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Dukakit

Dukakit

Application

Joined the Dukakit build as a Junior Software Engineer focused on the Laravel backend, then shifted into technical support once the platform went live — owning issues from first report through to deployed fix.

Situation

Dukakit was being built to solve a real problem for small and medium businesses in Kenya: they were running operations across a patchwork of spreadsheets, WhatsApp messages, and paper records with no single source of truth. The engineering team needed to ship a reliable backend that could handle sales, inventory, and customer data at once — without a long runway.

Task

As a Junior Software Engineer, contribute to building the backend API in Laravel, supporting the features the frontend team depended on to hit the release milestone. After launch, transition into a technical support role — triaging user-reported issues, reproducing bugs, and pushing fixes to keep the platform stable for live customers.

Action

  • 01

    Built and maintained RESTful API endpoints in Laravel covering the platform's core modules: sales recording, inventory management, and customer relationship tracking.

  • 02

    Designed and implemented MySQL database schemas that correctly modelled the relationships between products, stock levels, customers, and transactions — iterating as product requirements evolved.

  • 03

    Integrated Laravel Sanctum for token-based API authentication, ensuring all endpoints were access-controlled and user sessions were handled securely.

  • 04

    Wrote request validation rules and standardised error response structures so the frontend received consistent, predictable feedback regardless of the failure mode.

  • 05

    Collaborated closely with the frontend team during integration, adjusting API contracts and adding endpoints in response to UI requirements that emerged during development.

  • 06

    After deployment, monitored the live application for stability and picked up user-reported issues as they came in through support channels.

  • 07

    Triaged incoming tickets, reproduced bugs in a local environment, identified root causes, and shipped fixes — tracking each issue from first report to resolution.

Result

  • →

    Delivered a stable backend API that supported the frontend team throughout development and shipped on schedule with the initial Dukakit release.

  • →

    Maintained fast turnaround on support tickets post-launch, keeping user-facing issues from lingering and eroding trust in the early growth period.

  • →

    Built a working knowledge of the full codebase through the support role, gaining visibility into how real users interacted with the system in ways that the build phase never surfaced.

  • →

    The dual build-then-support arc gave me end-to-end ownership of a feature — from writing the code to fixing it when production exposed its edge cases.