AI that invents missing evidence is worse than no AI.
When a system cannot verify what a person said, uploaded, or approved, it should ask—not fill the gap with something statistically plausible.
About me
I build software that respects the person relying on it.
I'm Mark Muriuki, a full-stack engineer and product builder based in Nairobi. My work sits where product thinking, AI systems, payments, and dependable software delivery meet.
I care about products that are useful after the demo: systems with clear ownership, honest AI behavior, reliable payment handling, recovery paths, and interfaces that make complicated work feel manageable.
That perspective shapes both Applique, my career platform, and this instant portfolio product. The domains are different, but the principle is the same: remove infrastructure friction without taking control away from the user.
Selected products
Work with real operational weight.
Career platform · Founder product
Applique
A career operating system that helps job seekers understand their positioning, improve application materials, prepare for interviews, and manage the work of finding the right role.
Read the case study →M-Pesa commerce · Multi-tenant publishing
Instant Portfolios
A portfolio publishing product for professionals who want a credible personal website without learning a site builder, creating a hosting account, or paying a monthly platform fee.
Read the case study →Things I believe
Strong opinions, held against evidence.
“Production-ready” includes the boring failure paths.
Payment verification, idempotency, retries, recovery tools, ownership, and clear error states matter as much as the happy-path interface.
African products should not treat local infrastructure as an integration detail.
M-Pesa, constrained devices, mobile-first behavior, and regional buying patterns shape the product itself. They should influence architecture from the beginning.
A polished demo is not proof of a useful system.
The real test is whether people can trust it with their work, recover when something fails, and understand what happened without calling the builder.
If the work needs clarity, reliability, and product judgment, we should talk.
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