Llewellyn Craddock

Llewellyn Craddock

IT Solutions Engineer, AI Engineer and Game Developer

Muizenberg, Cape Town, South Africa · LinkedIn · GitHub · itch.io Phone and email available on request.

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Profile

IT Solutions Engineer with more than 10 years of experience bridging enterprise customers and technical delivery. I spent five years at VMware Carbon Black as a Specialist Solutions Engineer across EMEA, running architecture advisory, demos and proof of concepts for enterprise security deployments.

From 2023 to 2026 I founded and directed Nova Mentis, where I built Nova Nexus, a production multi-tenant AI decision support platform in Python with Pydantic AI and the OpenAI API, and opened it to 40+ early access users. I now make games as LocalHugDealer Studios.

What ties it together is a habit of asking "why" until the real problem shows up, then explaining the answer in plain English. I'm comfortable moving between a customer architecture conversation and the codebase in the same day, and I get real satisfaction from coaching the people around me.

How I got here

The short version of how a kid at the family computer ended up in cybersecurity, AI and game design.

  1. 2004 to 2015

    School years

    King Edward VI Preparatory, St John's Preparatory and St John's College. IT, Advanced Mathematics and Dramatic Arts in the classroom, rowing, hockey and cricket outside it.

  2. 2016

    A gap year and a fork in the road

    During a gap year I studied CompTIA Security+ through New Mexico Ruidoso College. I was booked on a game design course at Learn3D for 2017, then a job offer came along and I took the career safe route into IT. Game design stayed with me in every spare moment after that.

  3. 2016

    Into cybersecurity

    Joined Netxactics, a security distributor, supporting partners and customers on Sophos, Rapid7, Thycotic, Flexera and Altaro, and running my first pre-sales demos.

  4. 2017

    Managed security

    Took on work for Obsequium, Netxactics' sister company, looking after managed customer environments: firewalls, Rapid7 InsightIDR and Nexpose, and Sophos deployments.

  5. 2019

    A move to the UK

    Moved to the UK in April and joined Carbon Black as a Solutions Engineer a few weeks later. Carbon Black became part of VMware later that year.

  6. 2020

    Lockdown and the Digital Consultant

    Started the VMware Digital Consultant project, which grew to 70+ multilingual security assessments. Lockdown was a difficult stretch, spent largely alone in a small flat, and it planted the seed for Nova Nexus: the personalised guidance I needed and couldn't find.

  7. 2021

    MVP of the year

    Named MVP of FY21 among all solution engineers globally across the business unit, and received the Perseverance Award from the Dell Synergy Team for getting the Dell channel up and running.

  8. 2022

    Analytics and philosophy

    Built the Solution Engineering Analytics Suite in Power BI, adopted as standard tooling across the group. Began studying Advaita Vedanta at the School of Practical Philosophy.

  9. 2023

    Mentoring and a new company

    Designed and led a mentorship programme for commercial solution engineers that lifted product knowledge by 20% to 40%. Completed VMware's Aspiring Manager programme, and founded Nova Mentis in August.

  10. 2024

    Moving on from VMware

    After Broadcom acquired VMware and restructured the team, I chose to move on in February rather than continue through a contractor route. Started building Nova Nexus in November.

  11. Late 2024 to 2026

    Skill Forge

    Through Nova Mentis and as an official ScoreApp partner, built lead generation scorecards for coaches, consultancies, and legal and data firms, and ran masterclasses, scorecard audits and marketing direction workshops.

  12. Early 2026

    Nova Nexus early access

    Opened early access to 40+ users, with one-on-one vision workshops and demo sessions. Selected for the City of Cape Town Youth Start Entrepreneurial Challenge, one of 150 participants from 700+ applicants.

  13. Mid 2026

    Game design, finally

    Put Nova Mentis on hold and opened LocalHugDealer Studios. Learnt Godot in a week, then built Trust No 1 for the Brackeys Game Jam and placed #41 for enjoyment out of 2,248 ranked entries. Now building Enemy No. 1.

Experience

Game Developer and Founder

Aug 2026 to present

LocalHugDealer Studios, Cape Town (remote)

  • Founded a solo indie game studio and built its brand and website. Code lives on the studio GitHub.
  • Writing the music for the games in Ableton, drawing on music production since 2020.
  • Building Enemy No. 1, a twin-stick action roguelite in Godot where your number is your health, your size and your damage.
  • Built Trust No 1 in two weeks for the Brackeys 2026.2 Game Jam, learning Godot from scratch. Placed #41 for enjoyment and #50 for gameplay out of 2,248 ranked entries, with 74 ratings.

Founder and Director

Aug 2023 to Aug 2026

Nova Mentis, Cape Town (remote)

  • Built Nova Nexus, a multi-tenant AI decision support platform in Python, using Pydantic AI, the OpenAI API and Anvil, deployed to production with paying users.
  • Engineered the reliability layer: per-call telemetry capturing tokens, USD cost, latency and errors, schema-validated structured outputs with automatic retry on validation failure, and a prompt and schema registry.
  • Implemented semantic recommendations using OpenAI embeddings with cosine similarity, blended with evaluation scores so ranking reflects impact rather than topical similarity alone.
  • Designed multi-tenant isolation with per-tenant API key scoping and tenant-filtered retrieval.
  • Ran Skill Forge, a scorecard service built on ScoreApp as an official partner. Led the design of lead generation scorecards for clients including Four and One Consulting, Abantu Coaching, Data Meaning, Legal Ninjas, Tracey Clark, Stress to Strength and Soaring Seagulls Coaching.
  • Ran Skill Forge masterclasses on lead qualification, scorecard audits and marketing direction workshops.
  • Directed web applications built with Python, Node.js, Anvil and Docker, and mobile applications built with Flutter and FlutterFlow, across cloud and local deployment.
  • Designed and built websites and ran marketing campaigns to support the product launch.

Specialist Solutions Engineer, Security, EMEA

May 2019 to Feb 2024

VMware Carbon Black

  • Ran pre-sales technical delivery for enterprise cybersecurity deployments across EMEA, covering next-gen antivirus, endpoint detection and response, and application control: requirements scoping, architecture advisory, demos, proof of concepts and post-sale configuration guidance.
  • Worked closely with Dell teams on technical training, support and joint account planning for Dell and commercial customers.
  • Architected and led the VMware Digital Consultant, a library of 70+ multilingual security assessments aligned to frameworks like NIST.
  • Built the team's Power BI analytics suite (skills matrix, engagement request tracking, activity reporting), adopted as standard tooling across the group.
  • Wrote Python tools to automate team workflows, and helped set processes and standards for the team.
  • Mentored solution engineers and designed a technical assessment framework and coaching programme.
  • Named MVP of FY21 among all solution engineers globally across the business unit, and received the Dell Synergy Team Perseverance Award in 2021.

Technical Support Engineer

Jan 2017 to Mar 2019

Obsequium, Johannesburg

  • Looked after managed customer environments: firewalls, Rapid7 InsightIDR and Nexpose instances, and Sophos antivirus deployments.
  • Deployed security tools including antivirus, firewalls, vulnerability scanners and privileged access management.
  • Worked across both managed customers and distribution partners, as Obsequium and its sister company Netxactics shared one technical team.

Technical Support

Jul 2016 to Jan 2019

Netxactics

  • Provided technical support and product help to partners and end users for a security distributor carrying Sophos, Rapid7, Thycotic, Flexera and Altaro.
  • Ran pre-sales product demos and proof of concepts for partners and end users.

Significant projects

Enemy No. 1

Aug 2026 to present, LocalHugDealer Studios

Twin-stick action roguelite set on the number line, taking its escalating runs from Risk of Rain and its eat, grow and split mechanics from agar.io. Your number is your health, your size and your damage.

Trust No 1

Aug 2026, LocalHugDealer Studios

Solo Godot game for the Brackeys 2026.2 Game Jam, themed "Trust No One". 0 has been captured by Numero Uno, and every number containing a 1 is corrupt. Placed #41 for enjoyment out of 2,248 ranked entries. Play it on itch.io

Grounded Citation Agent

Personal project

LangGraph agent that answers questions from a knowledge base and verifies its own citations. A verification node checks every cited source against what retrieval actually returned, catching hallucinated sources and uncited claims, and routes ungrounded answers back to the model for correction. Built to explore reliability patterns for production RAG systems.

Nova Nexus

Nov 2024 to Jul 2026, Nova Mentis

Multi-tenant AI vision and decision support platform, built and shipped solo in Python and Anvil. Pydantic AI orchestrates OpenAI structured-output calls against validated schemas. Includes per-call telemetry with tenant attribution, a prompt and schema registry, token-based billing with pre-deduction and per-tenant API key scoping. Semantic recommendations use text-embedding-3-small with cosine similarity blended with evaluation scores. Launched an early access programme with 40+ users.

Skill Forge scorecards

2024 to 2026, Nova Mentis

Bespoke lead generation scorecards on ScoreApp: a short interactive assessment, a scored results page and tailored next steps. Built for seven named clients, from a Digital Learning Culture Scorecard and an AI Readiness assessment to a Legal Gap Analysis and a Workplace Wellbeing Scan.

Carbon Black Mentorship

Jan 2023 to Feb 2024, VMware Carbon Black

Designed and led a coaching and mentorship programme for commercial solution engineers, including a technical assessment framework and tailored sessions that drove a 20% to 40% increase in product knowledge.

Solution Engineering Analytics Suite

Jan 2022 to Aug 2023, VMware Carbon Black

Power BI dashboards giving management visibility of team capacity, skills coverage and engagement volume: a Skills Matrix built on Microsoft Forms data, an Engagement Request Dashboard and an Activities Dashboard combining manual and Power Automate logging. Adopted as standard tracking tools across the group.

VMware Digital Consultant

Oct 2020 to Feb 2024, VMware Carbon Black

Technical lead, assessment coordinator and platform admin. Designed 70+ multilingual assessments aligned to frameworks like NIST, built a Power BI dashboard and leaderboards to track adoption, and created go to market presentations for sellers globally. Secured the Cybersecurity Assessment's place on VMware's internal Sales Vault and Carbon Black Tech Zone.

Skills

AI engineering

  • Python
  • LangChain
  • LangGraph
  • Pydantic AI
  • RAG
  • Vector embeddings
  • Agent and tool-calling design
  • Structured outputs
  • OpenAI API
  • Anthropic API
  • Google AI APIs
  • Neo4j
  • Claude Code
  • Cursor

Software and production

  • Anvil
  • Node.js
  • Docker
  • AWS
  • Flutter
  • FlutterFlow
  • Multi-tenancy
  • Telemetry and cost tracking
  • Schema validation
  • SQL
  • Shell scripting
  • Website design and build

Solutions engineering

  • Requirements scoping
  • Architecture advisory
  • Demos
  • Proof of concepts
  • Cloud and on-prem deployment
  • Implementation support
  • Technical documentation
  • Presentations

Cybersecurity

  • Endpoint security
  • EDR
  • Next-gen antivirus
  • Application control
  • Vulnerability management
  • Firewalls
  • SIEM and log management
  • Incident response
  • Penetration testing
  • Privileged access management
  • RBAC
  • NIST
  • Active Directory
  • Group Policy
  • Windows, macOS and Linux
  • VMware ESXi

Data and automation

  • Power BI
  • Power Automate
  • Microsoft Forms
  • Excel
  • ScoreApp
  • Scorecards and assessments

Game design and creative

  • Godot
  • Unity
  • Aseprite
  • Game design
  • Prototyping
  • System design
  • Ableton
  • Music production
  • Piano

Leadership and people

  • Coaching and mentoring
  • Team leadership
  • Assessment design
  • Community building
  • Content creation
  • Strategic planning

Certifications

AI and data

  • Foundation: Introduction to LangChain (Python), LangChain (2026)
  • Neo4j and LLM Fundamentals, Neo4j (2024)

Security foundations

  • VMware Security Technical Associate (2022)
  • CompTIA Security+ (2016)

Carbon Black

  • Response Cloud Administrator (2019)
  • Protection Associate Consultant (2019)
  • Response Associate Consultant (2019)
  • Defense Associate Analyst (2019)

Sophos

  • Certified Architect (2018)
  • XG UTM Architect (2018)
  • XG UTM Engineer (2018)
  • Central Engineer (2017)
  • SafeGuard Encryption Engineer (2017)
  • SG UTM Certified Engineer (2016)
  • Endpoint Protection v5.3 and v5.5 (2016)
  • Certified Engineer (2016)

Rapid7

  • InsightIDR Certified Specialist (2018)
  • InsightVM Certified Administrator (2017)
  • AppSpider Certified Specialist (2017)
  • Nexpose Certified Administrator (2016)
  • Metasploit Pro Certified Specialist (2016)

Thycotic, Centrify

  • Thycotic Privilege Manager (2017)
  • Thycotic Secret Server (2017)
  • Centrify SaaS (2017)
  • Centrify Server Suite (2017)

Leadership

  • VMware Aspiring Manager Training Program (2023)
  • Building High Performance Teams, LinkedIn (2023)
  • Managing Skills for Remote Workers, LinkedIn (2023)
  • VMware Multi-Cloud Mentorship Program (2022)
  • OpportunityX Template Author, CapametriX (2021)

Courses and other

  • Complete Music Production with Andrew Huang (Monthly)
  • PADI Open Water Scuba Diver (2025)
  • First Aid Level 3 (2014)
  • First Aid Level 1 (2013)

Education

The School of Practical Philosophy

2022 to present

Study of Advaita Vedanta (non-duality), drawing on Eastern and Western philosophical traditions.

New Mexico Ruidoso College

2016

CompTIA Security+, studied remotely.

St John's College

2011 to 2015

Advanced Programme Mathematics, Mathematics, IT, Dramatic Arts, Physical and Chemical Sciences, English Language and Literature. Rowing, hockey and cricket.

St John's Preparatory School

2008 to 2010

King Edward VI Preparatory School

2004 to 2007

Awards and communities

Awards

  • Perseverance Award, VMware SBU Dell Synergy Team (2021)
  • MVP of FY21 among all solution engineers globally across the business unit, VMware Carbon Black (2021)
  • The Duke of Edinburgh's International Award, Gold (2015)
  • The Duke of Edinburgh's International Award, Bronze (2014)

Startup communities

  • OPUS, founding member (2025 to present)
  • Suits & Sneakers, member (2025 to present)

Recommendations

Snippets from LinkedIn recommendations, client testimonials and workshop feedback.

"Llewellyn has matured very quickly into a thought leader within VMware Carbon Black... with great intellect has resulted in numerous very well deserved global accolades."

Shaun LarvinRVP Channels EMEA, VMware Carbon Black

"Llewellyn is the Key Person of Influence in the score card space... His review of my score card was incredibly insightful."

Scorecard audit clientSkill Forge, 2025

"I work with a lot of partners and very few deliver like Nova Mentis. The quality of their work is consistently high, their thinking is sharp, and they don't drop the ball."

JodiTracey Clark

"Llewellyn is very knowledgeable and brings with him a unique set of expertise."

CraigFour and One Consulting

"Prompt communication, highly professional, delivered on time, and genuinely fun, great people to collaborate with."

MarvinData Meaning, on three analytics and AI scorecards

"It reframed how we think about lead qualification... Thanks to Llewellyn and the team for a sharp, focused & incredibly insightful session."

Masterclass attendeeSkill Forge masterclass, 2025

"I especially appreciated the thoughtful insights and extra tips he added to the scorecard."

NatashaStress to Strength

"Always striving for complete professionalism, whether in appearance, communication, technical work or boardroom presentation."

Orrin LimerickSenior colleague at Obsequium

"From the first day he has always been a phenomenal team member who always took the time to assist, teach and mentor those around him."

Tamaryn TheronColleague at Obsequium

"I have seen him rise through the ranks of junior security specialist all the way through to a senior security consultant."

Mark-Anthony SalgadoManaged Llewellyn directly at Obsequium

"I feel they captured the essence of my brand and my product excellently!"

EmmaSoaring Seagulls Coaching

Beyond work

Always learning, always building. When I'm not at a keyboard, you'll usually find me doing one of these.