# Aldo Román

> Senior Software Development Manager. I build and run engineering teams that ship careful software. From the first hire all the way to production. Based in the EU.

I'm a Senior Software Development Manager, currently working at Orcrist, where I lead the teams that build AI applications for European defence.

Before that I managed engineering at Zapp and built software at Amazon and AWS. With sixteen years of experience, I still ship code, today mostly through AI agents: I set the intent, define the behaviour and check the result.

## How I work

### Build the team, then keep it

Hiring well matters, but most of the job is running the team: delivering results, keeping the workplace safe and making engineers real owners of what they build. I'm a big owner myself. I judge myself on retention and on whether people enjoy the work.

In practice: Built Zapp's engineering team from scratch (12+ hires in six months). Now lead several teams at Orcrist.

### Stay hands-on

I still ship code. With agentic development, this means directing the goal and the behaviour of the software, and holding the results to a high bar.

In practice: About 20% of my time at Orcrist goes to individual-contributor work.

### Quality from the start

Accessibility, performance and clear interfaces aren't a finishing touch added at the end. They're part of the product and how people decide whether to trust it.

In practice: Core contributor to the AWS design system. Owner of Orcrist's design system.

### AI people can rely on

AI is only useful when people can depend on it. That means agents that ask before they act, results people can check and quality we measure instead of assume.

In practice: Lead agentic work at Orcrist: building agents and measuring their quality.

## Recent experience

- 2025–now: Senior Software Development Manager, Orcrist (Germany · Remote)
- 2023–25: Software engineer & consultant, Independent (Clients worldwide)
- 2021–22: Software Development Manager, Zapp (Germany · UK · Remote)
- 2019–21: Software Development Engineer, Amazon Web Services (Germany)
- 2018–19: Software Development Engineer, Amazon (Costa Rica)
- 2017–18: Tech Lead, Scotiabank (Peru)

Building software since 2010: the era of jQuery, browser wars, AngularJS, Bootstrap, Spring MVC, Android 2.3 and hard-to-center divs.

Fun fact: around 2012, while still studying, I built an unofficial Android app for my university before it had one of its own. It earned me a notarised cease-and-desist letter.

## Education

BSc Software Engineering, Pontifical Catholic University of Peru.

## Languages

- Spanish: native
- English: fluent
- German: intermediate
- Greek: basic

## Outside work

Away from work I sail and dance salsa. I'm also a coffee lover and can pour decent latte art.

## Contact

- Email: hello@aldoroman.dev
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/aldoroman
- GitHub: https://github.com/aldo-roman