Project Lead & Software Engineer

Gatenor is a software engineering and design consultancy. I split my time between leading the technical direction and writing code across two of their client projects. The challenge was figuring out how to turn LLM technology into something users could actually rely on, within a startup timeline.

Projects

Travel AI Assistant

An AI travel planner that generates personalized itineraries through conversation. I designed the backend around OpenAI function calling, so the assistant queried real data sources instead of generating plausible-sounding text. It reached a working MVP; the funding behind it fell through before a production launch.

Rookeyz

A job platform designed for young professionals with little to no experience, connecting them with companies that understand their situation. I worked across both backend (Spring Boot) and frontend (React), helping shape the architecture and deliver features.

Key Contributions

• Travel AI Assistant — took the product from idea to a working MVP in about 6 months
• Function calling integration — worked on patterns where the AI could query real data, check availability, and build itineraries dynamically
• Technical coordination — owned architecture decisions and kept a team of three aligned on priorities

Technical Stack

• Languages: Java, TypeScript
• Backend: Spring Boot, Node.js, Nest.js
• Frontend: React
• AI: OpenAI APIs, LLMs, function calling
• Cloud: AWS
• Databases: MySQL