Santiago is available for hire
Hire SantiagoSantiago Saavedra
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Architecture Developer
Location
Madrid, Spain
Toptal Member Since
December 29, 2021
Santiago learned programming at 12. He holds several years of professional experience and 5+ in API and software architecture. Former president of a Linux User Group and a researcher in formal methods and functional programming, Santiago is passionate about computer science, especially API design, system architecture, and data engineering.
Portfolio
Apiday
Algorithms, Python 3, Django, Django REST Framework, React, Next.js, PostgreSQL...
Braven, Inc.
Algorithms, Data Structures, Software Development, Salesforce, Python...
BCG
Python, Mentorship & Coaching, Django, Amazon Web Services (AWS), React...
Experience
Availability
Part-time
Preferred Environment
Scala, IntelliJ IDEA, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Docker, Gerrit, Kafka Streams, Spark, Spark Structured Streaming, Python, MacOS
The most amazing...
...and challenging task I've done was consulting on transitioning a 5G unified data management service from a monolith to cloud-native microservices.
Work Experience
Lead Software Developer
2023 - PRESENT
Apiday
- Developed a module for a multi-tenant application that displays the data governance of different data points for a complex aggregation scenario with multiple aggregation levels and stakeholders at different companies.
- Tracked bugs in Notion with the codebase in GitHub.
- Led the integration of the Google Drive API throughout the application to improve the sending and downloading of documents for clients who are also Google Workspace users.
Technologies: Algorithms, Python 3, Django, Django REST Framework, React, Next.js, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Airtable, Data Science
Lead Python Engineer
2023 - 2023
Braven, Inc.
- Developed a web app that extracted data from Salesforce grant beneficiaries organized in diverse and relevant cohorts to maximize their engagement in college.
- Increased productivity by over 200% with the tool—for the people involved in generating cohorts.
- Included a Salesforce cache within the tool to render sales data more quickly and improve user experience, increasing the productivity of other processes.
Technologies: Algorithms, Data Structures, Software Development, Salesforce, Python, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Optimization, Cloud, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon Web Services (AWS), Data Science
Tech Leader
2022 - 2023
BCG
- Led a team and architecture for a next-generation platform architecture in BCG with senior stakeholders for an AI-based commercial banking solution; in a novel multi-tenant scenario that could be reused by multiple teams at BCG in other verticals.
- Collaborated in the improvement of IaaC Terraform scripts to build a multi-tenant SaaS solution with an on-demand growing infrastructure and isolated security contexts that could meet SOC 2 compliance.
- Identified and reduced turnaround times from platform-involved teams by working with senior leadership around the better shaping of shared infrastructure responsibilities.
- Worked in a team that collectively ramped up to twice their story point completion. Improved overall story point predictability and planning for the benefit of both the engineering team and the leadership.
- Supported the QA and engineering teams in increasing our overall coverage from around 70% to around 98% in less than six months while maintaining feature velocity.
- Architected and led contributions on key parts of infra, such as the multi-tenant Terraform framework and the per-tenant customizable attribute-based access control based on an extensible architecture that can be used both for monolithic and SOAs.
Technologies: Python, Mentorship & Coaching, Django, Amazon Web Services (AWS), React, Data Engineering, Pandas, Dask, Amazon EKS, AWS IAM, Identity & Access Management (IAM), Role-based Access Control (RBAC), Oso, SQL, Django ORM, Helm, Okta, Salesforce, Rust, Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), CircleCI, Django REST Framework, Terraform, Cypress, Apache Airflow, Linux, Ubuntu, Data Structures, Algorithms, Functional Programming, Software Architecture, Product Roadmaps, Service-oriented Architecture (SOA), System Architecture Design, Software Engineering, Software Testing, IT Project Management, Formal Methods, TypeScript, Distributed Computing, API Design, Architecture, Data Architecture, Data Modeling, Microservices, Microservices Architecture, Technical Architecture, Monitoring, Agile, Data Auditing, Solution Architecture, APIs, Statistics, REST APIs, Data Science, Data Lakes
Co-founder, CTO
2019 - 2021
IUVIA Technologies, SL
- Designed a system architecture for a privacy-centric Linux-based operating system with centralized user accounts and a capabilities system to share data among apps.
- Managed EU-funded budget and the R&D roadmap and curated sprints with other team members to match our the project's goals.
- Contributed to other open-source projects featuring us or wanting to be part of our software platform and sign up to beta-test our SDK.
Technologies: Python 3, Rust, React, Django, Systemd, Linux, System Architecture Design, GitLab CI/CD, GitLab, PostgreSQL, SQLite, TypeScript, Operating Systems, Privacy, Data Privacy, Python, Google Cloud, Object-oriented Design (OOD), Distributed Computing, Data Architecture, Data Modeling, DevOps, Node.js, Message Queues, IT Project Management, API Design, Architecture, Django REST Framework, Mentorship & Coaching, Microservices, Microservices Architecture, Technical Architecture, Monitoring, Agile, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Data Auditing, Solution Architecture, APIs, Statistics, REST APIs, Data Science
Software Architect, Consultant
2018 - 2019
Ericsson
- Laid out the transition path from a 4G monolith to services-oriented architecture migrating to gRPC and HTTP/2.
- Coordinated five to ten engineering teams in two continents to ensure the migration path was a business success without impacting long-term software quality and robustness.
- Created the "Internal Best Practices on Containerization and service characterization" memo that was one of the most shared documents in our BU.
- Performed improvements on testing tools that freed 10% of the time needed for testing, and some CI/CD pipelines I helped design reduced their total time to completion by more than 80% with the same code coverage.
- Designed the deployment and upgrade lifecycle of components for zero-downtime upgrades and rollbacks.
Technologies: Kubernetes, Docker, Scala, Java, Gerrit, Jenkins, Software Architecture, Product Roadmaps, Service-oriented Architecture (SOA), Istio, PostgreSQL, Linux, Python, Python 3, Data Engineering, Data Pipelines, ETL, Google Cloud, Object-oriented Design (OOD), Distributed Computing, Data Architecture, Data Modeling, Data Warehousing, DevOps, Node.js, Message Queues, IT Project Management, Architecture, Mentorship & Coaching, Microservices, Microservices Architecture, Technical Architecture, Monitoring, Agile, Data Auditing, Solution Architecture, APIs, Apache Maven, HPCC Systems, REST APIs, Data Science
Staff Software Engineer, Consultant
2016 - 2018
Ericsson
- Developed the data architecture of an analytics system that handled user satisfaction and QoS metrics for an on-premise and cloud-native product.
- Implemented Spark Structured Streaming support on Kubernetes and upstreamed to Apache Spark.
- Refactored over 10,000 lines of code in Spark Batch jobs with 15-minute latencies into better-performing Kafka Streams operations with near-real-time to the front end (between 10 and 60 seconds.).
- Created a kafka-streams-scala wrapper to develop typesafe operations using Kafka Streams, later open-sourced.
- Worked on testing data pipelines needed to handle multiple gigabits per second of real-time IoT information—from set-top boxes and OTT apps—, both real and synthetic.
- Informed decisions on multiple other teams through my work on analytics, including the recommendation engine team who were working with Spark ML.
- Developed Helm Charts that could spin the whole infrastructure and work both for on-prem and cloud-based deployments, collaborating with the team who wrote the Terraform scripts.
- Refactored one of our back ends in a week to reduce 80% lines of code, increasing maintainability and "time-to-feature" for new APIs of the same kind, thanks to higher-order functions and classes.
Technologies: Scala, Spark Structured Streaming, Spark ML, Spark SQL, Apache Kafka, Kafka Streams, Django, Elasticsearch, Kibana, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Compute Engine (GCE), Kappa Architecture, GitLab CI/CD, GitLab, PostgreSQL, Pandas, SQL, Linux, Python, Python 3, Data Engineering, Data Pipelines, ETL, Google Cloud, Object-oriented Design (OOD), Distributed Computing, Data Architecture, Data Modeling, Apache Spark, Spark, Data Warehousing, DevOps, Node.js, Message Queues, Architecture, Mentorship & Coaching, Microservices, Microservices Architecture, Technical Architecture, Monitoring, Agile, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Data Auditing, APIs, PySpark, ELK (Elastic Stack), MapReduce, Hadoop, REST APIs, Data Science
Co-founder, CTO
2014 - 2016
VACMatch
- Developed a multitenant, multi versioned, and self-documented API back end that could be used by hundreds of test clients.
- Tracked bugs and performed development using Gerrit and Jenkins instances that I also managed.
- Rewrote 80% of the Scala back end with 20% of the coding effort in Python, allowing the deadline achievement before reunifying data on the back end and removing all code debt after the deadline.
- Ensured offline-first capabilities on the web app using CouchDB and PouchDB documents while saving shared state on the server to keep data updated via CouchDB design documents.
Technologies: Python, Python 3, Scala, Play 2, Play, Spring, Hibernate, Apache Tomcat, Pandas, REST, API Design, Architecture, Software Architecture, Django, Django REST Framework, React, Gerrit, Jenkins, CouchDB, PouchDB, Data Architecture, Data Modeling, DevOps, Node.js, Message Queues, Microservices Architecture, Microservices, Technical Architecture, Agile, Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), APIs, Apache Maven, Statistics, REST APIs, Data Science
Experience
IUVIA R1
A privacy-focused device that works as a mini-server and NAS at home. It is self-contained, extensible, and has user data encrypted.
I envisioned the platform and acted as its lead architect. It required industrial modeling and working within hardware constraints, handling the boot process and systems architecture using systemd and glue code. I also led the API design for the web app and inter-app communication.
I envisioned the platform and acted as its lead architect. It required industrial modeling and working within hardware constraints, handling the boot process and systems architecture using systemd and glue code. I also led the API design for the web app and inter-app communication.
displaylink-rpm
https://github.com/displaylink-rpm/displaylink-rpm/DisplayLink is a technology to send screen links over USB primarily used in laptop docks.
Not affiliated with DisplayLink Inc., I have been the maintainer of displaylink-rpm, the source of RPM packages for this project on Fedora through GitHub. As a maintainer, I coordinate with other open-source contributors and perform code reviews of their pull requests and triage issues.
Not affiliated with DisplayLink Inc., I have been the maintainer of displaylink-rpm, the source of RPM packages for this project on Fedora through GitHub. As a maintainer, I coordinate with other open-source contributors and perform code reviews of their pull requests and triage issues.
Ericsson 5G UDM
As part of Ericsson 5G Core services offering, I worked on the architecture of the unified data management network function. As an architecture team member, I coordinated the roadmap for engineering teams in two continents and developed POCs to ensure architecture plans were sound guidance. My job included transforming the product into cloud-native and systematizing the approach for engineering teams to implement.
MediaFirst Analytics
https://www.mediakind.com/media-platforms/mediafirst/An analytics platform for a pay-TV platform capable of live and VOD streams.
As the lead data engineer, I designed the data architecture, pipelines for customer satisfaction, and QoS reports, collaborating with the ML team to generate recommendations. As a staff software engineer, I improved the overall code quality and maintainability by analyzing and coordinating valuable refactor points and designed the platform deployment architecture in Kubernetes.
As the lead data engineer, I designed the data architecture, pipelines for customer satisfaction, and QoS reports, collaborating with the ML team to generate recommendations. As a staff software engineer, I improved the overall code quality and maintainability by analyzing and coordinating valuable refactor points and designed the platform deployment architecture in Kubernetes.
Real Estate Data Analytics
https://en.savills-aguirrenewman.es/Savills needed to transform their business to factor in rapid data changes from multiple data sources related to real estate. Some of them were public domain, and others were paid data.
As the lead data engineer, I designed and implemented most of the ETL process and data lake, which were integrated into Azure to comply with their corporate policy. We used a custom EDSL for extraction and transformation based on pandas and Click.
As the lead data engineer, I designed and implemented most of the ETL process and data lake, which were integrated into Azure to comply with their corporate policy. We used a custom EDSL for extraction and transformation based on pandas and Click.
IE Business School Automated Attendance-tracking System: CAMSIE
A system to check whether alumni are present in their classrooms without the teacher spending time tracking them manually.
As a software architect, I elicited the project requirements and explored alternatives. We implemented Bluetooth beacons since they offered the best privacy, legal, and operativeness ratio for their use case.
As a software architect, I elicited the project requirements and explored alternatives. We implemented Bluetooth beacons since they offered the best privacy, legal, and operativeness ratio for their use case.
Skills
Languages
Scala, Python 3, Emacs Lisp, TypeScript, Python, Java, SQL, Haskell, Rust, OCaml, C, C++, Coq
Frameworks
Django, Django REST Framework, Apache Spark, Spark, Spark Structured Streaming, Truffle, Spring 4, React Native, Play 2, Play, Spring, Hibernate, Cypress, Hadoop, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Next.js
Libraries/APIs
React, Node.js, REST APIs, Spark ML, Pandas, Django ORM, TensorFlow, Dask, PySpark
Tools
Spark SQL, Google Compute Engine (GCE), GitLab, Git, IntelliJ IDEA, Gerrit, Kafka Streams, Systemd, GitLab CI/CD, GitHub, ELK (Elastic Stack), Apache Maven, Jenkins, Istio, Kibana, Autodesk Fusion 360, Sentry, Apache Tomcat, Amazon EKS, AWS IAM, Helm, CircleCI, Terraform, Apache Airflow
Paradigms
Functional Programming, Object-oriented Programming (OOP), ETL, Object-oriented Design (OOD), Distributed Computing, Role-based Access Control (RBAC), Microservices, Microservices Architecture, Agile, Software Testing, DevOps, MapReduce, Data Science, Service-oriented Architecture (SOA), REST
Platforms
Docker, Linux, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Apache Kafka, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Kubernetes, Blockchain, Azure, Bluetooth LE, Android, iOS, MacOS, Salesforce, Ubuntu
Storage
Data Pipelines, Google Cloud, Elasticsearch, PostgreSQL, Azure SQL, SQLite, CouchDB, PouchDB, Data Lakes
Other
System Architecture Design, Software Architecture, Algorithms, Data Structures, Operating Systems, Software Engineering, Data Engineering, Architecture, Data Architecture, Data Modeling, Message Queues, Technical Architecture, Solution Architecture, APIs, HPCC Systems, Product Roadmaps, Kappa Architecture, IT Project Management, Web Security, Applied Cryptography, Game Theory, Formal Methods, Data Warehousing, Mentorship & Coaching, Oso, ETL Tools, Monitoring, Data Auditing, Statistics, Numerical Methods, Hibernate 3, Cryptography, Complexity Theory, Information Flow, CVC4, Z3, Software Modeling, RPM Packaging, Azure Data Lake, Bluetooth Beacons, Privacy, Data Privacy, API Design, Cloud, Deployment, Identity & Access Management (IAM), Okta, Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Genomics, Biotechnology, Software Development, Optimization, Airtable
Education
2009 - 2014
Master's Degree in Computer Science
University of A Coruña - A Coruña, Spain
Certifications
AUGUST 2022 - AUGUST 2025
AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate
AWS
OCTOBER 2018 - PRESENT
Functional Programming in Scala Specialization
Coursera
OCTOBER 2018 - PRESENT
Blockchain
Coursera
MAY 2016 - PRESENT
SSFT'16: Summer School on Formal Techniques
SRI International Inc.
DECEMBER 2015 - PRESENT
Data Manipulation at Scale: Systems and Algorithms
Coursera
AUGUST 2015 - PRESENT
Summer School Marktoberdorf | NATO Advanced Study Institute
Technische Universität München
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