EdTech

Educational Management Platform

Multi-Tenant Institution System

Lead Software Engineer
12 months
4 engineers
Multi
Institutions
1000s
Users Served
Pan-African
Deployment
DDD
Architecture

Overview

Designed and built a comprehensive educational management system serving schools and colleges across multiple African countries. The platform handles everything from student enrollment and attendance to grade management and parent communication, all within a multi-tenant architecture that maintains data isolation between institutions.

The Challenge

Build comprehensive management system for schools and colleges across Africa with multi-institutional support

  • Each institution had unique workflows that couldn't fit a one-size-fits-all solution
  • Data privacy laws varied by country, requiring strict tenant isolation
  • Unreliable internet connectivity in many regions meant offline support was critical
  • Administrators had varying technical literacy levels

The Solution

01Domain-Driven Design architecture
02Multi-tenant system
03Comprehensive workflow automation
04Scalable backend design

Technical Approach

  • Implemented Domain-Driven Design with bounded contexts for each functional area
  • Built row-level security in PostgreSQL for multi-tenant data isolation
  • Created configurable workflow engine allowing institutions to customize processes
  • Designed progressive web app with service worker caching for offline access

Key Decisions

Hasura over custom GraphQL server

Why: Instant GraphQL API with row-level security, dramatically reducing backend development time

DDD bounded contexts

Why: Clear separation between enrollment, academics, finance, and communication domains

Ant Design component library

Why: Comprehensive enterprise components reduced UI development time by 40%

Results

Successfully onboarded institutions across multiple African countries
Thousands of students and staff managed through the platform
Row-level security ensures zero cross-tenant data leakage
Offline-capable PWA works reliably on low-bandwidth connections

Lessons Learned

  • 1.Multi-tenant architectures need security auditing from the start, not as an afterthought
  • 2.Domain-Driven Design pays off when domain complexity is high
  • 3.Building for low-bandwidth regions requires fundamentally different performance budgets

Tech Stack

ReactTypeScriptNhostServerlessHasuraPostgreSQLAnt DesignTailwind CSS

Interested in Working Together?

I help companies build scalable systems and solve complex engineering challenges.