I'm John.
I've been building software for 22 years, starting with trading systems and PHP/MySQL platforms in the early 2000s. These days I focus on AI-assisted research tools, quant workflows, and systems that turn messy information into something useful.
Based in Mossel Bay. Founder of EdenFintech.
How I got here
I started in the early 2000s building trading tools for a trading company. From there I moved into PHP and MySQL web applications, back when most things still had to be built by hand.
That became yourdesign.co.za, and more than 20 years of custom websites, WordPress systems, themes, and agency work.
In many ways EdenFintech is a return to the beginning: markets, data, research, and code. Only now, the tools are better, the thinking is sharper, and there are 22 years of hard-earned development experience behind it.
Current availability
I'm open to interesting quant, AI, and development work where the problem is messy enough to need real engineering judgement.
The work that fits best:
- Building or improving quant research platforms: data ingestion, backtesting, validation, and honest performance review.
- Turning LLM and agent experiments into proper systems with structure, logging, review stages, and fewer black boxes.
- Complex web platforms where the data model matters and the project has outgrown simple CMS thinking.
- Obsidian / Astro knowledge-base projects for research, OSINT, internal documentation, or public case-study sites.
- Research-heavy AI tools that need to turn scattered information into something structured, searchable, and useful.
Remote, UTC+2. Open to contract, retainer, or lead-developer roles. The cover letter has more, or reach me at info@devai.co.za.
What I do
- Quant Engineering : research platforms for screening, scoring, and backtesting; honest evaluation as a first-class output.
- AI / Agentic Systems : LLM calls behind typed adapters, contract-governed review stages, logged and reproducible.
- WordPress & PHP Craft : custom plugins and themes, WooCommerce, and the cases where the schema needs to move beyond $wpdb.
- Knowledge Graphs & Wiki Systems : Obsidian + Quartz research wikis, entity taxonomies, graph navigation that does real work.
- Python Services & Data Pipelines : the connective tissue (ingestion, snapshot hashing, CLI ergonomics, structured logging).
- Design & Brand : 20+ years of custom front-end work; the visual layer on my own sites and on client brand builds.
Currently building
edenfintech-scanner-python A stdlib-only core plus a three-role LLM review stage behind a typed information barrier. Read more → 
edenfintech.com The free weekly watchlist surfaced from the scanner's output. Read more → 
WeCoza 3.0 Long-running WordPress and Postgres client engagement for a South African adult-education training provider. Read more → Proof of work
Shipped projects I point to as evidence. Each one is live and built end to end.
SpendSilo A PWA invoice scanner. Snap a receipt, a vision model returns it as validated JSON, and nothing auto-approves before review. Read more → 
Magic Camera A child-safe PWA that turns a phone photo into AI art. Installs from the browser, no app store, no account. Read more → 
jobabroad.co.za Next.js 16 + Supabase. Manual WhatsApp sales, token-gated pathway guides, CV upload, semantic search. Read more → 
SignalTrace A multi-wiki research site over five OSINT and financial-research case studies. Active at signaltrace.wiki. Read more → Legacy work
Wiki sections
This site is also a working record of how I practice. New pages land in these folders over time:
- Decisions: positions I hold, with the reasoning attached.
- Playbooks: repeatable recipes I want to run the same way twice.
- Notes: dated learning log, short-form thinking.
- Influences: videos, podcasts, talks, and writing that have shaped the work.
- Open questions: things I'm chewing on but haven't resolved.
More on how the site is put together.
