Hi, I'm Stanley Masinde

Software development engineer and technical storyteller — building robust systems in Rust, architecting software systems and CLIs that hold up in production. I share what I learn through writing, video, and live coding.

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About Stanley

I'm a software development engineer and technical storyteller, passionate about building robust systems, diving into systems programming, and sharing what I learn. I design software systems and CLI tools — with a focus on Rust and production-minded architecture.

My experience spans agricultural marketplaces, payment integrations (M-Pesa, card gateways, webhook callbacks), deterministic chat bots on WhatsApp and Telegram (webhooks, state machines, session persistence), and tools built for real-world problems. On a career break from full-time employment, I'm actively supporting clients with software solutions. I also work as a technical sidekick for non-technical and less-technical founders — helping with stack choices, architecture, cloud cost optimisation, and hiring developers.

Beyond engineering, I produce YouTube video essays on technology, concise Rust tutorials for developers with OOP backgrounds, and host a daily coding livestream — creating the technical resources I wish I'd had when starting out. Based in Nairobi, I value clean system design, thoughtful trade-offs, and practical solutions. Open to client work, founder advisory, collaboration, and selective full-time opportunities.

Systems & Engineering Work

Production systems, founder tech advisory, payment flows, and messaging bots — built for reliability under real load.

Technical Sidekick for Founders

Partner to non-technical and less-technical founders building their first product — translating business goals into pragmatic technical decisions without the jargon.

Stack & Architecture: Technology choices, system design, and build-vs-buy trade-offs

Cloud Costs: Right-sizing infrastructure and keeping spend predictable as you scale

Hiring: Defining roles, evaluating developers, and reviewing agency or contractor proposals

Deterministic Chat Bots

Rule-driven conversational systems on WhatsApp and Telegram — webhook handlers, explicit state machines, and server-side session persistence for multi-step workflows.

Architecture: Single webhook endpoint routing messages through deterministic state transitions

Channels: WhatsApp Business API, Telegram Bot API, USSD-style multi-step flows

Production: Insurance purchase flows, payments (M-Pesa), and integrated back-office tooling

Payment Integrations

End-to-end payment flows wired into production products — M-Pesa, card gateways, and webhook-driven confirmation with fulfillment on success.

Gateways: M-Pesa and card payment APIs with callback handling and idempotent settlement

Webhooks: Payment status callbacks driving state transitions in conversational and checkout flows

Fulfillment: Real-time policy issuance and order completion tied to confirmed payments

View All Projects & Open Source Work

How I Work

Systems programming, practical architecture, and technical storytelling — focused on work that holds up in production

Systems & Software

Production software in Rust — services, CLI tools, async pipelines, shipped binaries
Distributed systems design — event-driven services, reliable workflows, real-world scale
Deterministic chat bots — WhatsApp, Telegram, webhooks, and state-machine conversation design
Payment integrations — M-Pesa, card gateways, webhook callbacks, and fulfillment on confirmed payment

Founders & Collaboration

Technical sidekick for founders — stack, architecture, cloud cost optimisation, and hiring developers
Mentoring engineers — onboarding teammates on systems design and production workflows
YouTube video essays, Rust tutorials, and a daily coding livestream
Conference talks on WebAssembly, Rust, offline-first development, and developer tools

Featured Projects

Rust-first tools and systems — with full-stack projects when the problem calls for shipping a complete product.

Mr Insurance WhatsApp Bot

Client

Deterministic insurance bot on WhatsApp — Meta webhooks, state-machine conversation flows, M-Pesa payments, and an integrated back office in a single Nuxt.js application.

WhatsAppState MachinesWebhooksM-PesaNuxt.js

Lnky URL Expander

Privacy-focused Progressive Web App that expands shortened URLs and removes tracking parameters. Full-stack application with Vue.js/TypeScript frontend and Rust/Axum backend.

Vue.jsTypeScriptRustPWAPrivacy

DB Mirror

Rust-powered database cloning tool for safely migrating production data to staging environments without the usual copy-paste footguns.

RustCLIDatabase

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Speaking & Talks

Technical storytelling on stage — conferences and meetups across Kenya on WebAssembly, Rust, offline-first development, and developer productivity.

Building Offline-First Web Applications

2024

DevFest Nairobi • Nairobi, Kenya

Strategies for resilient web apps that work offline — service workers, IndexedDB, and sync patterns.

Progressive Web AppsOffline-FirstService Workers

WebAssembly in Modern Web Development

2024

Nairobi API Festival • Nairobi, Kenya

WebAssembly integration, performance benefits, and practical Rust-to-web use cases with live demos.

WebAssemblyRustPerformance

Automating Code Generation

2023

Tech Meetup Series • Nairobi, Kenya

Automating repetitive coding tasks through code generation and template systems for faster delivery.

Code GenerationDeveloper ToolsAutomation

Speaker Profile

Sessionize profile with past talks from DevFest Nairobi, API Festival, and meetups. Available for conferences and technical events.

Topics: WebAssembly, offline-first, code generation, systems

View All Talks & Speaking Engagements

Technical Storytelling

I communicate through code, writing, and on camera — building the technical resources I wish I'd had when starting out.

YouTube Video Essays

Long-form video essays exploring technology — systems, tools, and the ideas behind how we build software.

Rust Tutorials

Concise Rust tutorials aimed at developers with OOP backgrounds — bridging familiar concepts to systems programming.

Daily Coding Livestream

Daily live coding sessions — building in public, answering questions, and working through real engineering problems.

Technical Writing

Technical essays and notes on systems programming and practical engineering — on this site.

You probably do not need UUIDs

Why auto-increment IDs break multi-node systems, and when snowflake-style IDs are a better fit than UUIDs.

Distributed SystemsUUIDs

Nitro.js fixed my biggest Node.js deployment issue

How Nitro simplified Node.js deployment compared to traditional app-server packaging and process setup.

Node.jsDeployment

Scaling PHP codebases with safety first

Why strictness and safety habits matter more than framework churn when PHP systems grow.

PHPSoftware Design

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Let's Build Something Solid

Founder figuring out your stack? Team that needs systems built? Get in touch for client work, technical sidekick support, and collaboration.

Usually responds within 24 hours • How we start

Contact Me