Noel Young - Software Engineer

Stefan Walke

Engineering Manager

Actindo AG

I had the opportunity to work with Noel for over two years, during which he consistently proved himself to be a highly reliable and capable software engineer. Beyond his strong technical foundation, what stood out most was his sense of ownership. He took end-to-end responsibility for his work, communicated clearly with both internal teams and external stakeholders, and always pushed tasks through to completion.

One of his most impactful contributions was integrating a complex payment process into an already established business workflow. It was a challenging piece of work with many dependencies, and he handled it with professionalism and care.

I would confidently recommend Noel for any senior software engineer role. He brings solid technical skills, strong communication, and a dependable work ethic to any team.

Richards Saji

QA Lead

Actindo AG

I had the opportunity to work with Noel, a dependable and collaborative Senior Backend Engineer, during our work on the Nintendo project at Actindo, including the major Payment Gateway migration initiative.

Noel is the kind of engineer every QA wishes to work with. His documentation is clear, thoughtful, and genuinely helpful, making it effortless to understand the flow, impacts, and expectations of each feature. He consistently provided meaningful implementation notes and straightforward testing guidance that saved time, eliminated confusion, and made the entire QA process faster and more reliable.

One thing that genuinely stood out: his tickets were always a pleasure to test. They were well-prepared, stable, and often passed on the first run. That level of quality doesn’t happen by accident—it reflects his strong discipline, careful thinking, and commitment to doing things right.

Beyond the technical side, Noel is proactive, calm under pressure, and always ready to support the team. From day one, he brought steady contribution, ownership, and maturity to the project. His communication is direct and effective, and working with him feels smooth, productive, and truly collaborative.

Noel is not just a strong backend engineer—he’s a team player who elevates everyone around him. Any team would be lucky to have him, and I highly recommend him without hesitation.

Mike Rockétt

Lead Software Developer

Megafreight Services

Noel and I worked together for nearly two years, building features to replace a legacy exports forwarding system that was being shut down. While I focused on operational functions, Noel concentrated on the financial side, from invoicing, to financial-system integrations, to approvals and reporting. We worked closely to ensure everything came together seamlessly, and I was impressed by the meticulous thought he put into both understanding problems and crafting their solutions.

His work was excellent, and he developed valuable expertise and knowledge in freight forwarding – an industry that anyone seasoned enough will tell you is far from straightforward – as well as financial business functions more broadly.

Noel is an excellent backend engineer, and any team would be lucky to have him.

Stefan Müller

Senior Account Director

Thinkproject

I’ve had the privilege of knowing Noel for many years, and in that time he has consistently impressed me with his extraordinary intelligence, discipline, and integrity. Noel is one of the most meticulous and calculated individuals I’ve ever met. He approaches every challenge with a level of thoughtfulness and precision that is rare, and it’s no surprise that he is a member of Mensa. His analytical ability and problem-solving skills are truly exceptional.

Beyond his intellectual strengths, Noel possesses an extraordinary capacity for self-discipline. Having completed numerous ultramarathons, he has repeatedly demonstrated a level of commitment, resilience, and mental toughness that few people ever develop. Whether he is pursuing personal goals or taking on professional responsibilities, Noel approaches everything with the same relentless determination to achieve excellence.

Any organisation would be fortunate to have someone of Noel’s calibre. He brings intelligence, focus, reliability, and a deep sense of purpose to everything he does. I consider myself fortunate to call him a long-time friend, and I wholeheartedly recommend him.

Lourens Nortje

Managing Director

Starbright Solutions

I had the pleasure of working with Noel as a PHP developer at our company from 2011 to 2014. He started with no PHP knowledge, but he put in the work to learn it thoroughly. In just a short time, he turned into a reliable PHP developer, handling all the skills you'd expect from someone with years on the job.

Noel always stepped up, taking charge and owning every task we gave him. He played a key part in building our development process, creating benchmarks for developers and designing assessments for new hires. He showed real leadership and drive throughout.

On top of that, Noel kept pushing himself by studying while holding down his full-time role. If I had the chance to hire him again? Absolutely, without a doubt.

Alain Jacquet

Managing Director

SABEeX

When I began development of the SABEeX Delivery Management System, I engaged Noel Young as an energetic and skilled developer. During his time with SABEeX, he built the original platform that is today one of the world's leading Online Procurement Platforms.

His insight into the architecture design and robust construction helped to establish a legacy. He went on to build services other world-renowned platforms

He's a legend!

Nintendo Payment Gateway

Actindo AG, Germany

Nintendo was one of our larger customers, and they had made the decision to move from the Adyen payment gateway to their own in-house solution. This required integrating a complex payment process into an already established business workflow. It was a challenging piece of work with many dependencies.

This involved developing new API integration using REST and OAUTH, setting up test cases, and then implementing into a workflow to automate the processes.

Client communication was key, as they were developing their API in parallel.

Tech Used

PHP Backend (with HHVM)
REST Api Integrations
Polymer Frontend
MySQL Database
Linux Server Deployment

Netsuite Integrations

Megafreight Services, South Africa

Designed and implemented multiple NetSuite API integrations using the SOAP protocol in PHP to support core finance operations within a freight-forwarding environment. The integrations enabled secure, reliable bi-directional data exchange between internal systems and NetSuite, including customer financials, invoices, disbursements, and ledger-related data.

Developed a disbursement control module to enforce financial governance across freight operations, ensuring that supplier payments, client charges, and operational costs were validated against predefined rules and approval thresholds before execution. This significantly reduced manual reconciliation, improved auditability, and minimized financial risk.

In parallel, built a management-level finance dashboard that aggregated NetSuite data into a high-level overview of client financial health. This included real-time visibility into balances, outstanding invoices, cash flow exposure, and client profitability, enabling senior stakeholders to make informed strategic and operational decisions without requiring direct access to NetSuite.

The solution emphasized data integrity, fault-tolerant SOAP communication, and clear separation between integration logic and business rules, resulting in a scalable and maintainable financial integration layer.

Tech Used

PHP & Laravel
SOAP Api Integrations
VueJS Frontend
PostgreSQL Database
AWS Server Deployments

Hosted VoIP Switchboard

Switch Telecom, South Africa

Designed and built a fully operational hosted VoIP switchboard solution using the Asterisk platform, this allowed users to set configuration settings from a web frontend which was built using PHP and AngularJS.

Features included call routing, voicemail, IVR menus, call recording, and user management.

The system was deployed on Linux servers and integrated with SIP trunk providers for external calling.

Tech Used

Asterisk PBX
PHP Backend
AngularJS Frontend
MySQL Database
Linux Server Deployment

Nift - New Car Quotes

Nift.co.za, South Africa

Founded and developed a New car aggregation website with a friend of mine. The site helped a new car buyer get the best quotes on a new car by allowing the user to find the car they wanted to buy from car dealerships on our network within a user specified area.

We had grown our dealership network to over 150 and were starting to get some small amounts of traction but really needed funding to take it further.

ABSA, one of the big 4 banks in South Africa, were really interested and through a series of investor meetings we worked our way up to the CIO pitching to the Barclays Africa seeker fund. Unfortunately, the bank had a change in direction and did not award us the funding.

Careers and personal life proved too much for the idea and it was shut down.

Tech Used

PHP 5.6 with a custom built MVC framework
MySQL Database
JQuery on the Frontend
Shared Hosting with a bit of a hack for Cron runs
Google Maps API integration

"Results-focused" Software Engineer

About Me

Notable Projects

Nintendo Payment Gateway

Netsuite Integrations

Hosted VoIP Switchboard

New Car Aggregator

Skills

Backend

Frontend

DevOps & Tools

Architecture & Patterns

Recommendations

Stefan Walke

Richards Saji

Mike Rockétt

Stefan Müller

Lourens Nortje

Alain Jacquet

Get In Touch

Stefan Walke

Richards Saji

Mike Rockétt

Stefan Müller

Lourens Nortje

Alain Jacquet

Nintendo Payment Gateway

Tech Used

Netsuite Integrations

Tech Used

Hosted VoIP Switchboard

Tech Used

Nift - New Car Quotes

Tech Used