Nico van Pletzen

Pretoria, South Africa

Nico van Pletzen

Full Stack Software Developer · Network Manager · Director

About

I'm a full stack software developer building with PHP/Laravel, JavaScript, Python, HTML5/CSS and MySQL. Software development is my current career focus.

Before that I spent 10 years in the telecommunications industry across network, server, support and management roles, including running the technical side of a company as a director. That background means I understand the infrastructure my software runs on: Linux (CentOS), MikroTik, Cisco IOS, virtualization and databases.

Experience

  1. Full Stack Software Developer

    nCloud Hosting

  2. Senior Tech / Network Manager / Director

    UGN Telecommunications

  3. Red Site Reporting / Network Support

    CM Value Added Services

  4. Field Technician / Wireless Engineer / Desktop Support

    Uniwisp

Skills

Software Development

  • HTML5 / CSS
  • JavaScript
  • Python (v3.0+)
  • PHP / Laravel

Infrastructure & Networking

  • Networking fundamentals (physical, wireless, virtual)
  • OSI & TCP/IP
  • VoIP
  • Scripting
  • Virtualization (ESXi, Nutanix CE)
  • Databases (MySQL, MariaDB)
  • Linux (CentOS)
  • MikroTik
  • Cisco IOS

Projects

Selected work, described in general terms. Source code is private.

Client & Membership Management Platform

Contributed to a client management system covering user and member management, payments, and continual monitoring and updating of members. Access is controlled through custom-built roles, so each authenticated user only sees what they are permitted to.

  • Laravel
  • Vue 3
  • Inertia
  • Tailwind
  • Queues (Horizon)
  • WebSockets (Reverb)
  • Payment gateway
  • Role-based access
  • Audit logging
  • Excel/PDF exports

Incident & Case Management Platform

Contributed to a large, multi-module platform for logging and tracking cases end to end, with scheduling, rich-text records, document generation, push notifications, full-text search and AI-assisted features.

  • Laravel
  • Vue 3
  • Inertia
  • Horizon queues
  • Scout search
  • Firebase push
  • S3 storage
  • OpenAI API
  • FullCalendar
  • Rich-text editor
  • Sentry

Firearm Management System

Main contributor to a system for tracking and controlling firearms from procurement through allocation, with maintenance, training and reporting, and a complete chain-of-custody trail.

  • Laravel
  • Vue 3
  • Inertia
  • Tailwind
  • Role-based permissions
  • Audit logging
  • PDF reports

Learning Management System

Contributed to an online learning platform with interactive course content, live and recorded video lessons, document viewing, QR-code check-in, and browser-based face detection.

  • Laravel
  • Vue 3
  • Pinia
  • Tailwind
  • H5P
  • Zoom SDK
  • Vimeo
  • face-api.js
  • Playwright tests

Support Ticketing System

Built a ticketing front end and API pair: a Nuxt-based site backed by a Laravel service with background job processing.

  • Nuxt
  • Vue 3
  • Laravel
  • Inertia
  • Horizon queues
  • REST API

Payments Reconciliation Tool

Built a Laravel tool that imports payment-gateway statements and reconciles them against system records.

  • Laravel
  • CSV import
  • MySQL
  • Tailwind

Recipe App & Pattern Analysis

Personal learning project: a Laravel recipe app with an Alpine.js interface, plus a Python script for analysing pattern data.

  • Laravel
  • Alpine.js
  • Tailwind
  • Python
  • Sanctum API auth

wastesometime.co.za

A personal website project that I improve as I learn.

  • HTML5
  • CSS
  • JavaScript