Six years as a commissioned Navigation Officer in the South African Navy — high-stakes ops, zero margin for error. I brought that same discipline into AI engineering.
Today I maintain and ship features across three live production AI systems at Always Enough LLC, the global tech company behind the Marisa Peer RTT brand.
Recognised as a Geekulcha Top 15 AI Innovator (SA, 2026) and AIMS Hackathon Winner with Mila Quebec AI Institute × QUT — applying NLP and Explainable AI to human rights compliance at scale.
nicolette = {
"role" : "Junior AI Software Engineer @ Always Enough LLC",
"background" : "SA Navy Officer (2015–2021) → AI Software Engineer",
"location" : "South Africa 🇿🇦 | Open to Europe relocation",
"production" : [
"Azure Durable Functions — Audio & Compliance Pipeline",
"Multi-Timezone Scheduling Automation (Azure Functions)",
"Executive AI Productivity Agent (LangChain + Asana + Gmail)"
],
"certs" : ["AZ-204 @ 92%", "DP-900", "AZ-400 in progress"],
"wins" : ["🏆 AIMS Hackathon 2025", "⭐ Geekulcha Top 15 AI SA 2026"],
"open_to" : ["AI Engineering", "Cloud Engineering", "Full-Stack"],
"mode" : ["Remote ✓", "Hybrid ✓", "Relocation ✓"]
}Three live AI systems powering the Marisa Peer RTT brand worldwide.
|
🎙️ Audio & Compliance Pipeline Azure Durable Functions pipeline — ingests audio/business data → AI compliance analysis → automated reports on schedule.
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📅 Scheduling Automation Monitors live agent availability across global timezones. Auto-manages booking capacity. Onboards new agents end-to-end.
|
🤖 Executive AI Agent AI productivity agent integrated with comms and task platforms. Delivers automated scheduled digests for exec decisions.
|
| Domain | Stack |
|---|---|
| Languages | Python · TypeScript · JavaScript · C# · SQL |
| AI & Agentic | LangChain · LangGraph · DSPy · RAG · NLP · OpenAI · ElevenLabs · ChromaDB |
| Cloud | Azure AZ-204 · Azure Durable Functions · Azure Blob · Azure DevOps · Docker · Vercel |
| Frontend | React · Tailwind CSS · HTML5 · CSS3 |
| Backend | Node.js · FastAPI · ASP.NET Core · REST APIs |
| Databases | PostgreSQL · MongoDB Atlas · ChromaDB · Firebase · SQL Server |
| Integrations | Gmail API · Asana API · Google Drive API · Google Calendar API |
empowa-ai.co.za · Sole developer & maintainer CV intelligence · Interview coaching · Digital Economic Twin · Skill-based opportunity matching · Real beta users
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Mila Quebec AI × QUT. NLP pipeline for large-scale human rights compliance. React frontend + pgvector + Explainable AI.
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AI-generated questions by role · Real-time scoring · Session replay · Prompt-engineered structured feedback
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User auth · Content moderation · Full CRUD · RESTful APIs via ASP.NET Core · EF Core migrations for scale
|
| Metric | Context | |
|---|---|---|
| ⛽ | −10% fuel use | Navigation optimisation, SA Navy |
| 🏆 | Hackathon Winner | AIMS 2025 — Mila Quebec AI × QUT |
| ⭐ | Top 15 in SA | Geekulcha AI Innovators 2026 |
| 📜 | AZ-204 @ 92% | Renewed 2026 |
| 🟢 | 99.9% uptime | Azure production systems |
| 👩💻 | 3 live systems | Always Enough LLC, May 2026– |
| Period | Role | Organisation |
|---|---|---|
| 2012–2015 | Naval Officer Cadet | South African Navy |
| 2015–2021 | Junior Navigation Officer | South African Navy |
| 2024 | AI Model Trainer | Outlier AI |
| 2025 | Software Engineering Intern | Coast IT (Pty) Ltd |
| 2026– | Technical Trainer (Volunteer) | TechBridle Foundation |
| May 2026– | Junior AI Software Engineer | Always Enough LLC · Dubai (Remote) |
⚓ From navigating oceans to architecting AI systems ⚓