Jesús Pérez Paz

Jesús Pérez Paz

Co-founder and CTO

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Summary

Co-founder and CTO of Pilgrimz since 2025. Before that, COO of a software development company (Digital55) and ten years at Scalefast, from employee number six and full-stack developer to SVP, through its acquisition by ESW in 2022. I build with AI as the multiplier, and I advise and build for founders and SMEs without a CTO.

Experience

Pilgrimz, Málaga, remote

A digital cultural-mediation platform for territories and heritage sites. Hands-free, offline cultural trails for travellers, run by tourism offices and heritage sites.

  • Co-founder and CTO – present

    • Built the full platform: iOS and Android app (React Native), SaaS back-office (Next.js) and Node API.
    • Designed an AI pipeline that lets clients publish multilingual, GPS-triggered cultural trails in minutes.
    • Delivered geofencing, offline mode, a social layer and GDPR-compliant analytics for B2B clients.
    • Technical strategy and roadmap, hands-on in development.
    • Figures: 600+ cities, 90 countries, 1,500+ published routes, 9 languages.

Freelance consultant and developer, Málaga, remote

  • Consultant and developer – present

    • Technical advisory and architecture design, custom software development and digital transformation.
    • Open to part-time and project-based engagements.

Digital55, remote

  • Strategic advisor – present

  • COO –

    • Led a team of over 40 across development, project management, design and QA, delivering for banking, insurance, e-commerce and logistics clients.
    • Led new business initiatives with existing clients and expanded the service offering.
    • Ran daily operations, resource allocation and client relationships.

OMAIA (Observatorio Malagueño de Inteligencia Artificial), Málaga

  • CPTO and co-founder –

    • First attempt at an AI startup: we built AI prototypes and an MVP, and shut it down without a clear market focus.
    • Built with Python, TensorFlow, Svelte and Flutter.
    • Lesson: start from the problem, not the technology.

Scalefast, Paris, then Madrid, then Málaga (remote)

Joined as employee number six. The company grew to 400 employees and was acquired by ESW in 2022.

  • SVP Software Agency –

    • Led 40+ developers and 10 project managers serving clients on the Scalefast platform.
    • Launched 7 e-commerce stores, redesigned 3 and ran 30+ events for world-renowned brands.
    • Managed a business with over $150M GMV in 2022.
    • Took part in the due diligence of the Scalefast–ESW merger (acquired side).

  • VP Engineering –

    • Led over 50 developers and engineers, working with product teams and technology leaders.
    • Led the engineering and SDLC changes for Scalefast's SOC 2 certification.
    • Created the DevOps team and rolled out DevOps processes company-wide.
    • Split engineering into Product/Platform teams and Agency teams.

  • Head of Software Development –

    • Supervised technical project managers and team managers.
    • Built the Git (GitLab) workflows and tooling for project code.
    • Created a project that let developers explore new technologies and gave them more time for side projects.

  • Project Manager –

    • One of the first project managers; later ran the Madrid PM office. Worked on store and e-commerce projects.
    • Managed a full rebranding and redesign of a client e-commerce site, on time and within budget.
    • Kept the Square Enix US/EU store able to process 15,000 orders an hour.
    • Introduced Agile methods.

  • Full-Stack Web Developer –

    • Built the Merchant Back End application and REST API endpoints with Laravel and the Pepita API.
    • Front-end work with HTML5 and CSS3.

Nexway, Madrid, then Paris

  • Senior Integration Manager, Jr Project Manager and Designer –

    • Designed and developed e-commerce websites for the Spanish, Portuguese and Italian platforms.
    • Oversaw the design and development of an improved Nexway Generic Platform.
    • Supervised the launch of software and video game campaigns.

eCliente and Aftershare

  • Web designer and integrator, eCliente –

  • Independent designer, Aftershare –

Education

History, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Expertise and stack

Leadership and organisation

  • Ten years at a scale-up, from employee number six to SVP, through the acquisition by ESW
  • Engineering leadership across product, security and infrastructure
  • Software services: SVP Software Agency at Scalefast, COO at Digital55
  • Hiring, team structure, OKRs and KPIs
  • Technical advisory and freelance builds for startups and SMEs without a CTO
  • Took part in the due diligence of the Scalefast–ESW merger (acquired side)
  • Led the engineering and SDLC changes for Scalefast's SOC 2 certification

Architecture and platforms

  • Mobile and web platform architecture
  • Cloudflare Workers and R2
  • European cloud hosting (OVH, Hetzner)
  • PostgreSQL and Supabase
  • AWS (infrastructure as code with AWS CDK) and S3-compatible storage
  • Docker
  • Microsoft Power Platform, Make and ERP integrations for SME process automation

AI: models, tools and working methods

  • Claude Code as the daily development environment
  • Specialised agents (coder, critic, committer) coordinated by an orchestrator, with human checkpoints
  • Project knowledge bases, skills and custom commands for coding agents
  • AI-assisted content generation at volume, run as batch jobs
  • Text-to-speech pipelines (Qwen3-TTS, Kokoro, Chatterbox) and local models on my own GPU workstation
  • A personal operating system built on Obsidian and Claude
  • Programmatic video with Remotion

Languages and frameworks

  • TypeScript and JavaScript
  • React, Next.js, React Native with Expo
  • Angular, NestJS, Express and Node.js
  • Vite, Tailwind CSS
  • Python, Bash, SQL
  • Swift (iOS and macOS)

Open source: aisight, wc-base-typescript, dpr, nrs, xtomarkdown, claude-code-commands, claude-code-kb-generator. More on GitHub