Performing Remote

Founder

PixMob

Director of Engineering

Nicolas Cava

I'm looking for a long-term relationship with a distributed SaaS business. I'm available right now for full-time permanent employment.

I can speak English or French and work from anywhere.

My expertise:

- Engineering management
- People management
- Strategic planning
- Project execution
- Systems and processes
- Distributed work
- Culture building
- Incident management
- Hiring and onboarding talents

Please connect with me and discuss how we can win together.

Engineering Manager

Zendesk

Zendesk is a large public enterprise with 5500+ employees distributed worldwide. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California, US.

Industry: customer experience and instant messaging tech.

Responsible for:

→ Lead distributed software teams of up to 14 people.
→ Build core messaging capabilities for Zendesk products.
→ Contribute to the high-end conversational CX strategy.
→ Provide the API, conversation store, message routing, and orchestration pipeline.
→ Provide all the logic and integrations to operate in social channels.
→ Lead weekly tech talks.

Tech stack:

→ React
→ Node.js, Express, Ruby
→ MongoDB, Redis, DynamoDB, RabbitMQ, Kafka
→ Terraform, Istio, AWS
→ Spinnaker

PixMob was a bootstrapped company with 80+ employees distributed worldwide in the event industry. The company was headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Industry: event management tech.

Responsible for:

→ Led the software engineering department composed of 10 employees across two continents.
→ Contributed to human-centric experiences, light shows, and corporate event activities.
→ Built edge computing, cloud computing, and high-availability data processing.
→ Built products on top of cutting-edge hardware infrastructure.
→ Supported decentralized authority and execution freedom.
→ Built an async-first culture with an emphasis on writing communication and documentation.
→ Organized 4-week development cycles with shaping, betting, and execution.
→ Provided individual development, coaching, and connections building.
→ Co-led a successful M&A by Bizzabo.

Tech stack:

→ React, React Native, Swift, Kotlin
→ Python
→ MongoDB, Redis, InfluxDB, Elasticsearch
→ Terraform, Nomad, Consul, Google Cloud
→ GitLab CI/CD

Swile

Swile was a VC-funded fintech startup (30M Series A, 70M Series B) with 300 employees distributed in France. The company was headquartered in Montpellier, France.

Industry: fintech.

Responsible for:

→ Led a distributed software team of 10 employees.
→ Built a B2B2C product with banking features, mobile, and web payments.
→ Built bank accounts, transfers, credit card management, and P2P payments.
→ Also built money pots, KYC and compliance, and charity donations.
→ Provided autonomy, ownership, decentralized authority, and execution freedom.
→ Built an async-first culture with a focus on written communication and documentation.
→ Provided individual development, coaching, and connections building.

Tech stack:

→ React, TypeScript, Kotlin, Swift
→ Ruby on Rails, Node.js, GraphQL
→ PostgreSQL, Kafka, Redis
→ AWS, Confluent
→ CircleCI, Bitrise

Swile was a VC-funded fintech startup (30M Series A, 70M Series B) with 300 employees distributed in France. The company was headquartered in Montpellier, France.

Industry: fintech.

Responsible for:

→ Member of a cross-functional and distributed software team.
→ Led a distributed team of 10 employees part-time.
→ Built a B2B2C product for employees and administrators in SMB and mid-market.
→ Built meal voucher credits, credit card orders, and employee management.
→ Also built onboarding, off-boarding, bank accounts, and credit card payments.

Tech stack:

→ React, JavaScript, TypeScript
→ Ruby on Rails
→ PostgreSQL, Redis
→ Heroku, AWS
→ Semaphore

Senior Software Engineer

Maple Inside

Maple Inside was a funded startup studio (2M seed) with 20 employees distributed worldwide. The company was headquartered in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.

Industry: fintech and adtech.

Responsible for:

→ Co-founded the company with former colleagues.
→ Led a distributed team of 10 employees as head of product development.
→ Bootstrapped business ideas by building MVPs quickly to reach market pull.
→ Profitable products were incorporated into companies with hired founders.
→ Built products in the adtech, sharing economy, and fintech industries.
→ We grew the business to 1M ARR.
→ Had to close operations in 2018 as we consumed our runway.
→ A few companies emerged from the studio and are still in business.

Tech stack:

→ React, React Native, TypeScript
→ Node.js, GraphQL, Python
→ MySQL, Redis
→ AWS, Google Cloud
→ CircleCI

Co-Founder & CTO

PetalMD

PetalMD was a VC-funded healthtech startup with 100 employees distributed in Canada. The company was headquartered in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.

Industry: healthtech.

Responsible for:

→ Member of a cross-functional software team.
→ Built a B2B product for physicians and healthcare facilities.
→ Also built online management, communication, and planning tools for physicians.

Tech stack:

→ JavaScript, CoffeeScript, Angular
→ Ruby on Rails
→ PostgreSQL, Redis, Elasticsearch, Pusher
→ Heroku
→ Jenkins

Crakmedia

Crakmedia was a bootstrapped adtech startup with 250 employees distributed in Canada. The company was headquartered in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.

Industry: adtech.

Responsible for:

→ Led a front-end team of 10 employees.
→ Built an affiliate marketing platform supporting billions of daily hits.
→ Also built media buying, advertising platforms, traffic analytics, and offer management.
→ Also built big data processing and data science software.
→ Refactored a huge monolithic to a microservices architecture.
→ Provided individual development, coaching, and connections building.
→ Designed software architecture and technology strategies.
→ Led product analytics and application performance initiatives.

Tech stack:

→ JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Redux
→ Node.js, PHP, Symfony, Express
→ MySQL, Redis, Vertica
→ AWS
→ Bamboo

Front-end Technical Lead

I help remote leaders who are overwhelmed by their workload leave chaos by empowering people and improving self-discipline through the Performing Remote OS. | Fractional Engineering Leader, Coach

I'm a passionate people-first Engineering Manager with 12y+ of experience leading distributed teams for renowned SaaS businesses like Zendesk and Swile in AMER and EMEA.

I'm also a social entrepreneur who cares about positively impacting people and society. My personality type is ESTJ-A, and I'm a systems thinker with strong organizational and self-discipline skills.

My core values are contribution, growth, discipline, justice, transparency, and resilience. I'm also a father, gamer, remote work advocate, traveler, content creator, and developer, which I consider my identity stack.

My backstory is that I burned out in 2018, and remote work saved my life. Since then, I have strived to become the best remote leader I can be for my people and show that we can build exceptional distributed businesses by putting people first and providing opportunities for anyone from anywhere. I also share my journey in public with vulnerability and authenticity to help as many people as possible.

I post daily about remote leadership and personal development. I'm also building the Performing Remote OS, a system I use as a remote leader.

My credentials:

- 12+ years in distributed SaaS businesses in AMER and EMEA
- 10+ years as a successful leader of distributed engineering teams
- Dealt with 525% employee growth over 2 years
- Supervised 76 talents across 4 continents
- Co-founded and scaled a startup studio to 80K+ MRR in 3 years
- 94K+ paying customers in a B2B product
- Led a technical due diligence for a $13.5M M&A
- 6000+ workers supported in the Digital First Crew at Zendesk
- Led competitive virtual gaming teams of up to 40 individuals for 5 years
- 12+ years as a remote worker

Where to start:

- Follow me to receive my daily content
- Connect and DM me for more
- Book a free discovery call: https://www.nicolascava.com/discovery
- Send me an email: hello@nicolascava.com

Sanofi

Release Manager for a big Program in Sanofi.

Release Manager

Yop Operaciones de Europa S.L.U.

In charge of starting a new chapter for the Wabi project. Develop the customer care area for Wabi, a company to expand the Coca-Cola ecosystem.

Customer Care Manager

Accenture

- Co-led for a “SWAT” team to put back on track KBRs (Key Business Requirements) deliverable for NA S4/HANA Rollout.
- Key contributor on coordinating, ensuring, and reporting KBRs for NA rollout working with Deployment and Testing leads as part of the SIT stage-gate entry criteria requested by Quality.

Project Management Coordinator

Worked as PMO Consultant for a global SAP S/4 Hana transformation program for a Pharma company.
  - Program Methodology, process and project tools support & improvement
  - Program coacher for new resources, in charge of Jira training for NA.
  - Owner of Resource Management process for NA Accenture resources.
  - NA Status Reporting support for Leadership in PM meetings 
  - Cross-functional Program Coordinator

Project Management Officer

Client: Pharmaceutical Company
Project magnitude: SAP rollout for 26 countries, 70+ FTE in 4 locations – Fort Worth, Prague, Hyderabad, Bangalore, 350+ RICEFs, 2000+ configuration objects. 3500+ test cases
Key responsibilities
- Coordinate activities with all SAP functional teams.
- Ensure all pre-requisites and tool access readiness before each phase start.
- Ensure actuals and plan changes are up to date in L3 and L4 project plans.
- Drive project status reporting, captures inputs from Functional leads, coordinates with global PMO, and publish status with key stakeholders, escalate delivery issues.
- Drive Tollgate preparation – prepare materials, capture evidence, ensure the methodology is followed, ensure process compliance.
- Own resource management for Accenture resources in Prague and NA
- Support Accenture leadership on financials, contract & expense management.

Improved an energy client project management methodology, finding efficiencies, and creating value.
Key responsibilities
- Ensure time entry compliance in HP PPM for Accenture resources.
- Implemented a process and trained the whole project in HP PPM time entry
- Integrated work plan with inputs from teams to confirm project resources
- Identified and escalated delivery issues

Role description: Security IAM coordinator for an Insurance company
- Point-of-contact for a large team in Argentina delivery center.
- Liaison between client and Credentialing and Provisioning team (CaP) in ADC.
- Assess, capture, and consolidate the demand from different client’s stakeholders.
- Formal Project tracking and reporting for upper management. 
- Scorecard management for metrics and project health.
- Risks identification, Issues addressing, and follow-up.
- Action plans for GAP mitigation and project quality improvement.
- Security operations excellence practices applied to IAM.

Service Delivery Coordinator

Accenture Argentina

In charge of a support group of legacy logistic and business systems for A tobacco company.
Role: Application Deployment Coordinator
- Responsible for a deployment support team for a logistics system between to track product shipments between warehouses and sale points worldwide. 
- Responsible for Application maintenance and support for counterfeit and falsification prevention, tracking, and analysis for all PMI related products.
- Daily interaction with team leads, clients, and delivery leads worldwide on a daily basis.
Continuous improvement and ITIL environment.

Application coordinator

PMO for an airline client ORIs service (ORI – International regional office) including the following countries: Ecuador, Brazil, Mexico, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela, Uruguay, Spain, Germany, England, New Zealand, Australia and Tahiti  (Help Desk , Software Distribution and Asset management). 
PMO for Colombia  region service (Help Desk , Software Distribution, Asset management and Field Support).

PMO specialist

Service Manager (USA and Argentina)

Assigned as Accenture onsite focal point for an airline client for escalations related to the service (Help Desk , Software Distribution, Asset management and Field Support). 

This role  was performed for Argentina and USA countries (onsite in both cases). Main sites in US: MIA-JFK-LAX-SFO

Teams sizing: Field Support: 5 FTEs  in each country (English and spanish), Helpdesk 50+ FTEs, Software Distribution  5 FTes
Responsible for Field supports service level agreement

Operative Cost optimization

Responsible for ensuring contract operative model is executed and Continuous improvement 
Contractors and vendor management (Commercial agreements) 

IT Strategic planning with the client.
Service desk reference for USA Cargo site.

Focal point for ITSM (BMC software) ticketing 

ITIL tool  to interact between the client and backend  teams in India, Manila and Buenos Aires.

Service Manager

Project description: Global Project - SAP Basis and security support from multiple clients in the Buenos Aires delivery center.
Role description:
- Team lead in charge of SLA ensuring completion and quality of work.
- Team member career developer, coacher.
- Continuous improvement of team skills.
- Project management task tracking for all activities related to project support for all dealers.
- SAP Basis technical lead R3, WP, BW, and APO.
- Continuous Alignment with counterparts in Manila and US.

SAP Basis team lead

Since my previous assignment was implemented and finished successfully, I was re-assigned to Argentina as Tier 2 for a heavy machinery client for their AS400 Dealers Production Support worldwide. 
Some Activities performed in this role:
- System Programmer and administration tasks
- Analysis, and Management of Batch processes.
- Coordination of work through different locations and time zones (USA, Europe, Philippines, and Australia).

AS400 Tech supervisor

Mass price tape loads coordination for more than 50 Caterpillar dealers worldwide for Parts, etc.
Role description:
PTL (Price Tape Load) coordinator in charge of scheduling dates for the loads, negotiation with dealers, coordination of several teams in Peoria, Manila, and Buenos Aires from different platforms.
        - Daily project status
        - Microsoft Project tracking for all activities.
        - Escalation and corrective actions as needed.
        - Risks analysis and implementation of solutions accordingly.

Project description: Implement a new Java front end with an AS400-RPG programmed back end to be used for all travel agents around the world for a big Cruise company.
Role description:
- Senior Analyst programmer (RPG IV-AS 400)
- Team management between Accenture, the client, and external contractors.
- Regular status report to Senior Manager.
- Project management support escalating issues and analyzing risks proposing solutions from Accenture side inside the client.
- Multicultural face to face onshore relation with multiple parties and cultures (Indian, Latin/North American)
Achievements:
- Implemented a tool to improve versioning during the project as identified.
- Improved cancellation module for the group reservation system.

RPG Senior Analyst programmer

Technical reference in As400 and Core application matters, lead for the infrastructure part within the team, US partners and clients

AS400 tech supervisor

Job Description: Tier 2, CW Dealers for a heavy machinery client for Deployment Support worldwide. Backup Team Lead, Tier 2 Crossworlds Dealers Deployment and Support worldwide, Technical and functional support related to the product. (USA, Europe, Phillipines, Australia).

DBS/DBSi IBM Webpshere ICS Crossworlds Deployment tech

Citibank N.A.

RGP-400 development, analysis, design, and testing construction related to improvements for the front office sales system, Synon operation, RPG programmers administration, system documentation development using Visio tools, File transfer operations for specific requirements through Client
Access, analysis, and development of applications about interfaces with the Mastercard and Visa credit cards back-office systems, cartridge and tape
storage of data, application development about promotion campaigns with DINERS credit card, Central Bank (BCRA) laws for IVA tax return, regulatory requirements related to international charges for corporate DINERS credit cards automating data transfer to cover Global requirements, Files
Data Mapping, Development, and maintenance for the payroll. Maintenance of DINERS, MASTERCARD and VISA credit cards for Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay countries, all in a CMMi 3 environment.

Analyst Programmer

Currently working in a PMO team to support and improve the current project management methodology, tools and support the program releases. Leading the Reporting innovation project for the ISHIFT program. I like sharing and spreading ideas, motivate and develop potentials. I like photography, swimming, reading, entrepreneurship and investments.

taplio

The Battle

Nicolas Cava

Leonardo Calio

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?