Travel Talent Academy · Engineering lead · Online diploma
Taking an online diploma from build to launch.
The student portal is pre-launch.
1. Outcome
An online diploma for entry-level travel and tourism careers, with AI mentors and AI grading. I'm the engineering lead taking it to launch.
2. The problem
Travel and tourism has a growing skills shortage. TTA offers an affordable route into the industry, shaped with employers. The platform had to be made ready for real students and real payments.
3. My responsibility
Engineering lead from phase 4. Andy Cefai built phases 0 to 3. My work covers production readiness, security, payments, the AI grading and mentor features, monitoring, support, accessibility and launch.
4. What was built
- Security hardening across the platform.
- Made the price shown match the price charged at checkout.
- A real 80% pass mark, and a fix for 216 quiz questions that could never be marked correct.
- Course video moved to Cloudflare R2.
- An enforcing content security policy and an accessibility pass to WCAG AA.
- A support channel, automated build checks and uptime monitoring.
5. AI and controls
- 57 AI mentor profiles, with mentor chat on Claude.
- AI grading on Claude, with OpenAI as a fallback.
- Speech in and out with Deepgram and ElevenLabs.
6. Evidence
- 47 of 60
merged pull requests are mine
Source: GitHub, 1 Oct 2026
- 216
quiz questions fixed that could never be marked correct
Source: code history, Sep 2026
7. Technical implementation
Next.js, React, TypeScript, Supabase, Stripe, Sentry, PostHog, Vercel