Atenkosi Andile Mnikina
AI Engineer | Python Developer
Cape Town, South Africa
andilemnikina17@gmail.com | 068 528
2060
Professional Summary
I’m a AI Engineer and Python Developer with a background spanning technology, quality assurance, retail operations, and entrepreneurship. I’m passionate about building reliable backend systems, developing intelligent automation solutions, and using technology to solve real-world business problems. Currently, I’m gaining hands-on experience as a Backend AI Engineer Intern at FlyRank AI, where I’ve worked on a multi-tenant usage metering and billing system built with FastAPI, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, Docker, and Stripe. My work includes developing REST APIs, implementing authentication and billing workflows, managing usage tracking, and writing automated tests — with a test suite achieving 21 passing tests. My technical interests extend to AI-powered applications, API development, database design, authentication systems, and workflow automation using tools such as n8n, Make.com, and Zapier. I enjoy understanding how systems work behind the scenes and finding practical ways to make them more efficient, secure, and scalable. Before transitioning into technology, I spent five years at Cape Union Mart as a Product Specialist, where I developed strong customer service, communication, and operational problem-solving skills. I later worked in entrepreneurship, launching a local ice business that taught me valuable lessons about resilience, adaptability, and the realities of building a business from the ground up. For the past three years, I’ve worked at Africa Direct Group as a QA Specialist, focusing on quality assurance, document verification, sales data analysis, cross-departmental calibration, and process compliance. This experience has strengthened my attention to detail, analytical thinking, and ability to identify inconsistencies, uphold standards, and support informed management decisions. In 2025, I founded CreativeSide AI, an automation agency focused on helping small and medium-sized businesses streamline operations through AI and workflow automation. This initiative reflects my belief that technology should do more than solve technical problems — it should create measurable business value and give people more time to focus on what matters. What connects my experience across these different fields is a commitment to continuous learning, structured problem-solving, and building systems that deliver practical results. I bring a combination of technical curiosity, quality-focused thinking, business awareness, and a willingness to take on challenging problems. I’m continuing to grow as a Backend AI Engineer, building practical projects and strengthening my expertise in Python, backend development, databases, APIs, and AI-driven automation. I’m particularly interested in opportunities where I can contribute to meaningful engineering work, collaborate with experienced teams, and help turn complex business requirements into reliable software solutions. My goal is simple: to build technology that works reliably, solves real problems, and makes a measurable difference.
Core Skills
Projects
Churn Risk Analyzer
Developed a predictive analytics tool to identify customer churn risks, enabling proactive retention strategies. Built data pipelines to process customer behavior metrics and generated actionable risk scores.
FlyRank Metering & Billing Engine
Built a multi-tenant backend for API usage metering, quotas, monthly summaries, billing and subscription management. Implemented idempotency, tenant isolation, quota enforcement, and Stripe Checkout.
Auth Login & Protect API
Built a REST authentication backend with signup, login, and protected endpoints. Integrated Supabase Auth and JWT token validation; tested via Swagger/OpenAPI.
Backend AI Portfolio
Built a FastAPI backend serving structured portfolio data through REST endpoints. Designed PostgreSQL structures, separated routes, models and database layers.
Polite Web Scraper
Built a data pipeline for the first three catalogue pages of Books to Scrape, processing 60 unique books. Extracted title, URL, price, and availability with structured JSON output.
FlyRank AI Backend Assignment
Built a simple Task Management API using FastAPI and SQLite. Demonstrates full CRUD operations with a real database, automatic table creation, and Swagger documentation.