Stefan Cronje

About Me

Passionate engineer building the future

Principal Software Engineer & Technical Leader

With over 7+ years of experience, I specialise in building and growing high-performing engineering teams — from hiring and onboarding to career development, performance management, and hands-on technical leadership across complex, large-scale programmes.

People-First, Technically Grounded

I lead by earning trust through technical credibility. I've managed distributed teams across South Africa, India, and the UK — running structured 1-on-1s, career progression frameworks, and performance reviews while staying deeply involved in architecture, DevOps, and delivery.

Location Birmingham, UK

Age 32

Email cronjestefan@gmail.com

Hobbies Enduro riding, Training, Gaming

Honours Degree

Computer Science Cum Laude

2016

Microsoft Imagine Cup

Winner - Hexafit Project

2016

Golden Key Society

Top 10 At University of Johannesburg Academic Excellence

2015

Technical Expertise

Mastering the tools that matter

Backend Development

Java Expert

Spring Framework Advanced

.NET Core Proficient

Database Design Proficient

Frontend Development

JavaScript Expert

Angular Advanced

HTML5 Advanced

CSS3 Proficient

Leadership & Management

Team Leadership Advanced

Hiring & Talent Acquisition Advanced

Performance & Career Development Advanced

Stakeholder Management Advanced

Agile / SAFe (RTE) Advanced

Distributed Team Management Advanced

DevOps & Tools

Jenkins Expert

Terraform Expert

Octopus Deploy Advanced

Elasticsearch Intermediate

Professional Journey

Building excellence through experience

Principal Software Engineer

Entelect Software Jan 2023 - Present

Corporate Health Insurance

Manage a distributed team of up to 15 engineers across the UK, India, and South Africa — running structured 1-on-1s, career progression plans, and bi-annual performance reviews
Own the full hiring cycle: sourcing, technical interviewing, and onboarding engineers at multiple levels
Drive technical leadership and architecture decisions across full-stack delivery
Lead client engagement and stakeholder communication, iterating solutions based on business feedback
Delivered B2B policy management platform, corporate activity challenges, and quote & apply journeys

People Management Hiring Leadership DevOps Architecture Full-Stack .Net Java React GraphQL Sitecore

Team Lead

Entelect Software Jan 2022 - Dec 2022

Rapid Payments Programme (RPP)

Led and mentored a team of engineers through delivery of a high-stakes national payments programme
Responsible for team performance, career development conversations, and engineering standards
Architected cloud solutions and implemented DevOps pipelines on Azure
Integrated with Bankserv Africa payment rails (pain.001 & pain.002 ISO 20022 messaging)
Built custom corporate bulk payment platform

People Management Leadership DevOps Architecture Full-Stack .Net Angular Azure

Project Lead & Release Train Engineer

Entelect Software Aug 2019 - Dec 2021

Corporate Investment Banking

Led cross-functional engineering teams across multiple squads, coordinating delivery as Release Train Engineer (SAFe)
Owned the entire cloud infrastructure for the bank's Corporate Investment Banking division — AKS, ACR, Key Vault, App & API Gateway, all Terraform-managed
Managed client and executive stakeholder relationships, driving alignment between business and engineering
Governed solution architecture and enforced engineering standards across the programme
Bloomberg and Reuters forex integration; full-stack .NET and Angular delivery

SAFe / RTE People Management Leadership Terraform Azure / AKS Architecture .Net Angular Python

Intermediate Software Engineer

Entelect Software Apr 2017 - Jul 2019

Cell C Video Streaming Platform

Built scalable streaming content management systems and transcoding pipeline
Developed payment portals and mobile applications
Implemented microservice architecture on AWS EKS
React and React Native development

AWS Microservices React Mobile Java Spring

Full Stack Engineer & Project SME

Entelect Software Mar 2017 - Dec 2018

Forensic Case Management System

Complete system rewrite for Discovery's forensics platform
Built automated repayment and incentive systems
Implemented case management and document generation
Quality assurance and user management systems

System Design Automation Document Gen QA Systems Java Jquery

Featured Projects

Innovation in action

BattleFit - Garmin integrated

Fitness app that allows you to compete with anyone in any discipline at any skill level.

Mobile App PWA Java Angular Social Gamification of fitness

Corporate Investment Banking Infrastructure

Corporate Investment Bank Infrastructure

Architected and built the entire cloud infrastructure for a well-known bank's Corporate Investment Banking division. Delivered a fully Terraform-managed platform covering AKS clusters, DevOps pipelines, Azure Container Registry, Key Vault, App Gateway, and API Gateway — enabling the complete environment to be recreated at the click of a button.

Azure Terraform AKS DevOps IaC

RewardForge

Digital Loyalty Program & Rewards Program for Small Businesses. Create a digital rewards program in minutes — replace paper punch cards with a QR code loyalty program that boosts repeat customers by 300%. The easiest way to launch a rewards program for your cafe, restaurant, or shop.

Loyalty QR Code SaaS