Gerrit Vermeulen

• Developed and maintained robust backend systems using Laravel, with a focus on designing efficient APIs, database structures, and business logic.
• Worked extensively with Livewire to create dynamic and responsive components within Laravel projects.
• Contributed to frontend development using Blade, Tailwind, and other modern frontend tools.
• Built and deployed Flutter mobile applications for both Android and iOS, integrating seamlessly with backend services.
• Managed and improved DevOps processes, setting up CI/CD pipelines, managing infrastructure on AWS (including EC2, S3, RDS, and Lambda), and ensuring scalable and secure deployments.
• Collaborated closely with designers, stakeholders, and fellow developers to deliver end-to-end solutions.
• Troubleshot performance bottlenecks, optimized systems, and applied best practices for security and scalability.
• Regularly experimented with new technologies and tools to improve workflows and system performance.

• I established this project with the expectation that it might get popular in the future but mainly to experiment with an idea I had and see what will happen.
• This project was most definitely the most rewarding experience since I started to realize how important it was to look at the app from a customer's point of view and how all the aspects of the app matters.
• The online admin of the application is built with Laravel 5, jQuery, and Bootstrap.
• Windhoek.Life and Swakopmund.Life both share the same database.
• Both the Windhoek.Life and Swakopmund.Life mobile app is build with Cordova (VueJs + Webpack).
• Swakopmund.Life was essentially an entertainment app where you can find places like Restaurants, Bars, Pubs, Coffee Shops, etc and it is fixed on a small location and information was up to date.
• The Mobile App also notified people about events that will happen via Push Notifications.
• The mobile app got loads of compliments and got over 2 000 downloads in one year, which was quite high.
• The Mobile Apps were available for both iOS and Android. Unfortunately, since COVID-19 started, we didn't do any further development on the website or mobile app. It was removed from Google Play Store in December 2020, but still available on App Store.

• Maintain and manage own Virtual Private Server with Forge (Ubuntu Linux)
• Maintain and manage own Virtual Private Server with WHM/Cpanel (CentOS Linux)
• Designed and developed custom websites for clients
• Designed, implemented, monitored web pages, plugins, and functionality for continuous improvement
• Used critical thinking to break down problems, evaluate solutions and make decisions
• Actively listen to customers' requests, confirming full understanding before addressing concerns
• Developed back-end components to connect applications with web services
• Took over clients that had difficulty managing their open-source CMS systems like WordPress
• Planned website development, converting mockups into usable web presence with HTML, JavaScript, AJAX, and JSON coding
• Designing and developing Native or Hybrid mobile apps for both iOS and Android

• At Buddy Industries I did a lot of projects, the smaller projects eventually need to slot in together to make a huge application
• I would go to the office every morning to sit with the team, discuss all the work currently done and what everyone wishes to accomplish at the end of the day
• Often once a week we will also have a brainstorming meeting that will discuss new or upgraded features that will be added to the application
• All the applications also share one MySQL database
• I was in charge of the database structure and upkeep which was the most complicated database I have worked with thus far

Some of the things I have completed for Buddy Industries include:

• Buddy Smile (slot machine game) - People can play a slot machine game where they can win vouchers via mobile phone or interact with a screen
• Voucher System - System where you can create a voucher, assign multiple people to a voucher and they automatically receive an SMS
• Loyalty - System where one can fill in options for loyalty (how many scans, etc)
• Once loyalty is created, an automatic QR code will be generated for clients to scan with their "Buddy App"
• Buddy Chat - System where a user can talk to a company and ask for advice
• Once the company helped them with the query, they can mark-off the chat
• There's also a person to person chat as well as group chats.
• Chat function made possible with the help of pusher.com (for web socket)
• Concierge Buddy - A type of content builder where a person can create pages with content inside them. They can recursively order the pages so that it can contain multiple sub-pages. The content they created will appear like that on their custom created mobile app
• Created a Point of Sales system that was used at Swaitex event in Swakopmund

• Designing and develop Websites
• Design touchscreen application for touchscreens (HTML, jQuery, MySQL)
• Set-up hosting accounts and domains
• Designing and develop hybrid mobile apps

Some of the bigger projects I worked on:

• Built the Namibia Tourism Board website (still online, using the my.na database)
• Built the Hospitality Association of Namibia website (not online anymore, replaced with a newer website
• MyEtickets system, which was used at the Tourism Expo