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About

I run two companies from Guinea: Kalinko Labs (software) and Kalinko Store (laptops for students at 40-60% below market). Before that, I built loan platforms for a NYC fintech and analytics tools for an asset manager.

It started in 2011 in a room in Conakry with unreliable power. I made my first website — it was terrible — but watching something I built become accessible to anyone, anywhere changed everything. 15 years later, the tools have changed but the drive hasn't.

View CV

Experience

  • Jan 2019–Now

    Kalinko Store

    Founder & CEO

    500+ laptops sold to students

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    Making quality technology accessible in Guinea. We’ve put 500+ laptops in students’ hands at 40-60% below traditional retail prices.

    How it works:

    • Direct sourcing: Certified refurbished and new devices from the United States
    • Quality guarantee: Every device tested and certified, 3-month warranty
    • Real support: Free Windows and Office training, 24/7 support in local languages
    • Who we serve: Students, schools, businesses, and government agencies across Guinea
  • Dec 2018–Sep 2025

    Hyphen, LLC (now TBO Bank)

    Lead Software Engineer

    16+ apps, 200M+ leads, $600M+ in fundings

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    Built and led the technical architecture of a 16+ application fintech ecosystem that processed 200M+ leads, originated 350K+ loans, and enabled over $600M in fundings — operating under strict regulatory constraints. Served as principal technical owner for six front-line production services, from startup through acquisition by TBO Bank.

    What I Built:

    • Full loan lifecycle platform: Automated underwriting that transformed days of processing into minutes, with a modern loan application journey, customer portal for loan servicing, and collection system for defaulted loans.
    • 16+ applications & microservices: Origination APIs, servicing API (94 models, 318 migrations, 117 controllers), customer portals (Vue 2 & 3), admin dashboard, amortization engine, data proxy, document conversion service, and bidding system.
    • 10+ third-party integrations: Clarity/Experian and TransUnion (credit scoring), DocuSign (e-signatures), Onfido (identity verification), LoanPro (loan management), Finicity (bank verification), Twilio (SMS), Zendesk (support), AWS (S3, Lambda, SES).
    • Banking-grade security & compliance: PII encryption (CipherSweet/AES), 2FA, RBAC, OFAC screening, FinCEN reporting (AML), TCPA compliance, and consent management.
    • Multi-brand architecture: Private-label platform with tenant isolation supporting multiple lending brands.
    • Engineering leadership: Org-level authority over CI/CD pipelines, deployment workflows, testing strategy, and code standards across all services. Introduced ephemeral test environments cutting acceptance testing time by ~50%.
    • AI adoption & mentoring: Spearheaded AI-assisted development workflows and mentored developers daily.

    Outcome

    Hyphen merged with TBO Bank in 2024. The platform I built is still processing loans today.

  • Mar 2017–Now

    Plaza Street Partners

    Lead Software Engineer

    6+ apps powering real estate development across the US

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    Built and modernized the entire information system for a real estate development company that builds single-tenant buildings for major brands (Burger King, Popeyes, Taco Bell, Sonic, Slim Chickens) across the United States. Responsible for the complete digital transformation of their systems and work processes over 8+ years.

    What I Built:

    • Full development lifecycle platform: From site selection through construction completion — a comprehensive system managing the entire real estate development pipeline.
    • 6+ applications: Partner portal (Vue 3/Quasar), Popeyes US operations tool, notes management system, AIF tracker, legacy portal (CodeIgniter), and remodeling portal.
    • Construction finance system: Draw/requisition management, invoicing, pay apps, hierarchical budget tracking with sub-groups and line items, CSV import/export for payments and cleared checks.
    • Multi-tenant partner portal: Vue 3/Quasar dashboards with ag-Grid enterprise data grids, ApexCharts visualizations, and granular access control per partner and user.
    • Enterprise reporting & analytics: KPI tracking with historical snapshots, budget summaries, construction progress, project pipeline metrics, milestone tracking, and partner-specific report views.
    • Full-stack modernization: Migrated from CodeIgniter 3/jQuery to Laravel 9/10 with Vue 2/3 frontends, transforming a monolithic architecture into a modular API-driven platform.
    • Automated reporting: Replaced 8+ hours/week of manual Excel work with custom dashboards that pull data and generate reports automatically.

    Scale

    Platform of ~74 models and ~71 controllers (legacy) plus a modern modular Laravel API with dedicated modules for reporting and document templating. AWS S3 integration for document management, PDF generation, and cloud storage.

    Outcome

    These tools are still in production, used daily by the firm’s analysts, partners, and decision-makers across the United States.

  • Jan 2014–Now

    Kalinko Labs

    Founder & CEO

    Software

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    Founded in 2014, Kalinko Labs helps companies automate the workflows that eat up their time and ship the software they can’t build in-house.

    What we do:

    • Process automation: We turn 3-hour manual workflows into 3-minute automated ones
    • Custom software: Web and mobile apps built to spec, not from templates
    • Technical rescue: We inherit the codebases other agencies won’t touch
    • Embedded engineering: Senior developers who join your team and transfer knowledge

    Based in Guinea, working with companies globally.

How I work

I design systems anyone can debug at 2 AM with a phone hotspot. I've been that person, fixing production on mobile data in Conakry.

I understand the business well enough to argue priorities before writing code. The worst systems I've inherited came from engineers who mastered the technology but misunderstood the problem.

I ship early because the gap between imagined and actual user needs is always wider than I expect. Kalinko Store taught me that — when a student expects a working laptop and your checks missed something, feedback is immediate.

If I do something manually twice, I automate it. The step I skip today becomes the bottleneck that wakes me up next month.

Away from the keyboard

Trail running outside Conakry most mornings. Paddleboard when I can. Reading without a plan — last month a history of Standard Oil, this month a sci-fi novel about generation ships.