Engineer first — with a leadership backstory.
I design and build production software, and I bring the ownership mindset of someone who has led teams in the real world.
I'm Kingsley Marfo, a Software Engineer based in the United Kingdom. I specialise in full-stack and backend development, with a particular focus on systems where correctness matters — payments, identity and access.
My route into engineering wasn't the standard one, and I think that's a strength. Before software, I spent years in restaurant leadership, supervising teams in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment. That's where I learned to take ownership of outcomes, stay calm when things break, and communicate clearly with people who don't share my jargon — all of which I use every day as an engineer.
During my Computer Science degree I didn't want to just pass modules — I wanted to build real things. That drive led to Flayona, a FinTech commerce platform with payments, Buy-Now-Pay-Later, KYC and audit logging, and to OpFix, an enterprise operations platform built around role-based access and a strict workflow engine.
What excites me most is turning a messy business problem into software that's reliable, secure and genuinely usable. I care about the schema as much as the screen, and about the person on the other end of the keyboard as much as the code.
From leading teams to shipping systems
Leadership in hospitality
Years leading front-of-house teams under pressure taught me ownership, communication and calm problem-solving — the human side of engineering.
Computer Science degree
A rigorous grounding in software engineering, algorithms, databases and systems — applied throughout in real, deployed projects.
Building production software
Now designing and shipping FinTech and enterprise systems: payments, BNPL, KYC, authentication and role-based platforms.
Where I've applied it
Software engineering first, leadership second — both shape how I build.
Founder & Full-Stack Engineer
2024 — PresentFlayona
Designed and built a Ghana-focused e-commerce and FinTech platform end to end in vanilla PHP and MySQL — Paystack and Mobile Money payments, a Buy-Now-Pay-Later engine with credit scoring, KYC onboarding and four separate role portals.
- Built four distinct authenticated portals — customer, admin/staff, credit officer and distributor — each with its own login, 2FA and password-reset flow.
- Engineered a BNPL engine with credit scoring, digital contracts and a cron job that automatically charges instalments.
- Integrated Paystack (card) and Mobile Money, with signature-verified webhooks reconciling orders.
- Hardened the platform with CSRF protection, TOTP two-factor auth, KYC verification and full audit logging.
PHPMySQLPaystackTOTP / 2FAPWAFull-Stack Engineer — OpFix (Dissertation Project)
2024 — 2025Cloud-Based Maintenance Management System
Built OpFix, a cloud-based Maintenance Management System, as my BSc final-year project — a FastAPI + PostgreSQL backend and a React SPA, with role-based access, a multi-stage job workflow and full auditability.
- Modelled a multi-party workflow (store → admin → contractor → engineer → accounts) as an explicit job state machine.
- Enforced role-based access (Admin, Engineer, Client and more) with JWT auth, bcrypt hashing and TOTP 2FA.
- Added audit logging, file attachments, SLA tracking, KPI dashboards and Excel/PDF exports.
- Backed by SQLAlchemy + Alembic migrations, a pytest suite, and deployed on Render with Supabase Postgres.
FastAPIPostgreSQLReactSQLAlchemyRenderFreelance Web Developer
2024 — 2025Julli Jets (Client)
Delivered and maintain a commercial private-charter website (jullijets.co.uk) on WordPress/Elementor, driven by a custom PHP page-generation system I wrote.
- Built a two-layer PHP page builder that programmatically generates Elementor layouts from reusable section helpers.
- Developed mu-plugin shortcodes, a global design system and a charter-request booking flow.
- Collaborated directly with the client and deployed to IONOS hosting via SSH.
WordPressElementorPHPJavaScriptRestaurant Supervisor / Team Lead
2019 — 2023Hospitality
Led front-of-house teams in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment — the experience that sharpened the ownership, communication and problem-solving I now bring to engineering.
- Coordinated and motivated teams during peak service, keeping standards high under pressure.
- Owned rotas, training and issue resolution — end-to-end responsibility for outcomes.
- Turned recurring operational pain points into repeatable processes.
- Built the customer-first, calm-under-pressure mindset that shapes how I ship software.
Computer Science
BSc (Hons) Computer Science
Arden University
A Computer Science degree grounded in software engineering, algorithms, databases, security and systems — applied throughout in real, deployed projects rather than throwaway exercises.
Final Year Project — OpFix: Cloud-Based Maintenance Management System
Researched, designed and built a cloud-based Maintenance Management System (FastAPI, PostgreSQL/Supabase and React) featuring role-based access control, a multi-stage job workflow state machine, audit logging, SLA tracking and reporting. The dissertation covered requirements analysis, system design, implementation decisions, a pytest testing strategy and a critical evaluation against the original objectives.
Relevant modules
Continuous learning
A placeholder for certifications — these will be filled in as they're earned.
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
Amazon Web Services
plannedMeta Back-End Developer
Meta
plannedStripe Certified Developer
Stripe
planned