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Irfaan Sulaiman

@irfaansulaiman

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I design enterprise cloud, data, and AI platforms from architecture through production.

South Africa

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What I'm looking for

I'm looking for remote or hybrid opportunities where I can lead or deliver enterprise cloud, data, and AI platforms, combining hands-on engineering with architecture, governance, mentoring, and stakeholder engagement.

I've designed and delivered cloud, data, and AI systems for Condorgreen, Offernet, MTN, Mastercard, and Old Mutual. Most recently, I delivered a greenfield ETL and analytics pipeline at Condorgreen and built executive Power BI KPI dashboards.

At Offernet, I led Data Engineers and built production Gemini AI chatbots for Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, alongside reusable RAG and GCP data-platform frameworks. My 25+ years in architecture and 15 years in full-stack development let me lead enterprise delivery teams or make practical architecture decisions hands-on.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Data Architect

Condorgreen

Oct 2025 - Jan 2026 (3 months)

Sole Data Architect on a two-person team; owned all design, development, and governance decisions for a greenfield GCP data & analytics pipeline. Delivered a fully operational ETL pipeline to Development within a 4-month contract.

GCP Azure SQL Database Azure Data Factory ETL T SQL Power BI Cost Governance

Lead / Senior Data Architect (AI-Integrated Systems)

Offernet

Feb 2025 - Sep 2025 (7 months)

Led and mentored 4 Data Engineers; set architecture standards and owned the full GCP technology stack. Architected and built two production AI chatbots using Python, Cloud Functions, BigQuery, and Gemini AI.

GCP BigQuery App Engine Cloud Functions Pub Sub Vertex AI Cloud Memorystore Python Gemini RAG ETL Looker Cost Governance

Lead / Senior Lead Solutions and Data Architect

Rosstone / ioco (contracted to MTN)

Feb 2022 - Aug 2024 (2 years 6 months)

Led and mentored 3 Data Engineers delivering data & analytics pipelines for MTN's MyMTN and MTN Play platforms across GCP and Azure. Owned dual-cloud architecture and cost governance over a 30-month engagement.

GCP BigQuery App Engine Pub Sub Cloud Functions Azure Data Factory SQL Server App Services Python Go Looker Power BI Cost Governance

Solutions Architect & CTO

The Jobs Junction / MuslimGoTo / Upwork

Apr 2021 - Dec 2021 (8 months)

Acted as CTO and Lead Solutions Architect across several small ventures and freelance projects, covering solutions architecture, data modelling, and full-stack development. Designed and built a job-matching platform from Business Requirements Document through to production deployment.

React TypeScript Vue.Js C#Python MySQL SQL Server Solutions Architect Data Modeling Web Scraping SQL

Senior Software Engineer

Mastercard

Feb 2017 - Nov 2017 (9 months)

Led a small cross-functional team maintaining and extending Mastercard applications. Owned technology and architecture decisions for application maintenance and new builds within Mastercard's technical standards.

C#SQL Server Web Stack Performance Analysis Performance Optimization

Solutions Architect, Data Analyst & Software Engineer

Old Mutual

Jan 1984 - Dec 2016 (32 years 11 months)

Progressed from Software Programmer through Technical Architect, Solutions Architect, Scrum Master, and Digital Architect to CTO-level architecture responsibility over a 32-year tenure. Led multiple delivery teams up to 21 staff across enterprise integration and application delivery for Old Mutual's global subsidiaries.