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The Gardener

Samuel Muriuki

I cultivate production SaaS in Nairobi. Currently tending to TricomHub. ~4 years of shipping with TypeScript, Python, and AI-augmented tooling.

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Stylised portrait of Samuel Muriuki

The journey so far

  1. 2017
    🌱
    Started a Diploma in Electrical & Electronics Engineering at Michuki Technical Institute. Soldering irons before semicolons.
  2. 2019
    🛠
    First QA Engineering role at Mukish — learned what makes software break before learning to write it.
  3. 2021
    🌿
    Moringa School full-stack bootcamp. Picked up React, TypeScript, Django; shipped first freelance work.
  4. 2022
    🚀
    Joined Tinka Networks as Full-Stack Developer. Shipped Tukwel, Tap Trader, Airtime4Insurance, Sendsomegift.
  5. 2024
    📈
    Forex Lab — first solo production SaaS. Real-time Deriv WebSocket, Blockly bot builder, AI signal engine.
  6. 2025
    🏨
    TricomHub launched — multi-tenant hotel booking SaaS for South Sudan. WhatsApp, M-Pesa, 18-spec Playwright suite.
  7. 2026
    🗄
    Built MuriukiDB from scratch — custom RDBMS with hand-written lexer, parser, and B-Tree. Submitted to Pesapal Junior Dev Challenge as a job application.

What I believe in

🧪

Tests catch real regressions, not vanity coverage

I came up through QA Engineering Manager work before becoming a full-stack engineer. That shapes how I write tests — defensive, structured, and aimed at the failure modes that actually bite in production.

🛠

Read existing routes before writing new ones

Audit the codebase before designing additions. Wire frontend explicitly to backend instead of assuming integration. Lessons earned the hard way and worth repeating.

🤖

AI-augmented, not AI-supervised

I ship daily with Claude Code, Copilot, Lovable, and Antigravity. Every output gets reviewed. The AI accelerates the work; the engineer owns it.

📝

Documentation is part of the deliverable

Every project I ship has a README with architecture, setup, deployment notes, and known limitations. Future-me has reviewed too many undocumented codebases to do that to anyone else.

✂

Commit small, commit often, commit honestly

Gitmoji + atomic commits. One logical change per commit. No bundling, no batching, no AI attribution. The git history is a conversation with the next maintainer.

🌱

Ship under pressure, then ship better the second time

Shipped a working LLM pipeline in 90 minutes during the WorkFlex challenge. Built TricomHub solo over a year. Both matter. Speed and depth are not opposites.

What I cultivate

🌸 Frontend

  • Next.js 15🌳
  • React 18/19🌳
  • TypeScript (strict)🌳
  • Tailwind CSS🌳
  • Framer Motion🌳
  • CSS Modules🌳

🌳 Backend

  • Node.js🌳
  • Python🌳
  • Django🌳
  • PostgreSQL🌳
  • Supabase🌳
  • Better Auth🌿

📱 Mobile & Cross-Platform

  • Flutter🌿
  • Dart🌿
  • PWA🌳

🔧 Quality & Ops

  • Playwright🌳
  • Vitest🌳
  • Vercel🌳
  • Cloudflare🌳
  • Git🌳

🤖 AI-Augmented Engineering

  • Claude Code🌳
  • GitHub Copilot🌳
  • Lovable🌿
  • Antigravity🌿
  • LLM ops (Gemini, OpenAI)🌳