Louis Kotze

Senior Full-Stack Engineer · Linux Kernel Contributor

Ten-plus years shipping production software across FinTech, automotive, and pharmaceuticals. Currently leading a team at iOCO Digital building data-visualization platform features for Takeda. Patches land upstream in the Linux kernel and the wireless regulatory database.

Open-source & upstream

• Linux kernel (linux-wireless): authored the RTL8922AU USB RF-calibration fix (v3 on lore) merged into Ping-Ke Shih’s rtw-next tree in April 2026, with five independent Tested-by tags across USB WiFi chipsets. Also a cfg80211 MLO group-key error-message grammar fix (Accepted by Johannes Berg).
• wireless-regdb audit: five country regulatory-database patches (ZA, HK, RU, KR, UA) verified against primary sources (ICASA, OFCA, MSIT, SCRF, ETSI), all merged into wens/wireless-regdb in April 2026. Plus a Reviewed-by on a community-submitted RU 6 GHz 320 MHz patch, applied to wens/wireless-regdb master on 2026-04-30: six total commits across five jurisdictions in one month, including first review credit on someone else's regulatory analysis. Patch series on lore. Includes an audit script for ongoing monitoring.
• morrownr/rtw89: PR #76 backports the in-kernel RF-calibration fix to the out-of-tree DKMS driver (merged April 2026).
• Fedora bug 2458629: filed a reproducer and root-cause analysis for a wpa_supplicant MLO reassociation race; assigned, in triage.

Mentorship

• University of Pretoria Mentorship Programme (2026 – present): mentoring graduates on CV, interview prep, and the current South African software job landscape.
• Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator (at BMW IT Hub SA, 2021 – 2025): mentored three graduates through their placement on the team, supporting their transition into first engineering roles.

Elsewhere

• louis@louiskotze.dev
• LinkedIn
• GitHub
• Kernel patches (lore.kernel.org)
• Prolific Studio (small consultancy)