Senior Software Engineer · Cape Town, South Africa
Deklerk Basson
Building software that works beautifully, scales reliably, and lasts.
I'm DK, a Senior Software Engineer based in Cape Town. I build and maintain high-performance web platforms, with a focus on React, TypeScript, full-stack development, and architecture that other people can keep working in.
I like hard engineering problems, improving systems that already exist, and products that make a genuine difference.
deklerk@dkbasson.com · Selected work
Selected work
- OfflineAI (Personal project). A local-first research workstation. Chat, documents, and generated files stay on the machine, with a React interface in front of FastAPI and Ollama.
- Slidy Guy (Personal project). A browser game in the Snake family, drawn in 3D with Three.js, with a pathfinder you can switch out for your own script.
- Multi-brand web platforms (Professional work). Production websites for more than one brand, delivered through React, Remix, TypeScript, GraphQL, and Umbraco. Shared work, not a solo product.
- Production reliability (Professional work). Finding a fault in a live system, tracing it, and leaving a fix that the next person can understand.
- Complex product features (Professional work). Customer-facing product work where the interface, the rules, and the state all have to be right together.
- lekker.dev (This website). The site you are on. A typed content model, a small React app, and static HTML so the words are not trapped in JavaScript.
Experience
- Senior Software Engineer, The Rank Group plc (2025 – Present). I work on production web platforms used across the business, with more of the technical decisions, reviews, and production ownership than in the role before this one.
- Full-stack and frontend engineering with React, Remix, TypeScript, GraphQL, and Umbraco.
- Shaping component structure and CMS integration so a multi-brand frontend stays understandable as it grows.
- Performance, reliability, and security treated as part of delivery, including production support when something breaks.
- Code review, mentorship, and day-to-day decisions with engineering, design, product, and QA.
- Intermediate Software Engineer, The Rank Group plc (2021 – 2025). This is the stretch where I learned the platforms I now help steer. The move into the senior role was on the same products, with a wider share of design and delivery.
- Built CMS-driven, multi-brand websites in React and Remix.
- Integrated TypeScript and GraphQL, and contributed reusable interface pieces other teams could pick up.
- Supported production releases and the handovers around them.
- Worked across engineering, design, product, and QA rather than handing work over a wall.
- Junior Software Developer, Open Box Software (2020 – 2021). Commercial engineering on enterprise applications, mostly C#, SQL, and JavaScript, with a real share of the release pipeline.
- Maintained enterprise applications and the databases behind them.
- Improved CI/CD in Azure DevOps so builds and releases were less fragile.
- Supported production data and learned how transactional systems fail in practice.
- Custom Development Intern, Open Box Software (2019). My first commercial software role. C#, SQL, and the ordinary discipline of changing a system other people already depended on.
- Supported internal tools and client applications.
- Learned version control, review, and structured delivery in a commercial team.
Earlier
- 2015 – 2017: Part-time Technology Advisor, Recinate (formerly 2interact). Websites, forms, user management, and small databases. Java was the main tool.
- 2015: Web Designer, Inside Man Media. Client websites in WordPress, layout, and the graphics that sat with them.
Engineering expertise
Frontend engineering
Most of my recent production work lives here.
- React
- TypeScript
- JavaScript
- Remix
- HTML
- CSS and SCSS
- Responsive design
- Accessibility
- Component architecture
- Performance
Backend and APIs
Services and data, from enterprise .NET through to Python beside a local model.
- Node.js
- C#
- .NET
- ASP.NET
- Python
- FastAPI
- REST
- GraphQL
- SQL
Platform and infrastructure
The path from a change on a branch to something running in production.
- Cloudflare Workers
- CI/CD
- Azure DevOps
- Git
- Production monitoring
- Observability
- New Relic
- Cloud and edge architectures
Content platforms
Enterprise CMS work, including headless delivery in front of a modern frontend.
- Umbraco
- Umbraco Heartcore
- Optimizely / Episerver
- Headless CMS integrations
Engineering practices
The part of the job that is not a framework. I use these every week, and they matter more for a senior role than another library on a list.
- Architecture and technical design
- Code review
- Mentorship
- Testing
- Debugging
- Performance engineering
- Web security
- Production support
- Cross-functional collaboration
About
Outside of software, I'm usually behind a camera, experimenting with something in my home lab, or finding another interesting problem to solve.
Photography has become a big part of how I approach creativity. It has taught me to pay attention to composition, subtle details, and the experience someone takes away from what you've created.
I bring that same curiosity into engineering. I enjoy understanding how systems work, figuring out how to make them better, and building things simply because the idea interests me.
- Portrait photography
- Wildlife and landscape photography
- Personal software experiments
- Local AI
- Raspberry Pi and home lab projects
- Gaming and game development
- Outdoor exploration
Photography: Instagram
Education
- Cape Peninsula University of Technology, National Diploma in Applications Development (2016 – 2019)
- Huguenot High School, Matric (2010 – 2014)