I am Sylvan Smit, a South African living in Berlin. Most recently, I worked as a software development manager at AWS and previously as an embedded software engineer. I have now founded my own coaching business, Personalis. In my free time, I play and coach frisbee competitively, having represented South Africa on the international stage.
I am passionate about systems thinking, and how it may apply to all parts of my life. This blog is for me to talk about any and all things that interest me or I am working on. If you would like to contact me, you can use my email or find me on LinkedIn.
Professional Experience
Amazon Web Services, Berlin
Software Development Manager, Jul 2023 – Aug 2025
I led the Linux Kernel team in the EC2 Nitro Hypervisor organization. My team was 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%