Smati Salah

Selected work

Software that had to work the first time.

In banking, 'good enough' isn't a thing. Here's where I've shipped, what changed, and the problems I've had to keep in line.

Engineering Impact

Outcomes first. Technology second.

Every number below is drawn directly from delivered work in Algerian banking institutions.

0
Branches running the platform I delivered
Tourist Allocation Management System, BDL
0%+
Manual testing effort removed
Automation + CI/CD integration, AGB
0
Automated test layers owned
Web · Desktop · API · Performance
0
National banking institutions
BDL and Gulf Bank Algeria
0%
Regulatory compliance from launch
Nationwide deployment, no compliance gap
0
Real-time interbank settlement integration
Secure SWIFT/ARTS processing

Engineering in Practice

Three problems, and how they were solved

Challenge, approach, engineering, result — written for people who have to judge whether the engineering underneath was sound.

Banque de Développement Local

A nationwide platform across 177 branches

Challenge

A nationwide business process — tourist allocation management — had to be handled reliably and consistently across every branch of a national bank, under regulatory scrutiny.

Approach

Design a centralized enterprise application capable of supporting nationwide operations, with business stakeholders involved early so functional requirements mapped cleanly onto the technical design.

Engineering

  • Enterprise application design on .NET / ASP.NET Core with SQL Server
  • Centralized business rules so 177 branches behave identically
  • Regulatory constraints modelled in the domain, not bolted on
  • Production support and incident reduction after go-live

Deployed across 177 branches

Regulatory compliance ensured from launch

Single source of truth for a nationwide process

What this demonstrates — Delivery under regulatory constraints, scale, business understanding and reliability.

Banque de Développement Local

Secure SWIFT / ARTS interbank settlement

Challenge

Interbank settlement is unforgiving: messages must be secure, correctly formatted and processed in real time. Reliability here is a business requirement, not a nice-to-have.

Approach

Build a secure integration layer between core banking and the SWIFT/ARTS rails, with explicit handling of message integrity, failure paths and traceability.

Engineering

  • Real-time settlement message processing
  • Secure integration and API design between internal and interbank systems
  • Defensive error handling and traceable message flow
  • Performance-aware design for critical system reliability

Real-time interbank settlement processing in production

Secure, auditable message handling

Critical banking rails supported without regulatory incident

What this demonstrates — Experience with systems where security, correctness and availability are contractual.

Gulf Bank Algeria

A test pyramid for banking applications

Challenge

Mission-critical banking applications were validated largely by hand — slow, inconsistent, and unable to catch regressions before release.

Approach

Define the QA strategy and quality governance first, then automate the critical paths layer by layer and push everything into the delivery pipeline.

Engineering

  • Selenium for web flows, FlaUI for desktop applications
  • Postman for API contract and regression coverage
  • JMeter for performance and load validation
  • SonarQube gates enforcing code quality and security in the pipeline

Manual testing effort reduced by over 80%

Regressions identified early, alongside development teams

Testing standards and quality governance formalised

What this demonstrates — An automation mindset applied to the whole stack, wired into CI/CD rather than run on the side.

Problems I Can Help Solve

Framed the way organizations actually feel them

Not a service list — the recurring failure modes I have already worked through in production.

  • Critical application quality

    Reducing production risk through structured QA strategy, quality governance and automation across every layer.

  • Repetitive manual testing

    Replacing repetitive validation with reliable automated suites — the same work that removed 80%+ of manual effort.

  • Slow delivery cycles

    Improving throughput with CI/CD, automated regression and quality gates that run without asking anyone.

  • Unstable applications

    Performance validation, defensive design and production support practices that bring incident counts down.

  • Business / IT misalignment

    Turning functional requirements into working systems stakeholders can recognise.

  • Quality at scale

    Repeatable QA and engineering processes that hold up across teams, branches and releases.

Track Record

Experience, measured by what changed

QA Automation Engineer

Gulf Bank Algeria (AGB) · Algiers

Gulf Bank Algeria (AGB) logo

04/2025 – Present

Responsibilities

  • Lead the QA strategy for banking applications in production
  • Define testing standards and quality governance
  • Design automation for web, desktop, API and performance testing

Outcomes

  • Manual testing effort reduced by over 80% through automation and CI/CD integration
  • Regressions caught early through close collaboration with development teams
  • SonarQube integrated into pipelines, enforcing code quality and security standards
SeleniumFlaUIPostmanJMeterSonarQubeCI/CD
Gulf Bank Algeria (AGB) headquarters

AGB (Algerian Gulf Bank) is a private commercial bank, a subsidiary of Kuwait's Burgan Bank Group, that opened its doors in March 2004 with 20 billion DZD in capital. Today it runs around 65 branches across 39 wilayas with over 1,000 employees — the sort of scale that keeps a QA team honest.

Full-Stack Software Engineer

Banque de Développement Local (BDL) · Algiers

Banque de Développement Local (BDL) logo

10/2023 – 04/2025

Responsibilities

  • Design and develop enterprise banking applications supporting nationwide operations
  • Build internal platforms for expense management and pre-domiciliation workflows
  • Work with business stakeholders on functional requirements

Outcomes

  • Tourist Allocation Management System deployed across 177 branches with regulatory compliance from launch
  • Secure SWIFT/ARTS integration delivered for real-time interbank settlement
  • Functional requirements turned into working systems across the stack
C#.NETASP.NET CoreREST APIsSQL ServerOracle
Banque de Développement Local (BDL) headquarters

BDL (Banque de Développement Local) is a public Algerian bank founded in April 1985 to back local and regional development, and one of the country's largest by assets. It's been modernizing fast — issuing Mastercard and Visa cards, opening up 30% of its capital ahead of a stock-exchange listing.

The next one could be your company.

Every card above started with a problem worth solving. I bring the same focus to the next team that wants to ship something reliable.

Education

Where I learned the fundamentals

A mix of engineering depth and business thinking — the technical rigor and the vocabulary to talk to stakeholders.

2026 – Present

MBA – Management Information Systems

Higher Institute of Management and Planning, Algiers

IT Governance & ITSMEnterprise Architecture (TOGAF)IS Audit & ComplianceCOBIT FrameworkCybersecurity Risk & ContinuityStrategic IS Planning

2016 – 2021

Master's Degree – Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence

Ferhat Abbas University, Sétif

Software EngineeringAdvanced AlgorithmsMachine LearningDistributed SystemsDatabasesBachelor in Computer Information Systems (2016–2019)

Recognized H+ (institution) by Anabin — the German credential database.