About Me

Software Engineering Manager

I am Sylvan Smit, a South African living in Berlin. I am currently working as a Software Development Manager at AWS, but have worked as a software engineer until 2023. I am interested in software and hardware engineering topics, and that is what I studied. In my free time, I play Ultimate Frisbee competitively, having represented South Africa on the international stage.

In 2018, after completing a degree in Mechatronics Engineering, I began my career as a firmware engineer, writing hardware abstraction libraries and application layer code for a small startup in Cape Town. Then, I transitioned to a more traditional software engineering role at Amazon Web Services. I worked on the EC2 Nitro Hypervisor, specifically to the kernel powering it and aspects of memory management.

In 2023, I started a new path, moving into management, which has allowed me to explore and develop more soft skills, project and performance management. This has been incredibly gratifying, in a completely different way to the satisfaction I have felt from programming solutions myself. Nonetheless, I am still excited to continue growing in both directions, expanding my knowledge, in breadth and in depth.

Professional Experience

Amazon Web Services, Berlin

Software Development Manager, Jul 2023 – Present

I lead the Linux Kernel team in the EC2 Nitro Hypervisor organization. My team is responsible for maintaining and upgrading the kernel, as well as triaging and mitigating all security issues, both internal and embargoed.

  • Created all team processes including implementing Scrum, designing our operations model, and security status reporting.
  • Managed a team of 8 engineers, growing it from 6, and managed 5 intern projects.
  • Triaged and mitigated over 50 embargoed security events with zero embargo breaches.

Amazon Web Services, Cape Town/Berlin

Software Development Engineer, Aug 2021 – Jul 2023

I was responsible for developing novel dynamic memory allocation schemes for oversubscribed virtual machines and developing a new macOS based hypervisor in the EC2 Nitro system.

  • Implemented Rust applications that deployed to 1000s of servers.
  • Created a network driver in Rust, with 10Gbps of bandwidth.

Plentify, Cape Town

Embedded Software Engineer, Nov 2018 – Jul 2021

I was the core Embedded Software Engineer for Plentify’s initial product, HotBot, which is now installed in thousands of South African homes.

  • Wrote the hardware abstraction layer, drivers and application code for HotBot.
  • Designed and built an encrypted OTA firmware update solution, and implemented a temperature control scheme using a finite state machine, allowing for fully emulated testing and validation.
  • Implemented a subsection of the IEEE 802.15.4 WPAN stack, to connect hundreds of devices via a mesh network.

Education

University of Cape Town
Bachelor of Science in Mechatronics Engineering (Honours)
2015 - 2018
GPA: 75%

Skills

Management

  • Project Planning
  • Agile/Scrum
  • Performance Management
  • Technical Writing
  • Technical Interviewing

Software Development

  • Languages: Rust, Python, C
  • Frameworks/Domains: Async/Await, Kernel, Embedded