. One type-safe interface over PayChangu, PawaPay and OneKhusa, with an open-source SDK, React components and an MCP server. The hosted platform runs plans, checkout, renewals, retries and weekly payouts. Site: https://usechia.com
2. Kazuni - notifications for the businesses of a continent. Verify a domain, get an API key, send transactional email or run campaigns. SMS is next and WhatsApp is planned, and customers pay by mobile money in their own currency. Site: https://usekazuni.com
3. Sekuire - guardrails and permissions for AI agents. Sekuire enforces the boundaries operators set while the agent runs, not after the fact, with cryptographic identity, signed audit trails and SDKs in TypeScript, Python and Rust. Site: https://sekuire.ai
4. Vwaza - Malawi's all-in-one creator platform: music streaming, podcasts, TV and live video, a merch store, a beats marketplace and direct fan support. Site: https://vwaza.com - GitHub: https://github.com/Vwaza
5. Luwawa - HR, payroll and hiring for companies in Malawi. A public job board and applicant pipeline on one side; employees, leave, expenses, equipment and payroll on the other. Site: https://luwawahr.com

Chia, Kazuni and Luwawa are built by Fickson Limited, my company in Malawi, and run on each other: Luwawa sends email through Kazuni, and both bill through Chia.

• TypeScript / JavaScript - React, Next.js, Node.js, Fastify, Koa
• Rust - Axum, plus systems and SDK work
• Kotlin / Swift - native mobile, including Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP)
• Dart - Flutter
• Java - Spring Boot (who doesn't love "3 billion devices run...")
• PHP - Symfony (every developer from my era writes PHP)
• Go - sprinkled in when I want the control
• Python - if (project_needs_python) I.write(it)
• GraphQL

1. Web servers are home: I'll let you RESTfully, as long as the C8H10N4O2 keeps flowing.
2. Decent mobile dev: I'll back myself on implementation.
3. I suck at UI/UX design, but implementation? Bet.

1. AI agent infrastructure and developer tooling
2. Payments and messaging infrastructure for Africa
3. Digital Media
4. FinTech
5. eCommerce
6. Digital Healthcare

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelfickson
• X (Twitter): https://x.com/joelfickson
• Medium: https://medium.com/@joelfickson