Engineering Manager · Madrid, Spain

Hi, I’m Pablo Perdomo.
I help teams and technology grow with purpose.

From Montevideo to Madrid, my path spans event photography, educational robotics, full-stack systems, and engineering leadership. I care about high-trust cultures, craft in software, and building a full life beyond the screen.

Current Role Engineering Manager @ Personio
Location Madrid, Spain (since 2022)
Roots Montevideo, Uruguay

I've followed curiosity from Montevideo to Madrid, from classrooms to distributed code.

I was born and raised in Montevideo, Uruguay, in a home where curiosity was second nature. With a father who was an engineer and inventor at heart, and a mother who worked as a doctor in bacteriology, I grew up in an environment where taking things apart to understand how they worked, staying grounded, and approaching challenges with a positive mindset were part of everyday life. That curiosity led me directly to my degree in Computing Engineering. Along the way, photography taught me how to observe: for four years, what began as a dedicated hobby with a master photographer turned into documenting social and cultural events, capturing people’s most meaningful moments.

Teaching was my next revelation. At Plan Ceibal, I joined a division tasked with introducing school teachers across Uruguay to technology. Traveling across the country to connect with educators and students sparked a lifelong love for mentoring and helping others build confidence in technical realms. That soon transitioned into educational research with classroom robotics and 3D printing.

My passion for building brought me into modern web development, starting with PHP, jQuery, Java EE, and MongoDB, later advancing into Spring Boot and React. At Ascentis, I worked on complex US Payroll systems, advancing from Full-Stack Engineer to Engineering Lead.

In 2022, I took a leap of faith to join Personio as an Engineering Manager, relocating with my family to Madrid, Spain when our first daughter was just eleven months old. Today, with three daughters, Madrid is deeply our home, and I bring that same curiosity, empathy, and rigour to empowering engineering teams.

Dedications · 01 · Roots & Foundations

The example that guides everything

“My parents taught me the value of hard work, discipline, and perseverance, and to never settle for less than what I'm capable of. They encouraged my curiosity, supported every big leap, and showed me that warmth, laughter, and a positive mindset are the true foundation of everything we build.”

With a father who was an engineer and inventor at heart (our home was a workshop of endless curiosity), and a mother specialized in bacteriology, they showed me how to stay grounded and face life with genuine positivity.

01 · Origins

Montevideo

Computing Engineering

University degree & 4 years of social and event photography.

02 · EdTech

Plan Ceibal

Teacher & Researcher

Nationwide educator training, educational robotics & 3D printing.

03 · Systems

Ascentis

Full-Stack to Lead

Leading engineering on mission-critical US Payroll platforms.

04 · Present

Personio · Madrid

Engineering Manager

Scaling teams, fostering psychological safety & product excellence.

How I approach engineering & leadership

Great software starts with real human problems and teams empowered to solve them.

Leading engineering teams isn’t about micromanaging output; it’s about creating high-trust environments where engineers have clarity, agency, and the room to innovate.

01

Start with people & trust

Listen closely to teammates and users before prescribing technology. Psychological safety and clarity unlock velocity.

02

Turn complexity into momentum

Break down ambiguous domains into crisp architectural steps. Unblock tangled problems with focus and steady cadence.

03

Create room to grow

Empower engineers to own their solutions, take calculated bets, and achieve things they didn’t know they could do.

The Ecosystem

Where I build the highest leverage

High-performance engineering cultures don’t happen by accident. Throughout my leadership journey, I’ve found that team velocity and individual craftsmanship compound when these conditions exist:

01

High Autonomy & Craft

Teams with end-to-end problem ownership, low bureaucracy, and an uncompromising commitment to shipping resilient, clean software.

02

Mission-Critical Complexity

Ambitious product domains (distributed SaaS, platform core, fintech) where architectural rigour and platform reliability directly anchor customer trust.

03

Psychological Safety & Candour

Blameless learning loops, room for calculated bets, and a coaching culture dedicated to elevating engineers into Staff and Lead impact.

04

Strategic Alignment

Direct translation between product vision and technical roadmaps, ensuring every engineer understands how their code drives business leverage.

Architecting distributed platforms & exploring modern AI workflows.

While my primary focus is leading enterprise engineering teams and mission-critical distributed systems, I stay deeply curious and hands-on by exploring modern AI tooling, experimenting with agentic workflows, and building side projects as creative hobbies.

🏛️ Enterprise Leadership · Distributed Systems
Production Scale · High Concurrency

Personio · Native German Payroll Platform

Engineering Management & Core Systems Architecture · Madrid, Spain

Deeply involved with Personio's Native German Payroll product from day one. Over the years, I have had the privilege of leading multiple engineering teams across mission-critical domains powering accurate, statutory-compliant payroll runs for thousands of European businesses:

01 · Precision

Calculations Team

Led the core calculation engine, ensuring deterministic accuracy, zero-fault tax computation, and low-latency gross-to-net execution at high scale.

02 · Platform

Foundations Team

Managed the platform and shared infrastructure layer, focusing on reliable asynchronous data flows, architectural standards, and developer productivity.

03 · Compliance

Taxes & Statutory Team

Currently leading one of the specialized tax teams, handling complex German regulatory logic, evolving compliance rules, and direct authority integration.

Stack & Cloud

Kotlin, AWS (S3, RDS, SQS, SNS), Event-Driven Architecture, PostgreSQL

Architectural Evolution

Initially scaled across 22 microservices for domain isolation; now driving consolidation into a unified, high-performance service model.

Legacy Modernization · Full-Stack Architecture
Cloud SaaS Transformation

Ascentis · Monolith to Cloud Web Migration

Full-Stack Architecture & Engineering Lead · US Payroll Platform

Helped lead the transformation of a mission-critical desktop payroll product into a modern, cloud-first web platform serving thousands of companies across the United States.

Legacy Monolith

Legacy Desktop Architecture

Monolithic desktop Java Swing client application with core payroll and tax calculation logic rooted in legacy COBOL services.

Target Cloud Architecture

Decomposed Microservices

Decomposed the monolith into four clean, focused microservices integrated seamlessly with the broader ASP.NET Core HR enterprise ecosystem.

Stack & Technologies

Java (Spring Boot), React (Next.js), PostgreSQL, REST APIs, ASP.NET Core

Core Impact

Replaced legacy desktop dependencies with high-availability web APIs and modern responsive UI components.

🏛️ National EdTech & Systems Architecture
2009 - 2017

Plan Ceibal · Nationwide Educational Systems & Innovation

Full Stack Web Developer & Tech Lead · Applied Robotics Researcher

Directed the architectural design, development, and server infrastructure for high-scale educational platforms and web applications serving public education nationwide across Uruguay.

🌐

National Scale Web Systems

Architected and delivered large-scale web applications and database architectures using PHP (Laravel), Java EE, and JavaScript (jQuery).

🛠️

Full Lifecycle & Linux Ops

Managed client discovery, technical specifications, Linux web server administration, and continuous production release schedules.

🤖

Robotics & 3D Printing

Researched pedagogical applications of robotics and additive manufacturing, designing training curricula for teachers and students nationwide.

Stack & Technologies

PHP (Laravel), Java EE, JavaScript (jQuery), SQL Databases, Linux Server Admin

Scope & Impact

Nationwide educational technology platform reaching hundreds of thousands of students and teachers.

🤖 AI Exploration & Web Hobby
Live Project

Alejandra Fernández · Nutritionist

AI-Assisted Rapid Prototyping & Web Exploration

A hands-on side exploration leveraging modern AI development tools and agentic workflows to rapidly design, build, and deploy a clean, welcoming web presence for clinical nutritionist Alejandra Fernández.

AI Workflows Rapid Prototyping HTML5 & Modern CSS JavaScript Vercel
Visit Live Website alejandra-fernandez.com
🎮 AI Experiment & Game Hobby
Playable Hobby Project

Doblete · Symbol Matching Game

Algorithmic Game Logic & AI Pair Programming

Inspired by popular tabletop card games with similar dynamics, built as a fun weekend hobby exploring mathematical finite projective planes for card symbol matching. Experimented with AI pair programming to rapidly implement game state machines, fluid keyframe effects, and zero-framework performance.

AI Pair Programming Game Algorithms Vanilla JS CSS Animations Vercel
Play Doblete doblete.vercel.app
macOS & iOS App
Active Development

Squeeze · Native Media Compressor

Native Multiplatform App · SwiftUI

A multiplatform app for macOS (14.0+) and iOS (17.0+) built with SwiftUI. It scans your photo library or local files for large videos and media above chosen thresholds (like 100MB, 500MB, or 1GB) and compresses them with custom resolution, codec, frame rate, and bitrate settings while preserving all original metadata, including dates, GPS coordinates, albums, and favorite status.

SwiftUI Multiplatform macOS 14+ / iOS 17+ AVFoundation PhotoKit Video Compression Metadata Preservation
Completed Basic/Advanced modes, smart resolution capping, year filtering, and atomic deletion
📷 AI & Creative Photography Hobby
Research Phase (On Pause)

Photography & Visual AI Tooling

Open Source Research & Creative Tooling

A personal passion project bringing together my background in photography and modern AI. Currently in the research phase and on pause, exploring open source projects to fork from, such as Darktable, with the goal of creating something simple and intuitive to use like Adobe Lightroom.

Research Phase Open Source Exploration Darktable Lightroom Concept Vision AI
On pause while researching open source bases
Open to International Roles & High-Value Consulting

Looking for an engineering leader or systems architect?

Whether you are scaling distributed backend architectures, modernizing complex legacy systems, or cultivating a high-trust, high-velocity engineering culture across European or global teams, let's have a conversation.

A few things that make me, me.

Beyond engineering and architecture, my world revolves around family adventures, the open road, racing mechanics, and the constant curiosity to understand how things work.

Dedications · 02 · Wings & Partnership

The partner behind every leap & dream

“She is my partner in life, the love of my life, my best friend, and my greatest source of strength. There is an unmistakable chemistry in how we complement each other, and we have built a partnership where no challenge feels too big when we face it together.”

She is a psychologist and an NLP coach, with an energy and warmth that constantly inspires me and lifts me up whenever I need it most. We can spend hours talking about everything and anything, from raising our three daughters to our next travel adventures, careers, and the milestones we want to reach next. Building this life alongside her is the best journey I could ever ask for.

Psychologist & NLP Coach Mom of Three Montevideo to Madrid
Memoir · 01 · Early Milestones

Where it all began: Montevideo roots, alpine escapes & anticipation

From our early foundation in Montevideo and quiet seaside days awaiting our first daughter, to winter getaways across the Alps, each chapter deepened our shared journey.

Memoir · 02 · Family & Open Road

Family, Partnership & the Open Road

My favourite thing in the world is packing the car and heading out on road trips with my wife, our three daughters, and Lola.

It brings together everything that anchors my life: quality time with my family, the freedom of driving without a rigid agenda, and facing every new milestone as a united team. Relocating from Montevideo to Madrid when our first daughter was eleven months old was a huge leap of faith, made possible by the unwavering partnership and energy I share with my wife, who as a psychologist and coach brings immense clarity and heart to our family. Today, as a family of five with three daughters and Lola, Madrid is deeply our home.

Pack of Six: Pablo, Wife, 3 Daughters & Lola
The Leap: Montevideo to Madrid
Core Philosophy: Shared journeys, freedom & teamwork
Pablo and wife with their three daughters in hospital A Family of Five
Pablo pushing stroller with daughters and Lola walking at sunset Madrid Evenings

Motorsport & Racing

An everyday fascination with automotive engineering, telemetry, powertrain mechanics, and racing culture. Passing down that spark on the karting track with my daughter is one of my greatest joys.

Lola & the Pack

Lola was the first to join us, before kids, before Madrid, before everything. She crossed the ocean with us without hesitation. We don't say three daughters and a dog, we say four daughters.

Passions · 05

Hardware & Electronics

A genuine fascination with hardware and tinkering: from drones, robotics, Arduino, and Raspberry Pi, to PC benchmarking, CPUs, GPUs, camera sensors, chips, VR, and sim racing haptics.

Passions · 06

Sim Racing & Gaming

A gamer since the Atari era. Today my go-to escapes are sim racing rigs dialed into realistic physics and expansive open-world titles pushed to maximum ray tracing settings.

Family First Road Trips Motorsport Hardware & Electronics Photography Sim Racing Ray Tracing Dog Person Madrid Uruguay
Active Radar · Madrid
Focusing On

Scaling high-leverage engineering teams with high autonomy, crisp architectural alignment, and psychological safety.

Exploring

Next-gen GPU microarchitectures, developer ergonomics with AI tooling, and automotive powertrain engineering.

Enjoying

Sim racing telemetry sessions, ray-traced graphics benchmarks, and exploring with my family.

Let’s connect

Always open to
ambitious conversations.

Whether you're scaling an engineering organization, navigating complex technical trade-offs, or exchanging notes on high-trust culture and modern architectures, I'm always keen to connect with fellow leaders, founders, and craft-driven teams.