Ariel Parra

Software Engineer based in Barcelona, Spain

Email / LinkedIn / GitHub / Twitter

Summary

With over 16 years of rich experience in the software industry, I have had the privilege to wear multiple hats, ranging from a Backend Engineer to an Engineering Manager, across a spectrum of industries and companies of varied scales. My journey began with foundational software development and consultancy roles, which equipped me with a deep technical understanding and a problem-solving mindset. Over time, I transitioned into leadership roles where I spearheaded diverse teams, mentored budding engineers, and took charge of product-centric initiatives that profoundly impacted business outcomes.

Having played pivotal roles at companies like Eventbrite and Typeform, I've consistently led product evolution by steering teams to integrate transformative features and setting forth architectural blueprints seamlessly. Now, as the Engineering Manager at Wallapop, I spearhead the Payments and Checkout Team, ensuring our flows deliver top-notch user experiences and are critical to the success of our payment and checkout processes.

As I continue my journey, I am deeply committed to the Engineering Manager path, where my passion lies in harnessing the synergy of tech and people to drive impactful results. I aim to foster environments where innovation thrives and engineers are empowered to push boundaries.

👨‍💻 Technical Experience

Engineering Manager @ Wallapop (April 2023 - Present)

Engineer Manager of the payments and checkout team.

I managed a cross functional team: iOS, Android, Web, Backend and QA, from Mid-Senior to Staff Engineers, helping them with their development careers.

I collaborated with Product Managers and Product Designers, defining and distributing tasks, organizing our ways of working in favor of the team productivity.

Additionally, I manage the technical contact point with our payments providers along with the technical and SLA definitions.

Engineering Manager @ Typeform (Dec 2021 - January 2023)

Engineer Manager of a newly Typeform initiative in charge of the experimentation, verification, and development of new products that will enhance the Typeform ecosystem.

I managed a team of 6 people, from Mid-Senior to Staff Engineers, helping them with their development careers.

I collaborated with Product Managers and Product Designers, defining and distributing tasks and setting expectations for our stakeholders.

Additionally, I participated in technical discussions and architectural proposals, defining priorities and working with other engineer managers to align our work.

Engineering Team Lead @ VideoAsk (Aug 2020 - Dec 2021)

I joined VideoAsk (aka what we call "startup inside a startup") first as a Team Lead and switched entirely to being Engineering Manager.

I was responsible for structuring the engineering team working along with the PM, designer, business analyst, and customer experience team.

Part of my technical responsibility was helping with the definition of best practices, system designs discussions/organization, and setting the bases to align our engineering culture with the work in Typeform.com.

Worked closely with the product managers helping them with tasks analysis/distribution and also helping on switching between different tools (from notion to Jira, for instance).

In a nutshell, some of my responsibilities were to:

• Coaching and mentorship the team, helping them with career development.
• Growth of the team, identifying needed roles, and doing tech and behavioral interviews.
• Develop features end to end, primarily for big enterprise customers.
• Technical mentorship, especially in backend and infrastructure (python / Django / AWS)
• Organize and lead significant initiatives that include radical changes in our app, for instance: updates on the CI/CD, and moving our FE server side from Vercel into our AWS setup.

Technologies

• Python
• Django
• Celery using Redis
• PostgreSQL
• AWS Lambdas and Step Functions
  
  

Lead Solutions Architect @ Capitole Consulting (Jan 2020 - Aug 2020)

I worked as a Solution Architect at Capitole Consulting. My role and responsibilities were to analyze requirements and define the primary architecture for projects made in-house for external customers, including definitions of language, frameworks, and code flow.

I was also working as a consultant for a sass company. In this case, my role was Tech Lead Engineer, where I had to define the central architecture for internal finance audit tools while I was also managing two individual contributors.

In most cases, I used Python within Django as the main framework.

Staff Software Engineer | Engineering Manager @ Eventbrite (Oct 2014 - Oct 2019)

I joined Eventbrite in October 2014 as a software engineer, integrating functionalities from the acquired company Eventioz. From December 2015 to April 2017, I evolved into a senior software engineer, leading a dedicated music vertical team focusing on key features like guestlist functionality and reporting tools.

I progressed further as a senior software engineer II from April 2017 to April 2019, spearheading the adaptation of tools after the Ticketfly acquisition. I contributed to significant projects, including the artist service integration and listing events from other ticketing companies.

The last part of my experience at Eventbrite, found me as the Music Business Unit Architect and Team Lead from April 2019 to October 2019. I led a team addressing the functionality needs of major music organizers. Simultaneously, I acted as an Engineering Manager for a Mendoza-based team, focusing on personal growth and technical mentorship.

Music Business Unit Architect | Team Lead @ Eventbrite (Apr 2019 - Oct 2019)

Leading the team working on functionality needs from big music organizers.

As an architect I was the contact point between other business units in order to coordinate the work, discuss common solution designs and set expectations and priorities.

During this time I also have a role as Engineer Manager of one of the teams of music in Mendoza. It was focusing on people's growth but also working closely on technical mentorship.

Senior Software Engineer II @ Eventbrite (Apr 2017 - Apr 2019)

With Eventbrite's acquisition of Ticketfly, our team was in charge of adapting existing and required tools from Ticketfly organizers into Eventbrite.

My role was leading the team to identify what part could be easily replaced with Eventbrite tools and working closely with Product Managers to succeed in this transition.

As significant points in this position, I worked on the following essential projects:

• Artist Service implementation: this was the main point to integrate external music partners to sell tickets through their funnels (like Spotify, Youtube, and Instagram)
• External Events: including the ability to list events that belongs to other ticketing companies in order to improve our customer funnel attraction

Senior Software Engineer @ Eventbrite (Dec 2015 - Apr 2017)

I have worked as a senior engineer in the first team entirely in charge of a vertical, in this case, Music. We have implemented key features for those industry organizers worth it to mention:

• Guestlist functionality: this updated a core part of the product and allowed us to catch organizers of medium size events like Theaters, Nightclubs.
• Developed reporting tools for organizers, also enhancing existing ones which power up all our features in that segment

Software Engineer @ Eventbrite (Oct 2014 - Dec 2015)

I started working as a Software Engineer, integrating functionalities from a recently acquired local company (Eventioz) into the Eventbrite ecosystem.

In the first stage, I mainly worked on business strategies in Argentina and Brazil that Eventbrite does not have, like offline payment types and zip code checks in Brazil (CEP).

Once we finished this part, we moved to work directly on the Eventbrite application. As an exciting project, I designed and implemented an initiative to transfer all Eventbrite contacts saved in MySql into Cassandra. This idea appears in an internal hackathon

Technologies:

• Python
• Django
• Mysql
• Cassandra
  
  

Tech Lead @ Belatrix SF (May 2013 - Sep 2014)

Worked as a consultant software engineer for a US company that provides mobile apps to an online bank.

The project was part of the R&D department of the company, and we used the Titanium Mobile framework and an API with Java.

My role was being a tech lead for the outsourced team, having the following responsibilities:

• Defining the architecture for the new features within the PM and the owner of the project
• Worked along with my manager on task definitions and assignments for our team.
• Assist technically our team through code review / mentoring

Technologies:

• Titanium (Appcelerator)
• Java
• Javascript
• Git
  
  

Full-Stack Engineer @ Propiedad Fácil (Aug 2012 - May 2013)

I worked as a full-stack engineer, and we had to implement business rules into our system at an iterative and fast pace. We had two systems at that time:

• Property Management tool (using PHP/CakePHP)
• Listing Site (using Ruby with Rails as a framework)

PropiedadFácil was a startup focused on online property management and rental payment process tool. Property managers and owners use the system to manage their properties, collect rent, and automate various functions.

Technologies:

• Ruby
• Rails
• PHP
• CakePhp
• Postgres
• Git
  
  

Software Engineer @ Rotterdam Community Solutions (Aug 2010 - Aug 2012)

Worked as a full-stack developer creating community solutions apps for different industries. We used an in-house framework, which included the following use cases:

• Enterprise content management
• Benchmarking & Monitoring
• Product Catalog
• My role at that time was to design and implement solutions for different requirements that our PMs (most of them located in The Netherlands) collected for other industries

Technologies:

• Java
• Liferay
• Spring
• Hibernate
• Struts
• Extjs and Sencha Touch
• Postgres
• Git
  
  

Java Developer @ Sitrack.com (May 2009 - Aug 2010)

Sitrack.com it s a company specialized in the monitoring and control of objects / mobiles or fixed entities through any global communication network linked to the internet (Wired / Wireless), we provided comprehensive services in control, optimization, logistic and location using different technologies (Satellite, GPS),to determine the exact position and condition of all types of capital.

During this time I worked as a Java software engineer. My role there was to analyze, design, and implement solutions for the new version of the app: This new architecture had to provide support for high data access performance. We developed an in-house framework based on the MVC pattern theory, extending this concept to the upcoming (at that time) REST theory

Technologies:

• Java
• Postgres
• Git
  
  

Software Developer @ Belatrix Software Factory (Apr 2007 - Apr 2009)

I was working as a consultant for different clients located in the US. Some of the projects I worked on:

• Design and development of the Java version of an analytic system of chemical structures
• Design and development of a commission framework used in Multi Level Marketing software.
• Design and development of Content Management Software that manages a considerable quantity of users
  
  

📌 Complementary

University Professor @ UTN - Facultad Regional Mendoza (Aug 2018 - Nov 2019)

Practical applications professor of the the subject "Arquitectura de Microservicios".

• Microservices theory applicated to a practical example
• Definition of services using different languages
• Guidance on the final project about a new module that should be attached to a current microservice environment.
  
  

University Researcher @ UTN - Facultad Regional Mendoza (Jan 2008 - Dec 2009)

University Researcher, working in 2 groups:

• CODAREC6: AN IPV6 TEST BED: Laboratory of Study, Design, Development, Implementation, Testing and Training of Internet Protocol Version 6 - Quality in the Software Development Process applied to Socket Programming.
• PSP Software application: implementation of a software using PSP methodology in order to track the lifecycle of a software project
  
  

💬 Languages

Spanish: Native
English: Fluent

👩🏼‍🎓 Education

Computer Science Engineer
Universidad Tecnológica Nacinoal - Mendoza, Argentina (2002 - 2010)

University Analist (intermediate degree)
Universidad Tecnológica Nacinoal - Mendoza, Argentina (2002 - 2008)