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Open to full-time and contract roles — Forward Deployed, Backend, and AI Engineering

Yonas Mekonnen.

Forward Deployed Engineer | Backend & AI Systems Engineer. 3+ years shipping production systems in Node.js, Python, and Go, now building AI-native systems across agents, evaluation, data pipelines, and ML.

Currently building banking APIs at EagleLion. Completed the Tenacious Intelligence Program at 10 Academy: nine one-week client builds shipping complete systems from ambiguous requirements.

3+ yrs shipping·Published on HuggingFace·npm: safe-fetch-mcp-server·EagleLion (banking APIs)
See selected work→Get in touch
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

01.About

I'm a backend-focused engineer with three years of shipping production systems: Node, Go, and Python on the backend, with React and Next.js when the work calls for a frontend. My comfort zone is taking a vague requirement, drawing the schema, and having something usable on staging by end of week.

Lately I've gone deeper into AI systems: building multi-agent workflows in LangGraph, exposing tools to LLMs through MCP, and training LoRA adapters to fix specific failure modes found in prior projects. I like that AI work sits on top of the same fundamentals that make good backends: schemas, contracts, observability, and boring reliability.

Before that I was tuning Postgres for high-traffic banking APIs at EagleLion System Technologies, where I still spend part of my week. I completed the Tenacious Intelligence Recruitment Program at 10 Academy earlier this year: nine one-week client briefs building agentic, ML, and data systems from ambiguous prompts.

Currently open to Forward Deployed, Backend, and AI Engineering roles, remote or Addis Ababa.

02.Experience

  1. Backend Developer @ EagleLion System Technologies

    Aug 2024–Present · Addis Ababa
    • ▸Designed and shipped REST APIs in Node.js + PostgreSQL with sub-100ms response times on critical endpoints (~40% faster on rewritten paths).
    • ▸Refactored services to clean architecture, cutting onboarding time for new engineers by ~30%.
    • ▸Tuned SQL queries, indexes, and schemas for high-traffic endpoints, reducing latency by ~25%.
    Node.jsPostgreSQLDockerGitHub Actions

  2. Forward Deployed EngineerProgram

    10 Academy · Tenacious Intelligence Recruitment Program

    Mar 2026–May 2026 · Remote
    • ▸Shipped a working ML, agentic, or data system every week from an ambiguous client-style brief: nine one-week delivery cycles.
    • ▸Built multi-agent workflows in LangGraph and exposed governance tools to LLMs through MCP.
    • ▸Wrote data contracts and schema validators that caught silent corruption and statistical drift, tracing violations back through lineage graphs.
    • ▸Trained LoRA adapters with SFT + DPO on a 200-task benchmark I built; published the dataset and model card on HuggingFace.
    LangGraphMCPLoRAPostgreSQLPython

  3. Software Engineer @ Independent Projects & Contract Work

    Oct 2023–Jul 2024 · Remote
    • ▸Backend systems and APIs for several clients, mostly clean-architecture Node and Python services.
    • ▸Went deeper on system design, database tuning, and observability through real client work.
    Node.jsPythonPostgreSQL

  4. Software Engineer @ EagleLion System Technology

    May 2023–Sep 2023 · Addis Ababa
    • ▸Built backend services in Express.js + MongoDB for a skill-based recruitment platform matching candidates by skills, experience, and location.
    • ▸Implemented JWT auth and role-based access control for recruiter and applicant flows.
    • ▸Tuned MongoDB schemas, indexes, and aggregations for ~40% faster candidate search.
    Express.jsMongoDBJWT
Download full resume (PDF)↓

03.Selected Work

Four projects that show the range: security infrastructure, AI agent systems, ML evaluation, and production backend engineering. The full archive is one click away.

2026·shipped

Safe-Fetch MCP Server

An MCP fetch server built around one unified security pipeline, closing the SSRF gaps the reference implementation ships without.

62 unit tests, zero secondary fetch path

TypeScriptNode.jsZodMCP
2026·shipped

Oracle Forge

A multi-database analytics agent that integrates every prior TRP1 system (auditor, refinery, cartographer, event store, and contract enforcer) into one compound system.

10 Academy TRP · Capstone week

5 prior systems integrated into 1 compound agent

PythonLangGraphPostgreSQLMongoDBDuckDB
2026·shipped

Tenacious-Bench: Sales Agent Evaluation & LoRA Fine-Tuning

A 200-task benchmark built through multi-LLM synthesis with judge filtering. Trained LoRA adapters with SFT, DPO, and a process-reward model to target a specific failure mode.

200-task benchmark, published on HuggingFace

PythonLoRASFTDPOProcess Reward Model
2024·shipped

Dashen Super App: Mobile Banking Platform

Backend services for a mobile banking super app used by one of Ethiopia's largest banks. Secure transaction APIs, auth, RBAC, and tuned hot paths for high transaction volume.

Production banking APIs at national scale

Node.jsPostgreSQLJWTRBAC
View all projects→

04. Contact

Let's build something.

Open to Forward Deployed, Backend, and AI Infrastructure roles. Reach out. I'll get back within a day.

myonas886@gmail.com→