If you are a founder with a crypto product to ship and no engineering team yet, I can be the first engineer. I'm Oussama Allamou (0xMowgli), a senior founding engineer who codes. I take a product from an empty repo to production and own every layer on the way: smart contracts, backend, infrastructure, frontend, mobile, and the launch. You get a working product and one person accountable for all of it.
/ 01 · Scope
Solidity contracts and on-chain integrations on EVM and Solana, tested with Foundry and Hardhat before anything touches mainnet.
APIs, queues and data pipelines in Node.js and NestJS, on PostgreSQL, MongoDB and Redis.
Docker, Linux, bare metal and dedicated nodes where needed. Provisioned, monitored and owned by me.
Dashboards and trading terminals in Next.js and React.
The app your users install. L'Beldi's mobile app is my work.
The launch itself and the first users. On L'Beldi I run the marketing as well as the code.
/ 02 · Process
The first call is about users and the business, not the stack. The stack follows from that.
We agree on the smallest thing real users can use. I say no to features that do not belong in it.
Usually contracts and backend, then infrastructure, then the interface. You see working software throughout.
Deployed and monitored from the start, so launch day is a small step and not a migration.
After launch I stay on what users hit. When more engineers join, they find a codebase one person could hold in their head.
/ 03 · Proof
Marketplace connecting Moroccan cooperatives directly with buyers
A product I carry as founding engineer across every layer, including the non-engineering one. It has nothing to do with crypto, which is the point.
Low-latency Solana trading engine
A complete trading product built alone, from architecture to infrastructure.
Multi-network gaming wallet
Backend and contracts, plus project management, on a wallet that reached 9,000+ users in its first weeks.
/ 04 · FAQ
A founding engineer is the first engineer on a product. They write the code and make the early technical decisions. A CTO at a later stage mostly manages people. An agency delivers a scope and leaves. I write the code myself, stay close to product decisions, and own what happens in production after launch.
A first version, yes, if that engineer has shipped each layer before. I have shipped contracts, backends, infrastructure, web and mobile on real products. One person also removes handoffs, and handoffs are where early teams lose time. It stops being true as the product grows. Then you need more hands and some specialists, and the job becomes making that transition easy.
Scope decides it more than anything. A focused product with one core flow can reach production in weeks to a few months. A wallet, an exchange or anything that holds user funds takes longer, because security work and testing can't be rushed. On the first call I point out which parts of your plan are the slow ones.
I am open to founding-engineer roles and select contracts. The right structure depends on the stage and on how much of my time the product needs. I don't publish rates. Tell me what you are building and we discuss it directly.
Look at things that run. PHINIX and L'Beldi are live and you can use them. Ask me how a specific part works and see whether the answer makes sense to you. Then get on a call about your product. A good founding engineer asks about your users and your business before the stack.
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Tell me what you're building and what stage it's at. I'll tell you how I would ship it.