Skip to content
~/benhattab
AvailableDakar, Senegal

Ben Hattab MahdiFull Stack & AI Engineer

I design and build SaaS platforms end to end — from domain modelling to the production VPS. For the past two years I have been making them autonomous: AI agents grounded in company data through RAG that take real actions inside the company's own tools.

See the workGet in touchcrossben
Laravel·Next.js·TypeScript·PostgreSQL·pgvector·Go·Flutter·Docker
Selected workSynka SphereOrchestraZeytouniKumbis
Selected work

What I build

Platforms in production, not exercises. Each case study covers the real problem, the architecture I chose, and the trade-offs I accepted.

  1. 01
    In production

    Synka Sphere

    A SaaS platform where companies hire AI employees

    A multi-tenant platform where each company hires “AI employees”: agents grounded in its own documents through RAG, able to act inside Gmail, Slack, Notion and Google Drive — with human approval scaled to how risky the action is.

    agent personas
    55agent personas
    applications
    3applications
    connected tools
    5+connected tools
    Read the case study
    2026 — present
    Laravel 13PHP 8.3Next.js 16React 19PostgreSQL 16pgvector
  2. 02
    Open source

    Orchestra

    The operating system for AI coding agents

    A Go CLI that drives several coding agents (Claude Code, OpenCode, Mimo…) behind one supervised interface. It routes each task to the best-suited agent, validates the result through build → lint → test, lets the agent fix its own failures, and keeps nothing without your explicit approval.

    single binary
    Gosingle binary
    open source
    MITopen source
    CI gates
    4CI gates
    Read the case study
    2025 — present
    Go 1.22+CLITUIgit worktreesGitHub ActionsGoReleaser
  3. 03
    In production

    Zeytouni

    Group-buy marketplace with escrow, built for Senegal

    A Senegalese marketplace built on group buying and trust: the buyer pays a 30% deposit, the balance on delivery, and the money stays in escrow until they confirm the order arrived. In parallel, an AI copilot helps sellers price their products and work out their break-even point.

    deposit / balance
    30/70deposit / balance
    mobile-money operators
    4mobile-money operators
    applications
    3applications
    Read the case study
    2026 — present
    Laravel 13PostgreSQLNext.js 16React 19Tailwind 4shadcn/ui
  4. 04
    In production

    Kumbis

    Live video consultations, from booking to payout

    A consultation platform where clients book live video or audio sessions with experts. Three roles — client, expert, administrator — drive all navigation and permissions, with SMS OTP authentication and FCFA billing.

    product roles
    3product roles
    installable
    PWAinstallable
    Read the case study
    2026 — present
    Laravel 13PostgreSQLSanctum v4Next.jsTypeScriptAgora
  5. 05
    In progress

    Gerex Food

    Multi-tenant restaurant management SaaS

    A multi-tenant SaaS for restaurants: stock, orders, finances, alerts and realtime reporting, with distinct interfaces for front of house and kitchen. A single API serves both the restaurant dashboard and the platform back office.

    rows served without a tenant
    0rows served without a tenant
    applications
    3applications
    Read the case study
    2025 — present
    Laravel 13PHP 8.3Next.js 16React 19Laravel HorizonLaravel Reverb
  6. 06
    In progress

    Ekolo

    Waste collection management, from the field to the map

    A waste-collection management platform: sites, vehicles, routes and field agents, with a map-driven dashboard in the office and a Flutter app in the field. A tool-equipped AI agent lets operations be queried in plain language.

    AI tools
    9AI tools
    applications
    3applications
    Read the case study
    2025
    Laravel 13Next.js 16Flutter 3RiverpodGoRouterMapLibre GL
Other work

Shipped work, listed without a full case study. These ones did not get a case study. They will cope.

Stack

What I work with

Everything listed here is backed by shipped code. If it is not in a repository, it is not on the list.

Backend

Laravel is my default — it is where the business logic and the source of truth live.

  • Laravel 13
  • PHP 8.3
  • Node.js
  • NestJS
  • Express
  • FastAPI
  • Symfony
  • Go

Frontend

Next.js App Router, Server Components by default, client code only where it is actually needed.

  • Next.js 16
  • React 19
  • TypeScript
  • Tailwind CSS 4
  • shadcn/ui
  • Zustand
  • react-query
  • Vite

Data

PostgreSQL wherever possible, with pgvector keeping semantic search inside the same database.

  • PostgreSQL
  • pgvector
  • Redis
  • MySQL
  • MongoDB
  • Qdrant
  • SQLite
  • Supabase
  • MinIO
  • Cloudflare R2
  • S3

AI & agents

Grounded RAG and agents that take action, with human approval on the risky ones.

  • RAG
  • OpenRouter
  • Claude
  • Groq
  • Ollama
  • LM Studio
  • n8n
  • Firecrawl
  • PaddleOCR
  • Tesseract

Mobile

Flutter when it must be native, PWA when the app store itself is the obstacle.

  • Flutter
  • Dart
  • Riverpod
  • GoRouter
  • Freezed
  • Dio
  • PWA / serwist

Infra & ops

I deploy and administer what I build — VPS, physical servers, backups.

  • Docker
  • VPS
  • CI/CD
  • GitHub Actions
  • Laravel Horizon
  • Cloudflare R2
  • S3
  • Nginx
  • Linux
  • Dokploy
  • Coolify
  • Vercel
  • Railway
  • Render

Realtime & integrations

WebSockets, SSE streaming, mobile-money payments and inbound webhooks.

  • Laravel Reverb
  • WebSockets
  • SSE
  • Agora
  • PayDunya
  • Wave
  • Orange Money

Quality & security

Feature tests on the critical paths, policy-based authorisation, multi-tenant isolation.

  • PHPUnit
  • Pest
  • Go test
  • JWT
  • OAuth2
  • Sanctum
  • RBAC
  • Rate limiting
  • CORS
  • OWASP
  • ZAP
  • Snyk
  • Dependabot

Monitoring

Performance monitoring, alerts and logs.

  • Prometheus
  • Grafana
  • Sentry
  • LogDNA
  • Loki
  • Plausible
  • Datadog
  • PostHog

Yes, it is a lot of logos. No, I did not learn them all last week.

About

Who I am

I am a full stack engineer based in Dakar. I started out shipping sites and apps for Senegalese SMEs and ended up building the platforms that run them: escrow marketplaces, multi-tenant restaurant SaaS, rental management, waste collection, live video consultations. The through-line never changes — a Laravel backend that owns the truth, a Next.js frontend that trusts nothing, and infrastructure I deploy and administer myself.

Since 2025 most of my work has been applied AI rather than demos. Synka Sphere came out of one conviction: an assistant that answers is worth little, an agent that acts — and asks permission before the risky actions — is worth a lot. In practice that means RAG with sourced citations, strict per-workspace isolation, background queues, and a human in the loop exactly where it matters.

I also write tools for myself when nothing exists. Orchestra is an open-source Go CLI that supervises several coding agents, validates every result through build → lint → test, and writes nothing to disk without explicit approval. That is the kind of problem I enjoy: few dependencies, clear contracts, and a verification loop that does not lie.

Before that I trained developers at Gomycode and advised Senegal's Ministry of Finance on digitising its mail service. Being able to explain an architecture to someone who does not write code is still one of the most useful things I ever learned.

Download CVView CV
Experience

  1. Full Stack & AI Engineer

    07/2026 — Present

    Compagnie Prestige Immobilier

    • —Designed, built and deployed the CPI enrolment platform, from domain modelling through to production release.
    • —Owned the group's entire web estate: content, performance and search visibility.
    • —Introduced AI tooling for automation and content generation, and trained the teams to use it day to day.
    • —Administered the company's physical servers and the VPS hosting its sites: deployments, security and backups.
    • —Managed Microsoft 365 and its admin centre: accounts, licensing and security.

  2. IT Manager

    2025

    Hengxing International

    • —Maintained and optimised the company's internal networks.
    • —Ran the website and supervised business-critical IT operations.
    • —Improved service continuity and technical support.

  3. Web Development Instructor

    2024 — 2025

    Gomycode

    • —Trained students and working professionals in modern web development.
    • —Supervised MERN and MEAN projects from design through to final review.
    • —Authored course material and mentored learners one to one.

  4. Consultant — Mail Service Optimisation

    2024 — 2025

    Ministère des Finances du Sénégal

    • —Analysed and optimised internal document-management processes.
    • —Introduced digital solutions that improved operational efficiency.

  5. Full Stack Developer

    2024

    Shikam Group

    • —Built full stack web applications in React and Node.js.
    • —Hardened API security and improved search performance.
    • —Set up development, staging and production environments.

  6. Full Stack Web Developer

    2023 — 2024

    Kati360

    • —Designed and deployed complete web applications.
    • —Modelled and optimised both relational and NoSQL databases.
    • —Built responsive interfaces and optimised performance.

  7. React Developer

    2023 — 2024

    Lansar Engineering

    • —Rebuilt the company website from scratch in React.
    • —Improved search visibility and user experience.
Contact

Let's talk about your project

A freelance engagement, a role, or just a technical question — send me a note. I reply within 24 hours.

Or reach me at
Based in
Dakar, Senegal
Timezone
GMT+0