SkySMS: multi-carrier SMS gateway
- Period
- 2021 – 2023
- Sector
- Telecommunications
- Engagement
- Skysoft Technology, Cameroon
Role Tech Lead
A high-throughput SMS gateway connecting multiple telecom carriers for transactional and marketing messaging at scale.
Context
Businesses in Central Africa rely heavily on SMS, but every carrier imposes its own technical interface, its own billing and its own rate limits: MTN, Orange, Nexttel and Camtel across two countries.
Challenge
The core challenge was routing: the platform had to talk to several telecom carriers, each with its own API quirks, rate limits and failure modes, while presenting a single consistent interface to the rest of the business. Payment added to it, having to run through the methods actually used locally, Orange Money and MTN Money, rather than cards.
Solution
I led the design of a carrier-agnostic adapter layer, so a new carrier could be plugged in without touching the routing, delivery-tracking or retry logic that sat above it. Delivery reliability was the other main axis of work: message status tracking, automatic retries with backoff on transient carrier failures, and dead-letter handling for messages that ultimately failed. On top of that sits an Angular front end: instant or scheduled campaigns, personalised sender IDs, delivery reports, contact-group management with CSV import/export, and mobile-money credit top-ups.
Outcome
Platform running across 2 countries and 4 carriers, with more than 50,000 SMS sent, and a new carrier integrable without reopening the routing core.
Highlights
- Adapter-based integration layer, adding a new carrier without touching core routing logic
- Delivery-status tracking with automatic retry and dead-letter handling for failed sends
- Led a team through the full lifecycle: design, implementation, and production rollout
- Multi-carrier support: MTN, Orange, Nexttel, Camtel
- Scheduled SMS campaigns, personalised sender IDs and delivery reports
- Mobile-money top-ups and contact management with CSV import/export