Download PDF

Esteban Saldarriaga Alzate

Senior Software Engineer · Ruby on Rails · AI Agents & MCP

Medellín, Colombia · Open to relocation

estebansa@outlook.com · github.com/estebansa19 · linkedin.com/in/estebansaldarriaga · estebansa19.github.io

Summary

Senior Software Engineer with 7+ years building Ruby on Rails products in hospitality, logistics and fintech: from one of the first 4 engineers to Backend Tech Lead at a startup that scaled to nearly 500 hotels, to rebuilding a legacy 401(k) platform and billing at Recurly. Builds AI tooling (MCP servers, agents, Claude Code skills) into everyday development.

Experience

Senior Software Engineer, Recurly

Oct 2025 – Present
  • Build and maintain billing features in Ruby on Rails, React and TypeScript that merchants rely on to charge customers and collect recurring revenue.
  • Design and optimize PostgreSQL queries and Elasticsearch-powered search across the platform.
  • Built my own MCP servers, Claude Code skills and agents that automate code review, ticket planning, test writing and debugging, making AI a core part of how I ship software.
  • Make architecture and technical design decisions, and resolve technical escalations on production billing flows.

Senior Ruby Engineer, ForUsAll

Jun 2024 – Sep 2025
  • Core contributor to an internal Rails engine: a shared component library with its own DSL, built on ViewComponent and used across several of the company’s Rails applications.
  • Migrated a legacy 401(k) platform into a new application with clean architecture, consistent conventions and solid test coverage.
  • Kept the existing production platforms stable during the migration, handling support, bug fixes and new features in parallel.
  • Brought AI (Claude, Cursor) into the development lifecycle to speed up refactors, tests and migration work, and it became a core part of my workflow.

Software Engineer, Skydropx

Dec 2021 – May 2024
  • Led the development of third-party integrations, including HubSpot, and billing features for the platform.
  • Built and shipped features on the core Rails application, focusing on reliability, performance and code quality.
  • Diagnosed and resolved production errors, and managed the platform’s GCP Cloud Functions.

Backend Tech Lead, Ayenda

Apr 2021 – Dec 2021
  • Promoted from Backend Engineer to lead a team of 5 engineers, working side by side with the product owner to decide and prioritize what we built.
  • Defined how teams queried the database and drove performance improvements across the platform.
  • Set the code structure and conventions shared across teams so they could work in the same codebase effectively, and led the design of third-party integrations.
  • Mentored engineers starting their careers through code reviews, pairing and growth paths, building a culture of continuous learning.

Backend Engineer, Ayenda

Dec 2018 – Apr 2021
  • Joined as one of the first 4 engineers and built the booking and hotel-operations backend as the chain scaled from ~10 hotels to nearly 500 across Colombia, Peru and Mexico.
  • Shipped new features and internal tools while the engineering team grew from 4 to around 30 people.
  • Helped onboard and ramp up new engineers as the team scaled.

Skills

  • Languages & frameworks: Ruby, Ruby on Rails, RSpec, ViewComponent, TypeScript, JavaScript, React
  • Data & infrastructure: PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, Elasticsearch, Sidekiq, Docker, Google Cloud, AWS
  • AI tooling: Claude Code, MCP, AI Agents

Education

Technologist in Information Systems Analysis and Development, SENA

Sep 2017 – Sep 2019

Languages: Spanish (native), English (C1)