Est. 2022 · Gold Coast → Paris · Founder, Literate Limited
lit🔥dev
I'm Alex Penman.
Engineer. Teacher. Operator.
Australian full-stack engineer and polymath tutor, based in Paris. I ship production software — teacher marketplaces, AI research tools, bilingual client sites — and I teach English, French, Spanish, mathematics and programming. Founder of Literate Limited and True Phonetics.
Three disciplines.
One operator.
Most people pick a lane. I work the intersection — because that's where the unusual value lives.
Build.
End-to-end product work — Next.js, React Native, Python, Supabase, Stripe, LiveKit, Anthropic API. I ship agentically with Claude Code, which means production-grade work at unreasonable speeds.
Teach.
12 years tutoring English, French, Spanish, mathematics, and programming. Live 1-on-1 online, in English or French. Great for engineers who want to land in France, or French professionals who need business English.
Ship.
Fractional CTO, advisor, and agentic-build-studio for solo founders. If you have an idea and Claude-Code-fluency intimidates you, I come in, ship the first version, and teach you to run it.
A portfolio that
actually ships.
Ganea Recrutement
Built in 3 hours with Claude Code
Bilingual (EN/FR) editorial recruitment site for a Lyon-based boutique cabinet, with bespoke brand identity, illustrated aesthetic, and complete i18n. From briefing to production in one session. See the case study below.
Lit🔥Land
Language-learning marketplace · flagship
Human teachers, AI tutors, and smart tools in one platform. IELTS prep, live video lessons via LiveKit, collaborative docs, Stripe & PayPal payments, Supabase backend, Anthropic-powered practice. Currently in private beta.
True Phonetics
44 English sounds, systematically
Interactive phonetics trainer covering every vowel, diphthong and consonant in English. Browser-based with offline support and progress tracking. The product that started the Literate Limited lineage.
The Hairy Pill
Tele-health product site
Marketing + intake site for Prof. Rodney Sinclair's prescription hair-loss treatment. 41k+ patients served. Built on litdev infrastructure with custom CMS-free content model.
Universal Gym
Commercial fitness brand
Website and membership portal for a modern Australian gym. Animated hero (GSAP), three-tier pricing, class programs, trainer bios. Designed to feel physical even on a laptop.
Ganea — French edition
Same site, same soul — in French
True bilingualism, not Google-Translate. Copy calibrated to a French audience, URL-persistent language toggle, proper locale alternates. Part of the same 3-hour ship.
Ganea Recrutement · Lyon
From English class to production in 3 hours.
I met Justine in an English class on a Wednesday. She ran a boutique recruitment cabinet in Lyon and wanted to go international but didn't know where to start. I told her I'd send her a proposal the next day. Instead, I opened Claude Code, and by the end of the evening she had a fully-deployed bilingual website, a growth strategy PDF in both languages, and a drafted email inbox-ready.
Scraped ganea-recrutement.fr, read her LinkedIn and blog, inferred her voice (Saint-Exupéry quotes, travel metaphors, humanist tone).
Identified her original dream (international commerce & tourism) and reframed expansion as a return, not a pivot.
Parchment + ember + horizon-blue palette. Fraunces display + Instrument Sans body. Editorial magazine layout. Full bilingual draft.
Next 16 app, 29/29 Playwright tests passing, deployed to ganea.litdev.tech via Vercel CLI.
Beautiful print-ready HTML strategy document, bilingual versions, Gmail draft composed.
The site captures her voice without sanitising it. The strategy doc reads like a personal letter, not a generic growth playbook. This is what agentic development — used with real taste — actually looks like.
View live site →
Paris · April 2026
Raised in
Queensland.
Calibrated in
Paris.
I grew up on the Gold Coast. Studied at Monash University. Started with linguistics and phonetics — then taught myself to code because I wanted to build the learning tools I wished existed as a student. True Phonetics was the first of those. Lit🔥Land is the bigger bet.
Along the way I taught classes in French, Spanish and mathematics, trained as an English tutor, and slowly built up the rare combination of skills that let me walk into a room with a French recruitment founder and walk out with her website in production the same day.
I live between Paris and the Gold Coast. I ship fast, I teach kindly, and I charge rates that reflect both. If you're building something hard — especially if it involves language, learning, or cross-border work — I am probably the right person.
Work with me —
three ways.
Discovery session
90 min
- ◇Structured diagnostic call
- ◇Written follow-up with recommendations
- ◇Credit applied to any sprint booked within 30 days
Agentic build sprint
1–2 weeks
- ◇Full product shipped — landing, app, or MVP
- ◇Production-grade Next.js + TypeScript + Playwright
- ◇Live deployment on your infra or mine
- ◇One week of post-ship support included
Embedded operator
per week, min 4 weeks
- ◇Fractional CTO / lead engineer for your startup
- ◇Ship + coach your team, in English or French
- ◇Weekly demos, weekly invoices
- ◇Exit plan baked in — you own what we build
Also available:
1-on-1 English, French, Spanish, maths or programming tutoring — €60/hr, online only, minimum 4 sessions. Perfect for engineers moving to France or French professionals preparing for IELTS.
Not taking:
One-off "quick favours", unpaid equity-only deals, or anything I wouldn't be proud to screenshot here. If we work together, the work is public.
Tell me what
you're building.
First reply within 24 hours, in English or French. If it's a good fit, next step is usually a 30-minute call this week.