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David Camargo

Summary

The short version.

  • ID: SUM_01 // Track recordVerified

    $0 → $10MARR

    Proven track record

    Led companies from 0 to $10M ARR (Instaleap, acquired by Instacart) and grew teams from 0 to 100+ engineers, delivering value daily while maintaining healthy service levels for customers.

  • ID: SUM_02 // LeadershipVerified

    102hires · 7 countries

    Generative leadership

    Prioritizes strong relationships with teams and stakeholders, a product-focused mindset, and a generative culture; improving processes to drive productivity and, increasingly, to make AI adoption stick beyond the pilot phase.

  • ID: SUM_03 // ExpertiseVerified

    17yrs · MVP → enterprise

    17 years of engineering expertise

    Extensive experience building solutions from MVP to enterprise across different stacks (mainly JS and Python), from nimble startups to complex scale-ups.

  • ID: SUM_04 // AI enablementVerified

    AIGenAI · RAG · agents

    AI enablement & mentorship

    Mentors engineering leaders at Lidr.co on personal leadership, balancing business results with engineering excellence, and adopting AI responsibly; covering GenAI, RAG, agents, and agent security for both engineers and managers.

Experience · 12 roles

  1. 01

    Pizza Hut Digital & Technology

    Engineering Manager

    Jan 2025 — Present

    1 yr 9 mos · Full-time · Remote

    Diagram of the shared MACH platform serving web and React Native apps, with key delivery metrics.

    Leading web and React Native commerce for two markets on a shared MACH platform, with AI-native delivery practices.

    • Launched React Native and web apps for two markets on a MACH architecture, enabling faster market rollout (from 9 months to 3 months) on a shared platform.
    • Led AI-native tooling and process adoption (Lite LLM, spec-driven development, AI-assisted code review), improving DORA metrics: 50% reduction in lead time, 10% reduction in change failure rate, and deployment frequency up from biweekly to multiple times per week.
    • Steered technical decisions balancing launch speed with long-term scalability, contributing to a conversion rate increase from 7% to 21%.
    • Led the implementation and data strategy for marketing tools (Branch, Appsflyer, Meta, TikTok, Braze), driving a 35% increase in revenue.
    • React Native
    • React
    • MACH
    • LiteLLM
    • Spec-driven development
    • Branch
    • AppsFlyer
    • Braze
  2. 02

    Lidr.co

    Adjunct Professor — Leadership & AI Engineering

    Mar 2022 — Present

    4 yrs 7 mos · Part-time contract · Remote

    Lidr.co program banner for technology leadership training.

    Teaching applied AI engineering and engineering leadership to developers, managers and the companies they work for.

    • Built and delivered applied AI curriculum covering generative AI, RAG, agent architectures, and agent security for software teams.
    • Enabled developers and managers to adopt AI tooling in daily workflows, from IDE assistants to LLM-driven automation pipelines.
    • Helped senior engineers transition into leadership roles through mentoring on engineering management, team development, and decision-making under ambiguity.
    • Guided companies on where AI adoption created leverage and how to roll it out without disrupting delivery.
    • Coached tech leads through career inflection points and leadership growth.
    • Generative AI
    • RAG
    • Agent architectures
    • Agent security
    • LLM automation
    • Engineering management
  3. 03

    Instaleap

    [ Acquired by Instacart ]

    VP of Engineering & Co-founder

    Mar 2019 — Mar 2023

    4 yrs · Full-time · Remote

    Instaleap platform dashboards and mobile apps for eCommerce orchestration.

    Co-founded and led engineering for an eGrocery fulfillment platform from zero to $10M ARR and $1B GMV, later acquired by Instacart.

    • Led the tech team to develop a product with $2M ARR within two years, achieving $1 Billion GMV in four years.
    • Architected a distributed system for 16 products with an API-first methodology, integrating distributed databases.
    • Expanded the team by recruiting 102 global members across 7 countries, enhancing a distributed team environment.
    • Executed strategic product and architectural decisions, leading software engineering and support teams.
    • Implemented Terraform for automated AWS resource provisioning, boosting infrastructure efficiency.
    • Coordinated stakeholders to drive business results and foster a collaborative work culture.
    • Distributed systems
    • API-first
    • AWS
    • Terraform
    • Node.js
    • Python
  4. 04

    Bright Send

    CTO

    Apr 2023 — Mar 2024

    11 mos · Full-time · Remote

    Diagram of the Bright Send remittance flow from Europe to Africa, with KYC, compliance and payout steps.

    Built the product team and launched a Europe-to-Africa remittance app with payout, KYC and compliance.

    • Built and led a focused product team, enhancing effectiveness through hands-on mentoring and collaboration with stakeholders for a clearer product view.
    • Launched a remittance app for Europe-to-Africa money transfers, integrating payout, KYC, and compliance to enhance functionality.
    • Led the integration of Flutterwave for payouts across Africa and Machnet for pay-ins, KYC and compliance.
    • Drove technical decisions and established code review and continuous delivery practices across product development.
    • Utilized a tech stack including React, TailwindCSS, NextJS, GitHub Actions, Serverless, Java, and Spring Boot.
    • React
    • TailwindCSS
    • Next.js
    • GitHub Actions
    • Serverless
    • Java
    • Spring Boot
  5. 05

    Vapi

    Software Engineer

    Oct 2024 — Dec 2024

    2 mos · Full-time contract · Remote

    Vapi wordmark on a dark background.

    Real-time voice-agent features — speech-to-text, LLM reasoning and text-to-speech — plus the agent dashboard and workflow builder.

    • Integrated advanced voice capabilities with speech-to-text, LLM reasoning, and text-to-speech for low-latency seamless experiences.
    • Enhanced the configuration and management dashboard for voice agents, improving user control and operational usability.
    • Developed workflow-builder features with conversation nodes and branching logic. Enabled non-specialists using configurable primitives.
    • Speech-to-text
    • LLMs
    • Text-to-speech
    • Voice agents
    • Workflow builder
  6. 06

    Littio

    Software Engineer

    Apr 2024 — Jul 2024

    3 mos · Full-time contract · Remote

    Littio wordmark on a dark background.

    Finance operations tooling: an internal finance system, back-office tools and Metabase dashboards.

    • Transitioned to freelance consulting, strategically planning next funding round for Bright Send.
    • Engineered an internal finance operations system with NestJS and Serverless, streamlining workflow management and operational efficiency.
    • Delivered optimized back-office tools using React and no-code platforms, leading to a significant increase in internal process efficiency.
    • Developed and implemented Metabase dashboards, providing enhanced operational visibility for the finance team.
    • NestJS
    • Serverless
    • React
    • No-code
    • Metabase
  7. 07

    Mercadoni

    Tech Lead

    Aug 2018 — Dec 2018

    4 mos · Full-time · Bogotá, Colombia

    Mercadoni homepage from 2017 (Web Archive): the Mercadoni wordmark over a supermarket aisle.

    Led 15 engineers across web, iOS and Android, reviving stalled projects and scaling core architecture.

    • Led a team of 15 engineers across multiple platforms to deliver major web, iOS, and Android releases, reviving several stalled projects.
    • Scaled core architecture to enhance system reliability and performance for client-facing applications.
    • Established engineering guidelines for safer experimentation within the codebase.
    • Collaborated with the head of product and engineering to ensure alignment and efficient coordination.
    • Monitored system and product metrics with Prometheus, Grafana, Google Analytics, and Metabase (SQL).
    • Supported the customer service team in achieving high Net Promoter Score (NPS).
    • Utilized a tech stack including Node.js, ECS, RabbitMQ, and others to streamline CI/CD processes.
    • Node.js
    • ECS
    • RabbitMQ
    • Prometheus
    • Grafana
    • Metabase
  8. 08

    Mercadoni

    Senior Software Engineer

    May 2018 — Aug 2018

    3 mos · Full-time · Bogotá, Colombia

    Rolled out the next-generation client web app on CloudFront and Lambda@Edge.

    • Delivered new features for the next generation of the client-facing web application.
    • Rolled out a new client-facing web application with CloudFront and Lambda@Edge, improving frontend scalability and release control.
    • Migrated key features from the legacy API to the new platform version.
    • Added monitoring and tracking across the web application and APIs for better operational visibility.
    • Tech stack: Node.js, ECS, RabbitMQ, MongoDB, React/Redux/Sagas, CI/CD with Jenkins (Frontend).
    • Node.js
    • ECS
    • RabbitMQ
    • MongoDB
    • React
    • Redux
    • CloudFront
    • Lambda@Edge
    • Jenkins
  9. 09

    Torre

    Senior Frontend Engineer

    Feb 2016 — Apr 2018

    2 yrs 2 mos · Full-time · Remote

    Torre's 2018 homepage (Web Archive) showing Torre Bio and Torre Remote.

    Led frontend architecture for seven product experiments, including the launch of the Torre Bio platform.

    • Spearheaded the frontend architecture and development of seven innovative product experiments, focusing on user experience and interface design.
    • Successfully built six alpha products using Angular and launched one beta product with Vue.js, notably the Torre Bio platform.
    • Developed backend functionalities in Scala/Play, enhancing the messaging service and crucial features like profile creation and recommendation systems.
    • Innovated Materrial, a tailored fork of Vue Material, to meet unique organizational needs, now extensively used across all company products.
    • Contributed significantly to Marrconi, a Node.js and TypeScript-based microservice, managing messaging for four distinct products.
    • Drove the MVP launch of translationbunny.com, handling frontend development with Angular 1 and integrating multiple microservices in Groovy, PHP, and Node.js.
    • Angular
    • Vue.js
    • Scala/Play
    • Node.js
    • TypeScript
    • Groovy
    • PHP
  10. 10

    Tutorya

    Software Engineer

    Aug 2013 — Nov 2015

    2 yrs 3 mos · Full-time · Bogotá, Colombia

    Tutorya's virtual classroom from tutorya.com in 2015 (Web Archive): whiteboard, math tools and live video.

    Led a distributed team building a learning platform for 3,000 students.

    • Improved learning experience for 3000 students by enhancing scalable, efficient systems during Tutorya’s platform design.
    • Led a distributed team in the development of Tutorya, ensuring seamless collaboration and effective product engineering.
    • Improved the customer experience by translating user needs and feedback into product decisions.
    • Spearheaded front-end engineering efforts, creating intuitive dashboards for easy data tracking and analysis of operators and class coordinators.
    • Instrumented features for detailed data tracking, enabling data-informed decisions for product enhancements and customer support.
    • Maintained and developed message queues within Tutorya’s distributed system, enhancing overall platform reliability with RabbitMQ.
    • RabbitMQ
    • JavaScript
    • Dashboards
    • Analytics
  11. 11

    Shortcut Solutions

    Software Engineer

    Feb 2011 — Oct 2011

    8 mos · Full-time · Bogotá, Colombia

    Full-stack features on the EBD framework for architecture and ID3 clients.

    • Built frontend and backend features using the EBD framework, HTML, CSS, and jQuery.
    • Delivered frontend and backend work for Products Arquitectónicos and ID3.
    • Tech stack: Perl, EBDML, HTML, CSS, jQuery, MySQL, Linux Bash, Moo tools.
    • Perl
    • EBDML
    • HTML
    • CSS
    • jQuery
    • MySQL
    • Bash
    • MooTools
  12. 12

    Cronopios Comunicaciones

    Software Engineer

    Aug 2009 — Feb 2010

    6 mos · Full-time · Bogotá, Colombia

    Joomla templates, modules and server upkeep for about 30 nonprofit portals.

    • Built Joomla templates, modules, and components while maintaining servers for roughly 30 nonprofit information portals.
    • Tech stack: jQuery, PHP, Joomla, Moo tools, Flash, ActionScript.
    • PHP
    • Joomla
    • jQuery
    • MooTools
    • Flash
    • ActionScript

Skills

Leadership
LeadershipBudget ManagementBoard CommunicationEngineering ManagementTeam DevelopmentDue DiligenceFundraisingInvestor Relations
AI
AI ImplementationLLMRAGLangChainAgent OrchestrationLangGraphBMADSDD
Software development
JavaScriptPythonTypeScriptJavaPHPAgileTDDLean
Frameworks & tools
ReactAngularServerlessNestJSDockerFlaskRabbitMQPostgreSQLMongoDBFirebaseMetabaseCloudFrontExpoReact NativeNode.jsRedshift
Practices & platforms
AWSTerraformSupabaseGoogle CloudCI/CDAgile methodologiesDORA metrics implementation
Domains
HRMarketplaceEcommerceFintechLogisticsLast mileRetailCreative servicesGig economy

Education

Systems Engineering

Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas

Bogotá, Colombia

Specialist in software development and managing IT projects.