Travis Wade Defty

Summary

Mechatronic and systems engineer based in Cape Town, South Africa. I work at the intersection of hardware, software, and operations — currently building industrial automation and SaaS platforms at Cybarete. My background spans firmware and embedded systems, full-stack development, and technical product management, with delivery across mining, manufacturing, logistics, agriculture, and healthcare.

Experience

Cybarete

Head of Engineering Operations — Jan 2024 – present. Working with a tight-knit team on IIoT, full-stack, and agent-based solutions for mining, manufacturing, and agritech.

Founding Systems Engineer — Sep 2022 – Jan 2024.

CrewPulse

Senior System Engineer — Mar 2024 – present. Incubated at Cybarete; architected and developed a SaaS product for manufacturers in South Africa and the USA.

Pragma / Hensoldt (GEW)

July 2019, July & Dec 2018. Student Engineer. Business building, client relations, project proposals and management; industrial automation for mining and manufacturing; full-stack IIoT development; IoT geofencing for asset tracking; quality assurance and assembly for RF spectrum monitoring systems.

Education

MEng Mechatronics and BEng Mechatronics, Stellenbosch University, Department of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering. Advanced studies in robotics, holonic control systems, data science and numerical methods. Honours project: development of an automated upper-limb orthotic device for brachial plexus injuries (2017–2020, 2021–2022).

Industries

Mining

Hardware and software for safety and connectivity in underground mining (Africa).

Manufacturing

Software for labour productivity in job-shop manufacturing.

Logistics

Systems for consignment stock and warehouse management.

Agriculture

Product development for precision livestock farming.

Healthcare

Systems development and research for hospital management.

Skills

• Mechatronic design and manufacturing; biomechanical modelling
• Firmware and control system development
• Full-stack development (HTML, CSS, JS, Node.js, Python, Svelte, MongoDB, SQL)
• Programming: Erlang, Elixir, Python, JavaScript, C, C#, Java (multi-agent with JADE)
• Tools: Notion, n8n (self-hosted), Google Suite, Cursor, ChatGPT, Docker, Fusion, KiCAD
• Industrial protocols and comms: MQTT, OpenThread, Modbus (RS-485 & TCP)
• CAD: Fusion
• MATLAB programming and Simulink

Notable

Best Postgraduate Mechatronic Student at Stellenbosch University (2022). Honours project runner-up for the Jac van der Merwe Award (2020). Co-founder of Educate 4.0 NPO initiative in partnership with Youth in Transformation, encouraging learners in under-resourced schools in STEM.