Systems Engineer & AI Architect
Regulated platforms • Agentic AI • Rust/TypeScript monorepos • DeFi & regenerative agriculture

Currently: CTO (part-time) at Phoenix VC. Open to remote .NET / architecture contracts from July 2026. Gauteng, South Africa · LinkedIn · phoenixvc.tech

I work where AI, legacy systems, and real-world risk collide:

• Agent/LLM platforms with governance, cost & telemetry baked in
• DeFi / chain systems that have actual risk math, not just vibes
• Farm & land systems where business plans, software, and soil line up
• Delivery / IaC / PR automation that makes all of this repeatable

Most active work now happens in the organisations:

• Phoenix VC — AI platforms for storytelling, enterprise intelligence and developer ops (TypeScript · .NET · Rust · Azure). Active repos: cognitive-mesh (agent/LLM platform, .NET 10), retort (AI-orchestration framework), baton (human+agent task graph, MCP), sluice (AI gateway on Azure Container Apps), codeflow-engine (multi-agent PR automation), deck (Tauri desktop ops). Mystira — interactive storytelling app for children — is also a Phoenix VC product (live at mystira.app; repo private).
• NeuralLiquid — the applied-product brand cognitive-mesh is relaunching as: house-of-veritas (estate management — documents, e-signatures, payroll, compliance), convolens (chat analyzer), omnipost.
• Nexamesh — counter-UAS defence simulation: nexamesh-core (Rust/Axum, Next.js, Leptos/WASM, Tauri, Solana). (This is the evolution of the earlier PhoenixRooivalk work.)

If you’re skimming, start with:
cognitive-mesh, retort, codeflow-engine,
nexamesh-core,
farm-business-plan, zeeplan, pigpro,
vv-landing, vv-iac.

• Cognitive Mesh & human–AI collaboration
  Orchestrating tools/agents with RBAC, audit, policy-as-code, and observability. Built to survive regulated environments, not just “demo calls”.

• VeritasVault – DeFi risk & chain governance
  Chain contracts, services, landing, and docs wired together via docs + IaC so the whole surface is governable and explainable.

• Nexamesh / counter‑UAS – Rust + TS platform
  A serious monorepo (Rust + TypeScript + Next.js + Tauri, Turborepo + Cargo) for a c‑UAS evidence & control stack with dual-chain anchoring.

• Regenerative agriculture & “skin‑in‑the‑game” design
  Multi-year farm plans, financial models, and working software aimed at cash flows, not dribbble screenshots.

• Delivery, infra & governance
  IaC, policy gates, what‑if validation, PR automation, and template repos that bake in tests, type-checking, and CI.

Repo: https://github.com/phoenixvc/cognitive-mesh

• Stack:
  • Backend: C# / .NET 10 service
  • Targets: Azure OpenAI, RAG integrations
  • Surroundings: RBAC, audit logging, policy-as-code, cost/usage observability
• What it shows about me:
  • I treat “agents” as production services: layered architecture, least-privilege, and explicit governance instead of ad-hoc scripts.
  • Hooks for eval and telemetry, not just “call the model and hope”.

(Its governance-first UI, CognitiveMeshUI, and the NeuralLiquid relaunch products build on this platform — repos currently private.)

Repo: https://github.com/phoenixvc/codeflow-engine (continues the earlier, now-archived autopr-engine)

• Stack:
  • Core: Python package, multi-agent
  • Supports: Docker, GitHub Action / Marketplace app
• What it does:
  • Analyzes PRs, runs static checks, opens issues, and coordinates multi-agent review flows.
  • Designed to run locally, in CI, or as a GitHub app.
• Why it matters:
  • AI applied to DevEx and governance: quality gates, automated issue creation, and multi-agent workflows instead of another “chat in your IDE” toy.

VeritasVault is a full surface: contracts, services, landing, and IaC.

• vv – institutional DeFi analytics & dual-brand trading platform (C#/TS).
• vv-chain – cross-chain DeFi risk intelligence (Solidity).
• vv-chain-services – on-chain identity, reputation & governance APIs (Ethereum, Tezos, Postgres, Fastify).
• vv-landing – public marketing site (Next.js + React + Tailwind), deploys to VeritasVault.ai.
• vv-iac – Azure IaC (Bicep/Terraform) with what-if validation, policy-as-code and gated promotions.
• vv-dev-tools – shared dev tooling and workspace config across the VV repos.

These show how I think about product as a system: contracts → services → docs → infra → governance.

Repo: https://github.com/Nexamesh/nexamesh-core

A serious counter‑UAS defence monorepo, not just a slide deck (evolved from the earlier PhoenixRooivalk).

• Monorepo & tooling: Turborepo + pnpm + Cargo workspace; ESLint, Prettier, Husky, Clippy, cspell; CI via GitHub Actions, CodeQL.
• Apps: Docusaurus docs; Next.js marketing (threat simulator, ROI calculator); Rust (Axum) API; Rust chain keeper; Rust evidence CLI.
• Rust crates: core evidence logging; dual-chain anchoring (Solana + Etherlink); address validation.
• Why it matters: I can take a hardware-adjacent, security-sensitive domain and turn it into a properly structured Rust+TS platform — docs, UI, API, blockchain layers, and dev tooling in one place.

Yes, Rust is very much part of my current workflow.

These aren’t theory projects. They sit on real land, real livestock, and real partners.

• farm-business-plan – Next.js farm-planning app: structured docs, financial models, ongoing planning.
• zeeplan – Zeerust farm operations plan: 5‑year transformation, equity splits, ROI analysis, risk mitigation — performance-based, zero-cash-entry equity structures documented like a system design.
• pigpro – livestock marketplace for South African farmers (React/TypeScript): buy and sell pigs, cattle and agricultural products.
• goat-farming-guide – content platform: C# Azure Functions + Cosmos DB backend, Next.js frontend, Bicep infra, Contentful CMS.

• crisis-unleashed-app – modular full‑stack starter (React/Next.js + Python FastAPI), auth, API, CI, tests, clean architecture.
• home-lab-setup – Azure homelab in PowerShell: P2S VPN, NAT, DNS, certificate lifecycle, monitoring/alerts, cost guardrails.

• AI / agent platforms & DevEx: cognitive-mesh, retort, codeflow-engine
• DeFi / chain + governance: vv, vv-chain, vv-landing, vv-iac
• “Can this person handle messy reality?”: zeeplan, farm-business-plan, pigpro, goat-farming-guide
• Security / Rust-heavy & hardware-adjacent: nexamesh-core
• Engineering quality & scaffolding: crisis-unleashed-app, home-lab-setup

Languages & runtimes

• C# / .NET – cognitive-mesh (.NET 10), Azure Functions APIs (goat-farming-guide, vv)
• TypeScript / JavaScript – Next.js, React, Node, monorepos (Turborepo, pnpm, Vite)
• Python – FastAPI backends, automation tools, CLI, PR automation (codeflow-engine, crisis-unleashed-app)
• Rust – API services, chain keepers, CLI & core crates in nexamesh-core

Cloud / infra

• Azure (Functions, Cosmos DB, Container Apps, Static Web Apps, VNets/VPNs, DNS); some AWS
• Netlify / Vercel for marketing & doc sites
• IaC via Bicep / ARM / Terraform (vv-iac, goat-farming-guide), plus homelab PowerShell

Architecture & delivery

• Monorepos with pnpm / Turborepo where it makes sense
• Clean boundaries between frontend / backend / docs / infra
• CI/CD with GitHub Actions: tests, linting, type-checking, deploys
• Policy-as-code orientation, and eval/telemetry hooks on AI systems

• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/juriesmit
• Phoenix VC site: phoenixvc.tech
• GitHub: you’re here – issues/PRs are welcome on anything above.