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Neil Foxcroft

Software Engineer

I build the Java and Kotlin services that connect banks, retailers and their partners, and keep them running in production.

Pretoria, ZA open to relocation

// about

I'm a backend engineer at Entelect with 4.5+ years building Java and Kotlin Spring Boot microservices for banking and retail financial services. Most of my work sits where systems meet: the APIs, integrations and orchestration that let digital channels, partners and point-of-sale systems talk to each other.

Most recently, at Shoprite Financial Services, I owned the electricity supplier integrations for Namibia and Botswana end to end, from requirements and partner calls through release and production support. Before that I spent two years on value-added services at Standard Bank.

Away from the keyboard I climb, hike (most recently the whole Pacific Crest Trail), am learning to paint Warhammer miniatures, and tinker with a homelab.

// experience

Entelect

Software Engineer

2022 — Present

Software consultancy. Placed with clients as a backend engineer, alongside work on Entelect's own initiatives.

  1. Shoprite Financial Services

    2024 — 2026

    Client · Money Market value-added services

    Built Kotlin and Spring Boot services for electricity, airtime and data, insurance, gift cards and bill payments. Designed Backend-for-Frontend endpoints so Checkers Sixty60 could reuse point-of-sale transaction services, owned the Namibia and Botswana electricity integrations end to end, and helped onboard developers and review code.

    • Kotlin
    • Spring Boot
    • BFF
    • Datadog
    • WireMock

  2. Standard Bank

    2022 — 2024

    Client · Value Added Services

    Developed Java and Spring Boot microservices for product catalogue, quote, order and settlement flows, and contributed to the MNO rewrite for airtime, data, SMS, electricity and lottery products. Migrated Angular front ends to micro-frontends in an Nx monorepo.

    • Java
    • Spring Boot
    • Angular
    • Nx
    • SonarQube

  3. Entelect Challenge

    2022 — 2026

    Internal · Cloud Squad, part-time

    Maintained the AWS infrastructure behind the competition platform: game engine, website, player portal, forum and submissions. Led the cloud team for a year, owning deployment pipelines and production support.

    • AWS
    • CI/CD
    • Infrastructure
view full résumé

// education

  • // 2021

    BSc Honours

    Computer Science & IT

    North-West University

    I specialised in Artificial Intelligence, Advanced Databases, Computer Security and Information Systems Engineering (project management of information systems), and my Honours project set out to detect StyleGAN-generated images using convolutional neural networks. Alongside my studies I tutored the undergraduate Computer Networks module (CMPG 315), helping run the practicals, giving feedback on assignments and getting students to grips with Cisco Packet Tracer.

    // activities and societies

    • 2021Tutor, Computer Networks (CMPG 315)
    the StyleGAN project

  • // 2017 — 2020

    BSc

    Information Technology

    North-West University

    Alongside the degree I served two terms on the RAG Technical Committee. RAG (now JOOL) is one of the biggest charity drives in the Southern Hemisphere, and it was entirely student-run while I was there. The technical committee kept its events safe and helped maintain and develop the RAG Farm, its concert venue.

    // activities and societies

    • 2019/20RAG Technical Committee
    • 2018/19RAG Technical Committee
    • 2017De Wilgers men's residence debate team
    • 2017De Wilgers men's residence solo singer (enkelsêr)

// certifications

// projects

  • Honours project · 2021

    Identifying StyleGAN faces

    StyleGAN generates faces of people who don't exist, convincing enough to pass a human check on a fake identity. For my Honours thesis I trained convolutional neural networks to tell those faces apart from photos of real people, and built a small web app to try the model on an image.

    • Deep learning
    • CNNs
    • Python
    • LaTeX

  • Patent · 2017

    BLEGO: Braille-like toy blocks

    In the FIRST LEGO League, our team co-designed a registered design (ZA F2016/01587) that lets visually impaired children build with toy blocks and identify colours by touch. We also won the regional championship.

    • FIRST LEGO League
    • Accessibility

// pacific crest trail

Mexico to Canada, on foot

In 2026 my fiancée and I thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, from the Mexican border to the Canadian border, through the deserts, the Sierra Nevada and the Cascades. It was a dream we had chased for four years: for us it's indescribable, and for anyone else, unimaginable.

Map of the Pacific Crest Trail, running about 4,200 km from the Mexican border in California north through Oregon and Washington to the Canadian border. WASHINGTONOREGONCALIFORNIACANADAMEXICOPACIFIC OCEAN

trail data © OpenStreetMap · elevation NASA SRTM

  • Start
    Neil at the Southern Terminus monument on the Mexican border, shading his eyes and looking north
    // Start · km 0mi 0Southern Terminus
  • Desert
    Neil hiking towards huge tilted sandstone slabs in the Southern California desert
    // Desert · km 0–1,130mi 0–702Southern Terminus → Kennedy Meadows
  • Sierra
    Neil on the summit of Mount Whitney, holding up the 14,505 ft summit sign
    // Sierra · km 1,130–1,923mi 702–1,195Kennedy Meadows → Sierra City
  • NorCal
    Neil cooling off in a river in Northern California, with a butterfly by his hand
    // NorCal · km 1,923–2,718mi 1,195–1,689Sierra City → Oregon border
  • Oregon
    Neil hiking through a lava field in Oregon
    // Oregon · km 2,718–3,455mi 1,689–2,147California border → Cascade Locks
  • Wash.
    Neil's fiancée hiking a steep mountainside trail in Washington, the slope red and gold with autumn colours
    // Washington · km 3,455–4,265mi 2,147–2,650Cascade Locks → Northern Terminus
  • End
    Neil and his fiancée at the Northern Terminus monument on the Canadian border
    // End · km 4,265mi 2,650Northern Terminus

// Tap a photo to trace its section

trail length
4,265 km2,650 mi
days on trail
164
pairs of shoes
4
states
3
more trail stats