Roberto Hidalgo <un@rob.mx>

I work with computers, most of the time. Other times, during the last two decades, I have worked around, despite, and/or with an intentional lack of computers. This is a longer version of my résumé.

Work Experience

2021...present Staff Software Engineer at Bluecore

Bluecore enables retailers to deliver highly-personalized automated communications at scale, providing the only AI-driven unified system for customer and product data. My work with the Delivery team focuses on acting as a force-multiplier, providing insights towards optimizing our team’s infrastructure and operations.

• Led the effort to migrate 500KLoC of a cloud-specific python2.7 monolithic codebase into 3.11 long after the departure of its original architects. Researched, documented, and executed on the changes required after more than a decade of runtime updates. Onboarded a team of senior engineers that would serve as initial facilitators for their teams.
  python golang
• Sucesfully—with no production incidents—instrumented and rolled out a long-awaited feature to GA while halving costs and duplicating traffic.
  bash, python, sql, k8s
• Optimized and hardened multiple production services, creating and improving existing documentation for these processes, as well as creating tools to automate our analysis of needs and priorities.
  golang, redis, bash

2020...2021 Senior DevOps Engineer at Hum Capital

Capital makes the process of obtaining financing for startups fast, efficient and easy. I joined as their second DevOps hire and spent my first months preparing the engineering organization and its tools for SOC/2 compliance.

• Planned for and lead the way towards SOC/2 compliance, carrying out all sorts of tasks, from policy writing to post-implementation support. I worked on rearchitecting the infrastructure of Hum as it grows from its early startup stage, with time to spare to meet business-level objectives.
  pulumi jenkins golang bash
• Helped shape the initial architecture for both product-level and internal service-level objectives. Drove the effort to surface requirements while diving into the company’s system, resulting in an updated company-wide roadmap.
  python *sql bash notion

2020 Senior DevOps Engineer at Attentive Mobile

Attentive offers a personalized mobile messaging platform, and I joined during a high-growth phase. As part of the DevOps team and after taking time to get comfortable exploring this system, I’ve took charge of rolling out infrastructure as code (IaC) while supporting existing efforts.

• Spent my first few months gradually introducing best practices into existing terraform configs, focusing on reducing friction for developers that were coming close contact with IaC for the first time. Through tooling, documentation and countless hours of pairing, our efforts have helped onboard half of the engineering organization in less than a month, with interns and senior folks as comfortable with the tools as each other (and quite close in PR count!).
  terraform atlantis bash golang

2016...2020 Staff Infrastructure Engineer at Blink Health

Blink provides affordable and transparent access to medications for people in the United States. My focus at Blink has been at supporting the ever-growing development team in multiple locations.

• Introduced continuous delivery to a front-end team, alleviating the lack of trust by deploying fast and often. This began by speeding up local development builds by an order of magnitude; followed by instrumenting the app and deploys; and finally building automated “playgrounds” for developers to test their code (and our deploy process) in.
  webpack nginx jenkins react datadog sentry
• Researched and iteratively implemented an onboarding process for engineers. As the company grew, I took the initiative to assemble a mixed group of engineers, human resources folks, and learning and development specialists to build a scalable process to get our newest teammates up to speed. After attending these sessions, which I’ve also facilitated, folks confidently navigate this growing system, and learn their way into using this team’s toolchain.
  bash homebrew github s3 circleci
• Adopted a bare-bones secrets management tool, developing its codebase along its fit within the team’s workflow. Many RFCs, flavors of documentation pages, adopters, and languages later, I participated on building the internal process to open source its code, as well as the security review by a third party.
  golang python typescript aws-kms gpg
• Planned and implemented a gradual Infrastructure-as-Code introduction for our growing team along a cross-region cloud migration. Documented and facilitated learning sessions for different teams within the company. Built tools to bridge the gaps within our processes, until it made sense to use Terraform Enterprise.
  terraform packer ansible python circleci python

2010...2016 Lead Engineer at Partido Surrealista Mexicano

The Mexican Surrealist Party was a software development agency I co-founded that worked on a variety of domains for its clients. Our small operation meant I built my experience throughout every step of the software development lifecycle.

• Architected and implemented a hardware and software turn-key solution for live video processing and delivery, also training our client’s production teams. Served hundreds of thousands of hours of content from multiple newsrooms to the wide range of devices with a much lower budget months before the competition could catch up.
  c ruby javascript html css mysql ffmpeg
• Built, tested, documented, and launched the backend for a near-real-time seismic alert system, working closely with the Azure Mobile Services team during their service’s early development. Delivered a reliable and increasingly trusted system that has continued to evolve from the initial implementation.
  javascript ruby mssql
• Led the continuous user research and development of a bespoke ERM for a rapidly growing immigration law firm. Employee retention rates, along their measured efficiency improved significantly as a result. Oversaw the system’s painless integration and eventual migration after the firm’s acquisition.
  ruby sinatra html mongodb new-relic

2001...2010 CTO at Comtelsat

Comtelsat is an international film, broadcast, and security systems integrator for the private and public sector. During my time at Comtelsat, I wore many hats as the company expanded and found more markets to address, from leading government procurement processes to on-site technical implementation of solutions.

• Coordinated the growth of the operation and internal systems of the company from 7 people well into the thousands as well as selecting and negotiating vendors. Oversaw the implementation and rapid expansion of the company’s operations cross-country and then abroad.
• Designed and implemented control-room automation systems and encryption solutions for multiple clients, including the largest Spanish-speaking media conglomerates of early 2000s. Monitored and operated these systems during mission-critical events like elections and global telenovela premieres.
• Built and oversaw the deployment of the National Airtime (tiempos oficiales) scheduling system used by every single media station in Mexico.

Education

2005...2007 Visual Communication undergraduate at Centro

I attended two years of the Visual Communication program at Centro, before dropping out.

Sharing knowledge is very important to me, within and outside the office space. I’m grateful to have helped grow a Javascript community in Mexico City, where I developed a knack for telling stories. I’ve lead courses for Women Who Code DF and imparted summer classes for kids at Christel House Mexico. Through the years, I’ve mentored a handful of folks who have made blooming careers in tech for themselves. I strive to collaborate with folks from other disciplines; their work has been exhibited at places like the Anahuacalli Museum or the Universität der Künste.