Software Engineering · Fintech Infrastructure · Applied AI
I build reliable backend systems for financial products and integration-heavy platforms.
I work primarily with Java and Spring Boot, building APIs, transaction workflows, integrations and backend services that need to behave predictably in production. My background also includes substantial PHP/Laravel work, and I use React and TypeScript when broader product ownership is needed.
Leonard Ekenekiso
Software Engineering · Fintech Infrastructure · Applied AI
Current focus
Building and maintaining Java/Spring Boot services, financial integrations and transaction-heavy backend systems, while applying the same engineering principles to agentic and LLM-backed applications.
Impact
Impact
Impact
Impact
What I work on
Engineering across the layers that make critical systems dependable.
My work often sits where application architecture meets real operational constraints: transactions, integrations, reliability, infrastructure, security and teams that need to ship safely.
Backend Systems
Designing and building APIs, application services, persistence layers and business workflows for production systems.
Financial & Transactional Systems
Backend services involving payments, banking integrations, credit workflows and transaction processing where correctness and traceability matter.
Integrations & Reliability
Connecting systems to external services while accounting for retries, duplicate requests, background processing, failure handling and operational recovery.
Applied AI
Integrating LLM and agentic capabilities into backend applications with persistent state, controlled execution and conventional application architecture around them.
Selected work
Case studies that show the systems thinking behind the code.
Some production systems are private. These case studies focus on the engineering problem, architecture, constraints and measurable outcome without exposing confidential implementation details.
Backend Engineering · Payments
Subscription & Payments Backend
Java/Spring Boot services for payments, subscriptions, user management and business workflows, including Stripe Connect integration with retry and fault-isolation patterns.
Engineering approach
The habits I bring to production systems.
Good engineering is more than choosing frameworks. It means making trade-offs visible, protecting invariants, leaving systems easier to operate and helping a team reason clearly about what happens when things go wrong.
Design for failure
Retries, idempotency, fault isolation, explicit failure states and safe recovery paths are part of the design — not production patches.
Protect financial invariants
Money movement and critical business state deserve clear ownership, auditability, transactional boundaries and tests around the things that must never drift.
Make operations observable
Structured logs, metrics, alerts and traceable state transitions turn production systems from black boxes into systems teams can operate confidently.
Prefer evolvable boundaries
I use modular service boundaries and integration contracts that let systems change incrementally without forcing unnecessary rewrites.
Experience
From hands-on backend engineering to technology leadership.
Apr 2024 — Present
Technology Lead — Software Engineering & IT Operations
Boctrust Microfinance Bank · Lagos, Nigeria
Leading software engineering, IT operations, digital transformation, cloud infrastructure and technology governance in a regulated banking environment.
- Led BankOne core-banking and NIBSS Direct Debit integrations for automated loan repayment workflows.
- Scaled backend services supporting ₦200M+ monthly transaction volume and improved production reliability.
- Implemented Kubernetes deployment strategies, observability, incident response and capacity planning for core services.
- Defined service boundaries and integration patterns while aligning technology roadmaps with business and regulatory requirements.
Jul 2023 — Apr 2024
Backend Developer
Scnip Technology · Abuja, Nigeria
Built Java/Spring Boot services for payments, subscriptions, user management and workflow automation.
- Built backend services supporting 10,000+ active users.
- Integrated Stripe Connect with retry logic, error handling and fault isolation.
- Improved API response times through SQL profiling, Redis caching and targeted backend refactoring.
- Expanded automated test coverage around critical business workflows.
Jan 2023 — Mar 2024
Software Engineering Team Lead
Harde Business School · Lagos, Nigeria
Led backend modernization and engineering delivery across financial operations, reporting, academic administration and internal systems.
- Led migration from a monolith toward modular Spring Boot services.
- Led a team of four engineers and standardized sprint planning, code review, testing and documentation practices.
- Improved data integrity, auditability and backend performance across business-critical workflows.
Oct 2018 — Dec 2024
Contract Full Stack / Backend Developer
Pensuh Innovation · Anambra, Nigeria
Built and maintained a multi-tenant school operations platform spanning enrollment, attendance, academic records and tuition payment workflows.
- Designed reusable Laravel backend modules and optimized MySQL schemas for multi-tenant workloads.
- Integrated online payments and cloud-backed storage for institutional workflows.
- Built systems used across multiple institutions and thousands of student records.
About
An engineer shaped by both systems and the environments they operate in.
I'm a backend software engineer focused on Java/Spring Boot and production backend systems. Much of my recent work has involved financial products, integrations and transaction-heavy applications.
I still have a strong PHP/Laravel background and work across React and TypeScript when a product needs broader ownership. More recently, I've been working with LangChain4j and agentic systems from a backend-engineering perspective.
Outside work, I enjoy gaming, especially arcade and adventure games.
Background
Education, certification and the stack I reach for most often.
Education
B.Tech, Electrical / Electronic Engineering
Rivers State University of Science and Technology · 2019
Certification
Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals — 2022
Working stack
Technical writing
Notes from building and operating systems.
Writing workspace is ready.
The CMS includes draft and publish workflows for technical articles. After the database seed runs, starter drafts on financial integrations, idempotency and auditable AI are available in the admin area to edit and publish.
Applied AI in practice
Ask Ugbanawaji about my engineering work.
The assistant is grounded only in published case studies, experience, principles and technical writing. Answers link back to supporting evidence instead of inventing claims.
Contact
Let's talk about systems worth building well.
I am open to conversations around software engineering, platform and fintech infrastructure, technical leadership, applied AI, and selected product collaborations.
Email: ekenekiso@ugbanawaji.com
Location: Lagos, Nigeria