I design and build software systems that prioritize deterministic behavior, data integrity, security, and operational reliability.
My work spans simulation engineering, local-first financial infrastructure, autonomous media pipelines, secure transactional platforms, and distributed monitoring.
Engineering philosophy: Build systems that preserve their history, explain their state, and behave predictably under pressure.
An interconnected portfolio exploring different layers of software engineering, from deterministic simulation and financial domain models to secure applications and automated infrastructure.
Simulated Reality Engine · C++20 · Python
An open-world life simulation project focused on autonomous agents, persistent memories, social dynamics, and deterministic world evolution.
- Deterministic simulation ticks, scheduling, and world coordination.
- NPC memory decay, witness-specific memories, and rumor propagation.
- Social beliefs, trust, relationships, and personality-driven interpretation.
- Evidence-driven justice and institutional decision models.
- Canonical snapshots, replay-safe persistence, and composite world checkpoints.
- Portable C++20 core with Python reference implementations.
Status: Simulation core in progress. Unreal Engine presentation and integration are not yet implemented.
Content Processing Pipeline · Python
A modular pipeline for media ingestion, quality checks, perceptual duplicate detection, watermarking, and publishing.
- Supported-source ingestion, currently including Reddit.
- Pillow-based image processing and watermarking.
- 64-bit Difference Hashing (dHash) for perceptual duplicate detection.
- Engagement thresholds and sidecar metadata validation.
- Atomic, idempotent pipeline operations.
- SHA-256 verified manifests and GitHub Actions automation.
- Optional Bluesky publishing integration.
Local-First Financial Infrastructure · React · TypeScript · Supabase
A multi-currency wealth tracker built around financial domain state, transaction provenance, reconciliation, and resilient synchronization.
- Multi-currency accounts, transfers, and FX handling.
- Historical wealth snapshots and cached/live exchange rates.
- Local CSV/XLSX statement import and receipt OCR.
- Offline bank-sync queueing and local-first application behavior.
- Supabase-backed provider data, webhook persistence, and reconciliation.
- Duplicate fingerprints, transaction provenance, and operational diagnostics.
- PWA architecture and versioned local-state migration.
Architecture note: the bootstrap persistence layer uses localStorage; the hardened bank synchronization boundary uses Supabase.
Student P2P Marketplace · React · Vite · Supabase · PostgreSQL
A university-focused marketplace with identity controls, server-authoritative transaction workflows, and automated escrow state transitions.
- University email-domain gating.
- FingerprintJS device identification and WebAuthn passkeys.
- EXIF metadata analysis and GPS boundary checks.
- Seven-state escrow workflow and QR-based release verification.
- PostgreSQL-enforced transactional rules and Supabase Edge Functions.
- Realtime marketplace activity, study pools, and gig workflows.
- PWA offline support and automated security testing.
Change Detection Infrastructure · Node.js · GitHub Actions
A lightweight monitor for public University of Lagos feeds. It detects both newly published posts and meaningful edits to existing posts.
- Zero runtime dependencies.
- RSS ingestion and WordPress post-ID tracking.
- SHA-256 fingerprints over tag-stripped content.
- New-post and modified-post detection.
- Git-backed persistent state.
- Telegram alerts with retry-safe state advancement.
- Scheduled GitHub Actions execution every 30 minutes.
| Domain | Technologies |
|---|---|
| Systems programming | C++20, CMake |
| Runtime & backend | Node.js, Python 3.10+, TypeScript |
| Frontend | React 18, Vite, Tailwind CSS |
| Data & persistence | PostgreSQL, Supabase, localStorage |
| Application architecture | Local-first, PWA, domain-driven modeling |
| Security | WebAuthn, passkeys, FingerprintJS, EXIF validation |
| Automation & vision | GitHub Actions, Pillow, dHash, SHA-256 |
| Infrastructure | CI/CD, REST APIs, Edge Functions, pg_cron |
- Determinism: Prefer reproducible execution and explicit state transitions.
- Data integrity: Preserve transaction history and enforce invariants at authoritative boundaries.
- Security by architecture: Treat identity, authorization, and sensitive state changes as system responsibilities.
- Resilience: Design useful behavior for unreliable networks and partial failures.
- Observability: Make system state, diagnostics, and failure paths inspectable.
- Modularity: Use explicit contracts and independently testable components.
I document implementation progress, experiments, architectural decisions, and technical milestones in my development journal.
Daily-Log → · All repositories →
- GitHub: github.com/michaelkage
- Portfolio gateway: michaelkage.github.io
Engineering systems that are deterministic by design, resilient by architecture, and useful in the real world.