Technology · Team spirit · Better software

Curriculum Vitae

Ángel Cervera · Hands-on CTO & Technology Director

29+ years building software systems, shaping technical strategy and leading engineering teams.

Ángel Cervera

Professional overview

I help startups and growing companies define technical strategy, build scalable platforms and lead engineering teams. My background combines CTO-level leadership with hands-on work in software architecture, cloud and data engineering.

Working professionally since 1997, I have contributed to more than 50 projects across finance, healthcare, insurance, geospatial systems, SaaS and marketplaces.

  • Technology leadership
  • Software architecture
  • Cloud & data
  • Hands-on engineering

Recent Experience

Zengate Global

Director of Technology · de facto CTO

2025/01 – 2026/07

Bank of Ireland

Senior Consultant

2024/04 – 2024/10

TCG Land

CTO

2023/08 – 2024/01

UnitedHealth Group / Optum

Senior Consultant

2022/10 – 2023/09

The Block

Senior Data Architect

2022/05 – 2022/06

UnitedHealth Group / Optum

Senior Data Architect

Stars

2021/11 – 2022/05

Dun and Bradstreet

Senior Software Engineer

Direct+ Monitoring

2020/12 – 2021/10

Swiss Re

Senior Solution Architect

Working on different PoCs

2020/05 – 2020/11

Dun and Bradstreet

Senior Software Engineer

Platform prime

2018/04 – 2020/03

Nitro Software Inc.

Senior Data Engineer

Analytics

2017/10 – 2018/04

Dun and Bradstreet

Senior Software Engineer

Direct+ Search

2015/10 – 2017/09

EMC

Senior Software Engineer

Metering and monitoring

2015/03 – 2015/10

EMC

Senior Software Engineer

Big Data Lake / ECPS

2014/03 – 2015/02

elocalia

CTO / Co-founder

Real Estate Analytics

2013/07 – 2014/01

Key achievements

Transformed Zengate's fragmented engineering function into a cohesive 10-person team distributed across seven countries, hiring five engineers and establishing clear ownership, knowledge sharing, and end-to-end processes from planning through deployment and production maintenance.

Designed and delivered a high-performance search platform for Dun & Bradstreet, serving hundreds of millions of business records with complex filtering and production-grade ETL and indexing pipelines.

Architected and built Mexico and Latin America's first TCG marketplace using a serverless cloud platform designed for scalability, availability, and cost efficiency.

Created SimplexPortal from scratch, turning a technical vision into a high-performance SaaS CMS and e-commerce platform built with standard web technologies.

Skills Summary

Leadership & Governance

Strategy & Business Alignment

  • Technology strategy & roadmaps: Define technical direction, set roadmaps, and prioritize initiatives aligned with business goals.
  • Product–engineering alignment: Keep product and engineering aligned from discovery to delivery through clear outcomes and feedback loops.
  • Vendor & stakeholder management: Align stakeholders and manage vendors through negotiation, clear expectations, and risk-aware decisions.

Engineering Leadership

  • Engineering leadership: Hire, mentor, and structure teams while setting culture, expectations, and effective ways of working.
  • Delivery management: Drive predictable execution through planning, agile practices, ownership, and continuous improvement.

Governance & Risk

  • Architecture governance: Establish standards, lead architecture reviews, and set guardrails for consistency, scalability, and safety.
  • Risk & technical debt strategy: Identify risks early, manage technical debt deliberately, and balance delivery speed with long-term maintainability.

Architecture & Engineering Excellence

Architecture

  • Distributed and event-driven systems: Design scalable distributed platforms, asynchronous workflows, APIs, and event-driven integrations.
  • Cloud-native and serverless architecture: Design elastic platforms using managed cloud services, containers, functions, and serverless patterns.

Quality & Performance

  • Quality engineering: Improve the SDLC through CI/CD, automated testing, disciplined release management, and engineering standards.
  • Performance engineering: Improve scalability through capacity planning, profiling, performance testing, and production tuning.
  • TDD and testing: ScalaTest, TestNG, JUnit, Selenium, QUnit, and automated testing practices.

Cloud, Data & Software Engineering

Cloud & Operations

  • Cloud and infrastructure: Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, AWS, Cloud Foundry, and Docker.
  • Cloud cost management (FinOps): Control cloud spend through cost visibility, optimization, and accountability across teams.
  • Observability: Use metrics, logging, and tracing to monitor systems and reduce time to diagnosis.
  • OS: Unix and Linux, including Ubuntu, Debian, and Gentoo.

Languages & Ecosystems

  • Scala: Scala, Akka, sbt, functional programming, and distributed backend systems.
  • Java: Java, Spring, Java EE, backend services, concurrency, and enterprise platforms.
  • Other languages: Go, Python, TypeScript, JavaScript, Node.js, C, and C++.

Data Platforms

  • Big Data: Spark and the Hadoop ecosystem, including HBase, HDFS, MapReduce, Pig, and Sqoop.
  • SQL Database: PostgreSQL, Oracle, MySQL, data modeling, and query optimization.
  • NoSQL Database: Elasticsearch, HBase, Cassandra, MongoDB, HStore, Infinispan, Berkeley DB, Titan, OrientDB, and Neo4j.

Enterprise & Legacy Technology Experience

Enterprise Java & Integration

  • Other Java related: Extensive experience with Spring, Java EE, EJB, JDBC, Hibernate, messaging, XML, web services, desktop Java, and earlier Java frameworks.
  • Application servers: GlassFish, JBoss, Tomcat, WebSphere, WebLogic, iPlanet, and OC4J.
  • Integration: OAuth 2.0, LDAP, enterprise security, social platforms, external APIs, and digital payment systems.

Delivery Tooling & Operations

  • CI and build tools: Ant, Maven, Jenkins, Hudson, Continuum, and legacy build and release environments.
  • Monitoring tools: Ambari, Nagios, Ganglia, and New Relic.

Web & Geospatial

  • Front end: JavaScript, jQuery, Dust.js, Bootstrap, XHTML, HTML, and CSS across multiple generations of web platforms.
  • GIS: PostGIS, pgRouting, OpenLayers, Leaflet, GeoTools, and GeoServer.

Leadership & approach

I bring CTO-level technical leadership with the ability to stay hands-on when needed. I help teams make pragmatic architecture decisions, reduce technical risk, improve delivery, mentor engineers, and build platforms that can scale without overengineering.

Good software is only possible with happy developers in a great work environment. As a hands-on CTO, I see technical leadership as the responsibility to create that environment while keeping teams focused on pragmatic delivery and scalable engineering.

What I’m looking for

I am looking to join a startup or growing company in a remote-first, high-trust environment where I can align technology with business goals, build strong engineering teams, and remain hands-on when needed.

Certifications & courses

Professional certifications and ongoing learning in cloud, AI, data and software engineering.

View all certifications and courses →

Side Projects & Open Source

Project: Simplex Spatial - The Reactive Geospatial Server

Skills: Scala, Akka.

Description: Consolidation of personal open-source GIS projects into a reactive geospatial server, including spatial-network algorithms, concurrent and parallel processing, clustering, and sharding.

Project: Osm4scala

Skills: Scala, OpenStreetMap, Google Protocol Buffers.

Description: Scala library for parsing and manipulating OpenStreetMap PBF files.

Education

Computer Systems Technical Engineering studies (three-year program), Universidad de Extremadura, Spain
Coursework completed; capstone project pending.

Languages

Spanish: Native.

English: Professional working proficiency. Working professionally in English since 2014.

Older Projects

Silyan Software

CTO / Co-founder

Silyan Spatial

2013/08 – 2014/01

Carrefour

Technical Lead

Retail/Franchise premises

2012/09 – 2014/01

GeoSpatial Training

Online Instructor

Open Source GIS Technologies

2012/07 – 2013/10

DataCentric

Technical Lead

Tuwebmap

2011/02 – 2011/11

Arcobaleno 2000

Technical Lead

www.arcobaleno2000.com

2010/06 – 2010/12

Meyem

Technical Lead

Meyem Online / GIS Module

2009/04 – 2012/03

Silyan Software

CTO / Co-founder

SimplexPortal

October 2008 – January 2014

Panama Government

Technical Architect

Marina Mercante/Gente de Mar

2008/04 – 2008/06

Panama Government

Technical Architect

Biometric suitcase

2008/04 – 2008/06

ArcelorMittal

Technical Architect

Framework agreements

2008/05 – 2008/12

Mexico Government

Technical Architect

Business Intelligence Module

2007/11 – 2007/12

International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation

Technical Architect

CIC Wildlife

2007/08 – 2007/10

Asturias Government

Software Architect

asturias.es

2006/09 – 2007/08

NaturalCom

Technical Architect

NCRouter

2006/08 – 2006/09

Amena

Technical Architect

Natural Notes

2006/02 – 2006/08

HCI International

Technical Architect

Booking tool

2005/04 – 2006/09

Calidad De Hogar

Technical Architect

Calidad de hogar

2005/08 – 2006/04

IP Soluciones

Senior Software Engineer

puntoinmobiliario.com

2005/02 – 2005/02

Ancades

Technical Architect

Inventory and Bidding

2004/11 – 2005/01

Cyrus

Technical Architect

Cyrus

2004/09 – 2004/11

Crédito y Caución and IBM/INSA

Technical Architect

Technical Lead

2004/04 – 2004/08

Danone

Senior Software Engineer

Danone Yellow Pages / Danone White Pages

2004/01 – 2004/04

Innova Solutions

Senior Software Engineer

Glaciar / LogHost

2004/01 – 2004/04

Espasa Calpe

Technical Quality Supervisor

Campus Home English / CEAC English

2003/04 – 2003/11

IP Soluciones

Senior Software Engineer

For a luxury Reale estate company

2003/04 – 2003/11

Santander Bank

Software Architect

Security module

2002/08 – 2003/02

Santander Bank

Software Architect

Contract Management

2002/08 – 2003/02

Santander Bank

Software Architect

Subcontracted employees timecard

2002/08 – 2003/02

Santander Bank

Software Architect

Warrants

2002/08 – 2003/02

Santander Bank

Software Architect

Fixed income securities management

2001/11 – 2002/08

Santander Bank

Software Architect

Equity funds management

2001/04 – 2001/11

Qarana Solutions

Software Engineer

Diversia

2000/08 – 2001/04

Qarana Solutions

Software Engineer

Banca Credem

2000/08 – 2001/04

Qarana Solutions

Software Engineer

Patagon Aggregator

2000/08 – 2001/04

Indra

Software Engineer

Telefónica

1999/02 – 2000/08

Xtrem

Software Engineer

El corte Inglés

1998/06 – 1999/02

MaiFeed

2015/02 – 2015/07

Dust-fw

2015/02 – 2015/07

Berta

2015/02 – 2015/07