Effective Laboratory Supplies (ELS)

Who We Are

ELS (Effective Laboratory Supplies) is a laboratory equipment supplier and technical services company supporting some of Africa's largest and most demanding mining operations.

With over 500 global supplier relationships and a strong track record delivering complex laboratory projects, we have become a trusted partner to mining companies across Southern Africa.

Years of operating inside these supply chains have given us a unique perspective on the inefficiencies that exist between mines, suppliers, service providers, and local entrepreneurs.

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Matergy: Our Next Chapter

We believe these problems can be solved through software.

Our answer is Matergy — a platform incubated within ELS, designed to scale industrial supply chains through a network of local entrepreneurs, each serving their region and product specialisation.

Today, that network already includes entrepreneurs operating in the Northern Cape and Namibia.

The model is working, the opportunity is clear, and we are now building the technology required to scale it.

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What We've Already Proven

Using Salesforce as our system of record and Objective Foundation as our platform layer, we have already proven several key AI-powered workflows, including:

• Shopping list generation
• RFQ automation
• Product matching
• Workflow orchestration

These capabilities are no longer concepts or prototypes — they are working systems solving real problems inside our business today.

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What We're Building

We are now building the customer-facing products that will bring these capabilities to customers at scale.

Our technology stack centres around:

• TypeScript
• Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• Salesforce
• Modern AI tooling

The person joining this role will play a key part in shaping the architecture, engineering standards, and product direction as we move from proven internal capabilities to a scalable platform.

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Building Organisational Intelligence

Beyond workflow automation, we are building a system that allows our teams to continuously contribute rules, knowledge, and domain expertise directly into the platform.

We believe the long-term advantage of AI in enterprise software will not come from the models themselves, but from an organisation's ability to capture and operationalise its collective knowledge.

This capability is becoming a foundational part of how we work, how we scale expertise, and how we build products.

The engineers who join us now will help shape not only the technology, but the systems that allow human knowledge and AI to work together at scale.

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Building the Engineering Organisation

To date, our technology journey has been delivered through a combination of specialist partners, including Cloudsmiths and other experienced development teams.

This approach has allowed us to:

• Validate our architecture
• Prove key AI-powered workflows
• Establish a strong technical foundation

without prematurely building an internal engineering organisation.

We are now entering the next phase: building that organisation.

The person joining this role will play a central part in that transition, working directly with the founder to:

• Establish engineering standards
• Shape delivery processes
• Influence architectural decisions
• Build the internal engineering team over time

This is an opportunity to define not just the technology, but how the technology organisation itself operates.

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An AI-Native Engineering Culture

Our vision for the engineering organisation is AI-native.

The following tools already play a significant role in how we design, build, and validate software:

• Claude
• Cursor
• Claude Code
• Linear
• GitHub

We believe modern engineering teams should use AI as a force multiplier, and we are intentionally building our future engineering culture around that principle.

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How We Work

We are a founder-led company with a bias toward action.

Engineers work directly with decision-makers, own meaningful outcomes, and have the freedom to shape both product and technical direction.

We value people who:

• Enjoy solving difficult problems
• Take responsibility for outcomes
• Think like builders
• Create measurable business impact

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Why This Opportunity Is Different

The founder is based on the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast, and Matergy's future headquarters will be located there.

For engineers in Durban—or those looking to leave a large corporate environment without sacrificing ambition or technical challenge—this is a rare opportunity to help build a technology company from its earliest stages while leveraging the foundation of an established business.

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The Role

The technical hire we are making now is not simply another developer.

This person will:

• Work directly with the founder
• Remain hands-on in the code
• Own critical architectural decisions
• Help build the internal engineering capability
• Shape the future engineering culture
• Grow into the senior-most technical leadership role as the business scales

This is a builder's role.

You won't be maintaining a mature platform.

You'll be helping create one.