Tomas
Venere
Chief Architect & Head of Engineering · Senior Software Engineer
.NET · Azure · AWS · Microservices · AI
12+ years architecting cloud-native, enterprise-grade systems at scale. From award-winning algorithms generating $100M+ in annual revenue to leading parallel Agile engineering teams and modernizing mission-critical monoliths. Building software that moves the needle.
Architect. Engineer. Leader.
A rare blend of deep technical expertise, executive leadership, and the disciplined mindset of a former professional athlete.
I grew up playing tennis seriously. I reached an ATP ranking of 800 Worldwide and placed Top 10 in Argentina before pivoting full-time into software. The grind of professional sports taught me something most engineers don't get from a classroom: how to perform under real pressure, iterate fast when things aren't working, and stay focused when the stakes are high.
Since then I've spent 12+ years building software that actually ships and actually matters. I've designed the algorithm now responsible for over $100M in annual Mileage Plan revenue at Alaska Airlines, stood up entire hospital digital platforms from bare metal, and currently architect multi-product healthcare systems used by thousands of provider partners and millions of patients.
My day-to-day looks like: running 3–4 concurrent engineering squads (typically 14–20 engineers total), making hard architecture calls across .NET, React, Azure, and AWS, reviewing PRs, unblocking teams, and making sure what we build in sprint 1 doesn't become the debt everyone hates in year 2. I care about the full picture: code quality, system reliability, team growth, and delivery speed.
I'm not interested in titles for their own sake. I just want to work on hard problems with great people and ship things that hold up at scale.
Professional Experience
A decade of impactful engineering across fintech, aviation, and healthcare, from individual contributor to Chief Architect.
- Brought in as Independent Chief Architect and Head of Engineering to own the full technical vision and delivery of a suite of 4 healthcare products built from the ground up. The platform serves 4,000+ provider partners and is designed to scale to 2.5M+ patients.
- Architected a multi-tenant, cloud-native platform on Azure with separate compute and data isolation per tenant, designed to handle 99.9% SLA requirements from day one; chose a microservices split that maps to team boundaries, not just technical convenience.
- Running 3 parallel engineering squads (15 engineers total) across front-end, back-end, and infrastructure. Each squad owns its domain end-to-end, I hold the architecture boundaries and cross-team coordination.
- Led full-stack development across React front-ends, .NET Core 8 APIs, and Azure-hosted microservices. Standardized patterns across teams so any engineer can work in any service without a 2-week ramp-up.
- Designed the security model from scratch: OAuth 2.0 + SAML for partner SSO, RBAC down to the data row level, secrets rotation via Azure Key Vault, and network isolation with private endpoints, built to pass healthcare-grade compliance audits.
- Set up CI/CD pipelines in GitHub Actions with Docker and Kubernetes on AKS; went from manual deployments to fully automated releases in 3 environments within the first 6 weeks, cutting deployment time from ~3 hours to under 20 minutes.
- Built the data layer on SQL Server + Cosmos DB + Redis; Redis caching alone dropped average API response times from ~380ms to ~90ms on the most-hit endpoints.
- Sole decision-maker on all architectural tradeoffs: everything from picking the messaging pattern (RabbitMQ over Service Bus for cost/latency reasons) to negotiating scope cuts with stakeholders when timelines got tight.
- Serving as Chief Architect and Head of Engineering for enterprise financial platforms, currently coordinating 4 concurrent squads totaling ~18 engineers across wealth management tooling, reporting infrastructure, partner integrations, and platform security.
- Leading the monolith decomposition program: broke a 600k-line C# monolith into 12 bounded-context microservices over 8 months. Release cycle dropped from 3 weeks to 2 days, hotfix time from 4 hours to under 30 minutes.
- Designed and shipped a MassTransit + RabbitMQ/Kafka messaging layer that now processes 180,000+ financial events per day with saga orchestration, automatic retries, and dead-letter alerting, with zero message loss in production since launch.
- Integrated AWS Bedrock and Azure OpenAI to power an AI-assisted financial advisory feature; prototype to production in 11 weeks, now surfacing personalized insights for 200K+ advisor accounts.
- Drove full CI/CD transformation using GitLab CI + ArgoCD (GitOps) + Octopus Deploy across EKS clusters. Teams went from 4 deploys/month to 40+ deploys/month with zero unplanned outages in the last quarter.
- Implemented enterprise IAM using Okta + Auth0 for SSO/SAML across 15 partner integrations; enforced RBAC at the API and data level, secrets rotation via AWS Secrets Manager. Passed SOC 2 review with no findings in our domain.
- Redis caching strategy I designed cut p95 API latency from 620ms to 95ms on the portfolio analytics endpoints, the biggest user-facing win of the year per product team feedback.
- Run weekly architecture reviews, maintain ADRs for every major decision, and have personally onboarded and mentored 6 engineers in the last year, 3 of them now in senior roles.
- Migrated 3 legacy .NET Framework 4.7 applications to .NET Core 8. Startup time dropped by ~55%, memory footprint reduced by ~40%, and we finally got to drop a pile of workarounds that had been sitting in the codebase since 2014.
- Built the Razor Pages + Blazor UI platform from scratch integrating Syncfusion's enterprise component suite, including data grids, scheduling, and charting components that previously took 2 weeks per feature now take 2 days to wire up.
- Stood up a Docker-based microservices architecture on Azure with Azure Functions + Service Bus for async workflows. Previously everything ran in a single IIS app; by the end we had 8 independently deployable services.
- Refactored the core domain layer applying SOLID and Clean Architecture. Cyclomatic complexity on the most-touched classes went from an average of 34 down to 8; new devs could actually understand the code without a 2-hour walkthrough.
- Took unit test coverage from 11% to 73% in 4 months by introducing TDD from the start of new features and writing tests for every bug we fixed. Production incidents dropped noticeably in the last 6 weeks of the contract.
- Rewrote 4 reporting SQL queries that were timing out in production. The longest one went from 47 seconds to under 2 seconds by restructuring joins and adding targeted indexes.
- Owned the Award Modernization project end-to-end: I wrote the core redemption algorithm, led a team of 5 engineers, coordinated with actuarial and finance stakeholders, and delivered on time. The platform has generated over $100M in incremental Mileage Plan revenue every year since launch.
- Built and maintained the BFF layer handling 4M+ API calls per month, with JWT + OAuth 2.0 auth, structured Serilog logging piped into Sumo Logic with alert rules that actually fired on real issues (not just noise).
- Delivered the Siebel-to-LMS partner migration for 8 airline partners. I designed the API contracts, built the transformation layer, wrote the integration tests, and managed partner comms. Zero partner-reported incidents post-cutover.
- Built Power BI dashboards consumed by 200+ internal stakeholders across revenue management, loyalty ops, and executive leadership, replacing 6 manual Excel reports that were being emailed around weekly.
- Led a GitHub Copilot-assisted refactoring sprint across 4 legacy microservices. We cleaned up ~38,000 lines of C#, improved test coverage from 22% to 61%, and cut average PR review time by half because the code was actually readable.
- Designed the GraphQL + Redis caching layer for the Mileage Plan member portal; cache hit rate stabilized at 87% on the most common queries, reducing database load significantly during peak booking windows.
- Onboarded and mentored 4 engineers new to the team, 2 of them going on to lead their own features within 6 months.
- Built and owned the HL7 v2 messaging middleware in .NET, handling ADT, ORM, and ORU message types between the EMR, lab, and radiology systems. Fixed a backlog of ~200 stuck messages in the first two weeks that had been failing silently for months.
- Built the entire tristatehospital.org platform from scratch. I provisioned the Windows Server, set up IIS, designed the SQL Server schema, and delivered 150+ pages including patient portals, staff directories, service listings, and 3 integrated sub-projects. Did it as a one-person team.
- Integrated Logical Ink, Medex, and Create!Forms for digital clinical data capture, eliminating paper-based intake for 3 departments and reduced form processing errors reported by nursing staff by a measurable amount week-over-week.
- Administered 4 Windows Server environments (2016/2019), handled patching schedules, SQL Server tuning, and IIS config, maintaining 99.6% uptime across a calendar year without a major incident.
- Mentored 2 junior developers who joined mid-project, getting them productive on the codebase within 3 weeks.
- Developed responsive React.js UI components integrated with a custom .NET backend, delivering seamless cross-device user experiences.
- Supported Azure-hosted environments, assisting with front-end deployment pipelines and environment configuration.
- Designed and built interactive VR simulations and educational environments in Unity (C#), including 3D physics, dynamic lighting, and immersive interaction systems.
- Contributed to a NASA-affiliated research initiative involving advanced 2D/3D image analysis using Python for aerospace and scientific datasets.
- Founded and operated two independent development studios, delivering 100+ custom websites using React, WordPress, Angular, and Svelte, including full UI/UX design, backend integration, and hosting.
- Built and deployed 6+ mobile applications in React Native, Kotlin (Android), and Swift (iOS) for independent clients, delivering modern cross-platform experiences.
Technology Stack
A comprehensive full-stack skill set spanning cloud infrastructure, security, AI, and modern enterprise development.
Chief Architect & Head of Engineering
Leading at scale, from system design and architectural governance to cross-team coordination and talent development.
Architectural Governance
Owning end-to-end technical strategy and system design across enterprise platforms. Establishing standards for Clean Architecture, SOLID, and domain-driven design across engineering organizations. Driving architectural review boards and design decision records (ADRs).
Parallel Agile Team Leadership
Simultaneously leading 3 to 4 concurrent Agile engineering squads of 4 to 6 engineers each. Orchestrating cross-team delivery, sprint ceremonies, dependency management, and release coordination, all while maintaining velocity and code quality standards.
Greenfield & Modernization Programs
Leading end-to-end greenfield initiatives from inception through production, including monolith-to-microservices migrations, front-end micro-app decompositions, and full platform re-architectures. Coordinating with product, business, and security stakeholders throughout.
Mentorship & Engineering Culture
Building high-performance engineering cultures through structured mentorship, pair programming, code review standards, and architectural knowledge sharing. Personally mentored 50+ engineers across healthcare, aviation, and fintech, many promoted to senior roles.
Security & Compliance Architecture
Architecting zero-trust security postures across cloud-native platforms. Implementing enterprise IAM, SSO, SAML, and OAuth 2.0 solutions at scale. Leading security reviews, threat modeling, and ensuring compliance with industry regulations across financial and healthcare systems.
DevOps & Platform Engineering
Driving CI/CD maturity and platform engineering excellence across organizations. Implementing GitOps workflows with ArgoCD, multi-environment release pipelines with Octopus Deploy, and container orchestration with Kubernetes and Docker at enterprise scale.
Flagship Projects
High-impact systems delivered across fintech, aviation, and healthcare, each representing significant technical and business value.
Led the end-to-end architecture, algorithm design, and full delivery of Alaska Airlines' Award Modernization initiative. The resulting platform now generates over $100 million in annual revenue for the Mileage Plan loyalty program, the highest-impact project in the program's history.
Designed and delivered a production-grade distributed messaging infrastructure using MassTransit with RabbitMQ and Kafka. Supports complex sagas, retry policies, and dead-letter queue handling across a large-scale financial microservices ecosystem serving millions of transactions.
Architected and led the decomposition of a large enterprise monolith into independent microservices and micro-frontend applications. Enabled autonomous team deployments, significantly improved release velocity, and reduced blast radius for failures across the platform.
Built a full end-to-end Razor Pages application from scratch, integrating Syncfusion's enterprise UI library for complex data grids, charts, and scheduling components. Delivered a rich, performant user experience for business-critical workflows.
Delivered a full end-to-end migration of the Siebel partner integration layer to a modern LMS platform, including API design, data transformation pipelines, security integration, and extensive partner coordination across multiple airline loyalty ecosystems.
Singlehandedly architected and built the full hospital digital platform (tristatehospital.org), from server provisioning to 150+ page delivery, including HL7 messaging middleware, SQL databases, custom clinical forms, and Windows Server administration.
Credentials & Certifications
Industry-recognized credentials spanning cloud architecture, cybersecurity, software engineering, and agile leadership.
Academic Background
Dual-degree foundations in Computer Science and Mathematics, complemented by a 3.7+ GPA and continuous professional development.
Research Interests
Areas where I actively explore emerging techniques and apply them to enterprise engineering challenges.
AI Integration in Enterprise .NET
Exploring how generative AI models (AWS Bedrock, Azure OpenAI, GitHub Copilot) can be embedded directly into software development lifecycles, from automated code review to intelligent API generation and test synthesis.
Microservices Performance at Scale
Optimizing throughput and latency in distributed .NET microservices architectures through intelligent caching strategies, event-driven patterns, and algorithm improvements tailored to high-volume financial systems.
Zero-Trust Security Architecture
Researching advanced zero-trust models for cloud-native applications, including continuous authentication, fine-grained RBAC, secrets lifecycle management, and security-by-design patterns in Azure and AWS environments.
HL7 & Healthcare Interoperability
Improving HL7 message processing pipelines and FHIR integration strategies for modern healthcare IT systems, focusing on reliability, data accuracy, and real-time event delivery across clinical platforms.
Full-Stack React + .NET Best Practices
Identifying innovative patterns for enterprise full-stack development using React micro-frontends backed by Clean Architecture .NET APIs, with emphasis on scalability, testability, and team autonomy.
Agile Scaling & Engineering Velocity
Studying frameworks for scaling Agile across multiple concurrent engineering teams, reducing inter-team dependencies, improving release predictability, and maintaining code quality at organizational scale.
Projects in Development
A private collection of personal projects currently in design and early development.
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A real-time treatment tracker for my daughter Maeve's leukemia journey — daily medication checklist, interactive calendar, drug reference with side effects, and a full treatment roadmap. Built with love.
- Live day-of-treatment counter with per-phase progress
- Interactive calendar linking each drug to its full reference card
- Common & rare side effects + "What I Wish I Knew" for every drug
- Emergency signs panel always visible
A personal coding challenge platform. Think LeetCode, but mine, with custom problems and a real in-browser console.
- Library of LeetCode problems plus custom problems I write myself
- In-browser code console to solve problems directly (C#, Python, JavaScript)
- Track solve history, time, and approach notes
- Tag problems by topic: arrays, graphs, dynamic programming, system design
- Personal scoreboard and streak tracker
A personal investment dashboard tracking my $40k portfolio — live prices, gain/loss calculations, allocation chart, TradingView charts, and full CRUD management of positions.
- Live prices via Yahoo Finance (15-min delay) with today's move
- Allocation donut chart with per-position gain/loss
- TradingView embedded charts for any holding
- Add, edit, and delete positions — persisted to JSON
30-day intensive speech coaching for engineering leaders. Sharpen pronunciation, eliminate filler words, and command the room with executive presence.
- 30-day structured curriculum: Core Sounds → Rhythm → Executive Presence → CEO Scenarios
- Per-phrase recording with live waveform visualization and playback
- Real-time filler word detection (um, uh, like, you know) via Web Speech API
- CEO scenario recordings: investor pitches, board decks, all-hands addresses
- Streak tracking, star ratings, and daily progress logging
A gamified daily routine tracker with a full skill tree, XP levels, streak tracking, and a color-coded calendar. Build rock-solid habits and watch your character stats grow.
- 5 skill branches: Body, Mind, Health, Discipline, Spirit — each with power levels
- 20-level XP progression with RPG-style titles (Rookie → Zero To Hero)
- Must-do habits flagged in red on calendar if missed
- Color-coded month calendar: green (great), yellow (partial), red (missed)
- Fully customizable habit list with XP values and categories
NullPointer go-to-market war room. Platform tracker, deal pipeline, email templates, 60-day action plan, and team capacity — all in one internal dashboard.
- Platform progress tracker: AngelList, YC, Product Hunt, Gigster, Braintrust
- CRM-style deal pipeline — Lead → Contacted → Talking → Proposal → Closed
- 6 production-ready email templates with one-click copy
- Week-by-week 60-day action plan with checkbox progress
- $50k revenue goal tracker and team capacity board
Community Engagement
Pro Bono Web Development
Volunteered web development skills to create professional websites for local small businesses, significantly increasing their online presence and customer acquisition at no cost.
Youth Tennis Coaching
Provided free tennis lessons to high school students, leveraging professional athletic experience to foster physical activity, discipline, and teamwork in young athletes.
Fundraising & Veteran Support
Participated in annual fundraising events including the Warrior Walk, contributed to Veterans Day food distribution, and supported various community outreach programs across multiple states.
Get In Touch
Available for enterprise consulting engagements and architecture projects, delivered fast with a high-caliber team. Let's build something exceptional.