About Marcel
I build production AI systems that actually work — RAG pipelines, LLM-powered document extraction, multi-agent workflows, and the observability layer that keeps them reliable.
As CTO and Founder of MoonCoon, I've shipped AI across four continents: a document extraction pipeline processing 50,000+ insurance PDFs per month, a biotech RAG system that cut R&D research time by 40%, and a multi-agent underwriting platform generating R20M+ per reinsurance client signed. Before that, I was Acting Head of MLOps at Nedbank, overseeing 100+ data scientists and R500M+ in fraud prevention models.
I'm equally comfortable in code and in the boardroom. I've advised C-suites on AI strategy, translated ML into ROI narratives, and run technical workshops for enterprise teams.
Stack: Python, LlamaIndex, LangChain, LangGraph, Qdrant, ClickHouse, Dagster, FastAPI, Kubernetes, Azure, GCP, Terraform.
Based in Johannesburg (UTC+2 = CET). Remote-first. Available now.
English
Native or bilingual
Remote only
Primarily works remotely
Experience
- Equal ExpertsSenior Data EngineerTECHJanuary 2023 - January 2024 (1 year)Remote contract with UK-based consultancy. Led data engineering for a major UK retailer financial services division. Architected DBT pipelines processing 1M+ daily transactions on Snowflake. Implemented CI/CD with GitLab and Terraform, reducing deployment cycles 75%. Established data quality framework with Great Expectations achieving 99.9% SLA.
- MoonCoonFounder & Chief Technology OfficerCONSULTING AND AUDITSDecember 2021 - Today (4 years and 8 months)Founded data engineering consultancy with P&L ownership ($2M annual revenue). Remote-first operation delivering across 4 continents. Strategic transformation partner to Fortune 500, Big Four consulting, and financial institutions across AI adoption, data infrastructure modernization, and regulatory compliance.Architected multi-agent AI system generating R20M+ revenue per reinsurance client. Automated underwriting pipeline from 3 days to sub-5 minutes. Led 20TB AWS migration with POPIA and Basel III governance. Migrated SAS to AWS Glue (60% cost reduction). Built GKE platform serving 100K+ daily ML predictions with ClickHouse, DBT, Airflow. Dagster platform for AI/HPC workload orchestration. RAG system using Llama2, LlamaIndex, and Qdrant reducing R&D research time 40%.
- NedbankActing Head of MLOps & Senior Data ScientistBANKING AND INSURANCENovember 2020 - January 2022 (1 year and 2 months)Led enterprise MLOps transformation at Nedbank, overseeing 100+ data scientists. Reported to Chief Analytics Officer. Built real-time fraud detection system protecting R500M+ annually (0.6 MCC, sub-100ms latency). Architected ML platform on Kubernetes covering retail banking, commercial, wealth, and insurance divisions. Reduced model deployment time from weeks to days.
Recommendations
Be the first to recommend Marcel
Help this freelancer shine by sharing your experience working together.
These freelancer profiles also match your criteria
Agatha Frydrych
Backend Java Software Engineer
4.7
(3)
2
Baptiste Duhen
Fullstack developer
4.6
(4)
5
Amed Hamou
Senior Lead Developer
4
(2)
7
Audrey Champion
Web developer
4.3
(3)
4
Education
- BScUniversity of Pretoria2016BSc
- BSc BigUniversity of the Witwatersrand2018BSc Big