Base
Medellín · Remote worldwide
Experience
12+
Experience
12+ years
Building web, mobile, backend, automation, and developer experience systems.
Team leadership
14 people
Largest cross-functional team led across product, design, frontend, and backend.
Delivery systems
-75%
Release lead-time reduction through CI/CD and quality-gate automation.
The shape of the work
A less linear bio and more of a working model: what I optimize for, where I create leverage, and why the details matter.
I am Santiago Molina, a full-stack engineer and tech lead based in Medellín, Colombia. I have spent the last decade-plus shipping products across commerce, SaaS, gaming, real estate, and media.
The connective tissue across that work is systems thinking: architecture that can evolve, delivery pipelines that make quality visible, and team habits that lower pressure instead of adding ceremony.
I like being close to the product and close to the code. The best technical leadership I have seen is practical, calm, and specific enough that teams can move faster without guessing what “good” means.
Architecture and modernization for products that need to keep shipping.
Developer experience, automation, testing, linting, and CI/CD systems that reduce review noise.
Technical leadership for teams that need clearer standards and calmer decisions under pressure.
Collaboration
These are the lanes where the work tends to create the most compounding value.
01
Best fit when a team is shipping, but needs clearer standards, calmer releases, and stronger technical decision-making across the stack.
Useful for product teams that need leadership without losing hands-on depth.
02
Useful when a platform needs to get faster, more accessible, and easier to evolve without freezing delivery for months.
Strong match for rebuilds, migrations, architecture cleanup, and performance-heavy work.
03
A lot of the leverage comes from better linting, testing, CI/CD, documentation, and automation that reduce review noise and release stress.
Best when the team already feels the friction every week and wants a calmer default.
Context
A few of the products, companies, and communities behind the portfolio. The logos are not the point; the delivery context is.
Void
Technical leadership across esports web, mobile, backend, and real-time delivery at Void.
Team Liquid
Product engineering and fan-engagement systems shipped through Optic Power client work.
Rappi
AI martech dashboards and campaign workflows built during the Datagran modernization work.
Subway
Analytics and customer-data product work supported through Datagran.
X Games
High-traffic sports media platform and programmatic ad infrastructure for one of the world’s most recognized extreme sports brands.
ReactJS Colombia
Community talks, workshops, and mentorship through one of Medellin’s most active React groups.
Principles
The operating principles I come back to when a product is moving fast and the team needs decisions that hold.
01
The best automation removes toil — repetitive, low-judgment work that slows teams down. It should never replace the thinking that makes products worth building.
02
The developer experience of a codebase shapes how fast and confidently the team can move. Bad DX compounds. Good DX compounds too — invest early and measure it.
03
A good tech lead reduces ambiguity before it becomes risk. Clear standards, good tooling, and systems that fail loudly are how you protect a team's velocity at scale.
04
Speed isn't a tech concern, it's a user concern. Every kilobyte and every render-blocking resource is a choice that affects real people on real connections.
05
The goal is to solve the problem, not to use the newest tool. Stable, well-understood solutions let the team focus on the actual product.
06
A consistent codebase with some imperfections beats an inconsistent one with pockets of brilliance. Conventions compound. Exceptions cost.
Recommendations
The recurring pattern is not only technical skill. It is communication, reliability, and helping people do better work together.
"Santiago has excellent communication skills and is able to explain complex technical concepts in a clear and concise way. He is highly reliable, dedicated, and responsible — meeting deadlines and delivering high-quality projects."
Raphael Drummond
AI Product & Engineering Leader · Managed Santiago at Optic Power
"Santi stands out due to his outstanding technical skills, leadership abilities, and collaborative spirit. He cultivates a positive and inclusive work environment, promoting open communication and idea exchange."
Carolina G. Torres
Lead Product Designer · Colleague, same team
"He excels in good practices while coding and has solid leadership skills. He is great at sharing knowledge with fellow devs and organizing priorities to make things happen in a quality-oriented way."
David Delgado
Software Engineer · Reported to Santiago
"Santiago is a great engineer who is constantly learning and dedicated to his work — a good leader, responsible with his tasks. I recommend him to any company looking for a brilliant full-stack developer able to get results and inspire."
Jorge Luis Madrid
Senior Cloud & DevOps Engineer · Client
Next step
The portfolio has the project evidence; the blog has the thinking behind the decisions. Start wherever the signal is most useful.