Alessandro De Blasis
Full stack engineer and founder, always cooking up something new.
I'm an engineer who has been building software for more than twenty years, and I still love getting my hands dirty. I've worked everywhere from bootstrapped startups (a few of them my own) to large public companies, sometimes heads-down writing code, sometimes leading the team. What I care about is shipping things that actually work, and I'm at home across the whole stack, from a quick bash script or some infrastructure-as-code all the way up to the last pixel of the UI. Honestly though, what keeps me going is picking up something new and figuring out how it all fits together.
I'm largely self-taught. I got hooked on programming in high school writing Turbo Pascal, where I built a little 3D engine that drew histograms, pie charts and line charts with zoom, pan and perspective effects. Later I taught myself PHP on my first job, and I've been learning on the job ever since.
I was skeptical about AI at first, but I kept an eye on it and kept experimenting, until it clicked: it's a genuinely powerful tool for learning, and a way to bolt a few mechanized tentacles onto my multitasking nature. Turns out all those years juggling daisy-chained KVMs and fixing a dozen consumer PCs at once weren't wasted after all.
Tech stack
I'm full-stack, I guess, until some new technology comes out and I get excited to try it. Lately most of my open-source time goes to Go, Zig and systems programming, building terminals and cross-platform tooling (you can browse the contributions).
- Languages
- GoTypeScript / JavaScriptC# / .NETPythonZig (learning)Rust (learning)
- Systems
- Cross-platform buildsWindows / MSVCC / C++ interopCLI tooling
- Cloud & infra
- KubernetesDockerTerraformAnsibleConsulVaultProxmox
- Backend & data
- PostgreSQLgRPC / REST / GraphQLKafka / RabbitMQCQRS / Event Sourcing
- Frontend
- ReactAngularBlazor
- Web3
- EVM chainsCosmos / Tendermintlibp2pValidator nodes
Career
- Sep 2018 - Present
Ship Digital (opens in a new tab)
FounderFounder
London, United Kingdom (remote)
My bootstrapped consultancy. Full IaC/PKI/Kubernetes stack on-prem and cloud, a Carbon-based design system, plus client work like Shopify apps, TradingView indicators, and a Hyperledger commodities-matchmaking PoC. Now mostly open-source and personal projects. It's also the umbrella I take contracts through, which is why a few of the roles below overlap in time.
- .NET
- C#
- Go
- React
- Node.js
- CQRS / Event Sourcing
- Docker
- Kubernetes
- AWS
- Azure
- RabbitMQ
- Redis
- Dec 2021 - May 2024(2 yrs 6 mos)
A.Team (opens in a new tab)
Technical VetterPart-time
Remote
On the vetting panel for A.Team, a network of top freelance talent. Interviewed and assessed incoming engineers as part of the selection process, alongside my other roles.
- Two full-time contracts, in parallelDifferent timezones meant I could run both at once. It took a lot of context-switching and resilience.Sep 2022 - Feb 2023(6 mos)
Ledger (opens in a new tab)
Senior Fullstack DeveloperContractor
Remote
Built and launched the Ledger Extension (a browser companion for hardware wallets). Stood in as tech lead during the lead's leave; added Storybook, testing and privacy-preserving A/B tracking.
- React
- Node.js
- Docker
- Figma
- Segment
- web3.js
Sep 2022 - Apr 2023(8 mos)Pocket Network (opens in a new tab)
Principal Protocol DeveloperContractor
Remote
One of the main contributors to the v1 protocol of this DePIN/Web3 RPC network, where I architected the CLI, config and scaffolding from scratch and mentored the team.
- Go
- Kubernetes
- Docker
- Cosmos SDK
- Tendermint
- PostgreSQL
- libp2p
- Dec 2021 - Jun 2022(7 mos)
noble.place (opens in a new tab)
Senior Fullstack Product EngineerContractor
Remote
Web3 authorization for DAOs, where I built the core flexible permissions engine, complex OAuth flows and a queue-based job scheduler.
- TypeScript
- React
- Next.js
- Blitz.js
- PostgreSQL
- AWS
- Docker
- EVM
- ethers.js
- MetaMask
- Oct 2017 - Sep 2018(1 yr)
Clarksons PLC (opens in a new tab)
Tech Lead / Enterprise ArchitectPermanent
London, United Kingdom
Led the on-prem to cloud migration of a maritime-services suite; turned around a project that had stalled for two years in six months and became the go-to for architecture.
- .NET
- Angular
- React
- SQL Server
- Cosmos DB
- Elasticsearch
- Azure
- Docker
- CQRS / Event Sourcing
- TeamCity / Octopus
- Nov 2014 - Jun 2017(2 yrs 8 mos)
BTG Pactual / ECTP (opens in a new tab)
Lead Systems DeveloperPermanent
London, United Kingdom
Tech lead for a 20-person globally distributed team in commodities trading, building risk and warehouse-management systems plus a government/HSM integration that enabled $40M+/yr in fertilizer trading.
- .NET
- C#
- AngularJS
- T-SQL
- MSMQ
- SSIS
- FIX
- VBA / ExcelDNA
- Jul 2014 - Oct 2014(4 mos)
Cogetech SpA (opens in a new tab)
Senior .NET Analyst DeveloperContractor
Rome / Milan, Italy
ETL and migration work in the gaming sector; helped surface fraud worth €100K+/yr in 'lost' hardware. Delivered ahead of schedule.
- .NET
- C#
- PHP
- jQuery
- T-SQL
- SSIS / SSRS
- Jul 2013 - Jun 2014(1 yr)
IGT (opens in a new tab)
Lead Senior .NET & JavaScript Analyst DeveloperContractor
Rome, Italy
Designed the internationalization (timezones, i18n, integrations) that made a gaming-industry CRM saleable worldwide; led a 7-person team. Still in use across many countries.
- .NET
- C#
- jQuery
- Knockout.js
- T-SQL
- XSLT
- Feb 2012 - Jun 2013(1 yr 5 mos)
Experian PLC (opens in a new tab)
Lead .NET Analyst DeveloperContractor
Rome, Italy
Led a 5-person team building the platform behind the Italian Company House; the business line was later acquired by the market leader (Cerved).
- .NET
- C#
- PHP
- MySQL
- jQuery
- T-SQL
- Nov 2009 - Jan 2012(2 yrs 3 mos)
ANAS SpA (opens in a new tab)
Senior .NET & PHP/MySQL Analyst DeveloperContractor
Rome, Italy
Corporate site + CMS with scheduled, encrypted tender publishing; a GPS asset-tracking app that helped one department recover €4M. Grew into a leadership role seeding teams.
- .NET
- C#
- PHP
- MySQL
- jQuery
- T-SQL
- SharePoint
- May 2009 - Nov 2009(7 mos)
Faschim / FasiOpen (opens in a new tab)
.NET, PHP & jQuery DeveloperContractor
Rome, Italy
Back-office and customer-facing web apps; big performance/UX wins via (then-cutting-edge) AJAX, clearing months of backlog in weeks.
- .NET
- C#
- PHP
- MySQL
- jQuery
- Jun 2003 - Mar 2009(5 yrs 10 mos)
Sell On Demand & Exabyte Italia
CTO & Co-FounderFounder
Abruzzo, Italy
Co-founded an e-commerce and retail network: €20K seed grew to €5M+ turnover, 11 shops and around 150 resellers. Built the storefront, ran the servers solo, built award-winning custom PCs and even a rural long-range wireless network.
- .NET
- C#
- VB.NET
- PHP
- MySQL
- jQuery
- T-SQL
Education
- 2010 - 2014
Università di Roma Tor Vergata
Software Engineering BSc (Hons)
Left to work full-time. Studying while commuting 6h/day wasn't feasible, and I was learning more on the job anyway.
- 1997 - 2002
I.T.I.S. E. Majorana
Technical high school, IT specialization
Interests
- Craft
- Software architectureAgileDevOpsDDD
- Ideas
- StoicismAntifragilityErgodicity
- Money
- Monetary historyCryptocurrenciesInvestingTradingEntrepreneurship
- Body
- RunningHalf marathonsWorking out
- Reading
- Personal developmentPhilosophyHistoryTechnologyThrillersSatire
I also love elevating the people around me, learning something new every day, and travelling (though I'll admit I've forgotten how since Covid). Above all, family and fatherhood: doing my best to be a good example of a good man for my daughter and my son.
Get in touch
Always up for a good conversation about systems, terminals, or whatever you're building. Find me around the web. You can also take a look at what I'm working on.
