Career
This is not a résumé. The closest thing to that is probably my LinkedIn profile; if you're interested, there you can find the list of companies, dates, projects, and technologies. What you’ll find here is more like a collection of personal notes, including my motivations at each step.
Geography and the First Job
I started university without a clear idea of my professional future. An important constraint when choosing was that I had studied "Humanities" (because I happened to like Latin, Art... funny how things work) and in Santander most degrees were technical. I eventually chose a degree in Geography; my thought process was something like "this looks like an interesting mix, and if I put in the effort, I’m sure I'll find good opportunities."
It turned out I loved the outdoors, statistics, maps, and especially Geographic Information Systems (GIS). After my first GIS class, I thought: "this is it, I’m going to dedicate myself to this."
I guess inheriting a Spectrum computer and playing with BASIC as a kid had left me with a genuine interest in computing, and here I was picking it back up...
I graduated top of my class but didn't pursue a PhD because I felt my personality didn’t fit well with the academic department’s environment... and I believed in opportunities outside of university and in "getting things done." So I checked the university’s job board, and soon started working at Ceyplan, a small local company focused on GIS for land registry. I really enjoyed that first professional contact with GIS. I was good at it, but after some time, I realized the work was becoming routine and I wanted to develop further. It was clear to me that I lacked some of the skills that "the Computer Engineer guy" at the company had: databases, programming...
Since I had no obligations at the time, I decided to go back to studying.
The GIS Master’s and First Jobs in Madrid
I spoke with my father, and he supported my decision to take the in-person GIS Master’s at Cibernos in Madrid (the only one that existed at the time alongside the one at the University of Alcalá), even though it was quite expensive. So off to Madrid I went.
While studying the master's degree, I got hooked on programming and saw firsthand how GIS work could integrate with software development and big corporations (mainly projects involving Smallworld, Geomedia... for major utility companies like telcos and electric companies). During this time, I created a project with Visual Basic (VB) for one course, simulating the Madrid metro system (yes, in VB, the language so often mocked—but hey, even Dan Abramov started with VB!). I was "rewarded" with a scholarship offer... I started working there and they were already looking for professional opportunities for me...
But shortly after, I jumped at an offer from Habitania (a leading startup in SaaS real estate software, later acquired by Idealista). It was my first real contact with a startup, surrounded by top-tier .NET developers, and honestly, it was one of the best professional decisions I ever made. Back then, I didn't know much about web programming, only about maps, so I took a "web development course" on my own to learn. That, combined with the atmosphere, the need, and my colleagues, helped me learn and grow very quickly, even if it was a short stage. I managed pretty well, but after solving the main issues related to maps in the platform, it felt like it was time to find a new challenge.
Public Administration and Computer Engineering
Around then, I decided to leave Madrid (at least temporarily) to work on a novel project for the local public administration back home. I met highly motivated people—something not so common—and from the Local Development Agency, we developed a GIS and Geomarketing product from scratch to support entrepreneurs (providing commercial information, demographic data, coding everything from the ground up...).
It was a rewarding stage that left me with quite a lot of free time, so that's when I started studying Computer Engineering at UOC (an online university).
I worked in the mornings and studied math, programming, databases, and more in the evenings—with the depth that my curiosity demanded, really understanding the foundations to apply them day to day. As a bonus, I quickly learned how to organize and discipline myself for remote study/work, something rare at the time but very valuable later on.
The Second Stage in Madrid
I was progressing in programming, but I wanted more. I started looking for offers and moved back to Madrid, this time to work at Tekel, a startup building a very cool hardware & software location platform. Again, brilliant colleagues, lots of learning, and I moved from engineer to head of the GIS group. Unfortunately, the business side didn’t pan out and the company eventually shut down.
I spent some time working for a consultancy, building a GIS project for FCC, but eventually thought: I want to work at the most cutting-edge place for GIS, on big impactful projects. At the time, that meant ESRI or INDRA (which had an even bigger GIS department than ESRI Spain). I interviewed with both and ended up choosing INDRA, where I stayed for just under a year.
We built a very interesting GIS project for emergency management for the Spanish UME (Military Emergency Unit). Many tend to look down on technical work at big consultancies (especially startup people), but honestly, I worked with technically strong teams and it was a very solid experience.
The Scientific Stage at IHCantabria
I’ve always loved my work but also valued why I do it. So when an opportunity came up at a research institute focused on the water cycle (IH Cantabria), with projects involving applied research and a strong geospatial component, I accepted immediately.
I did many things during this long stage: desktop software, geoprocesses for ArcGIS, web applications for climate change adaptation, operational services, and lots of geographic data preparation and exploitation. But probably what I'm most proud of is my work on Athenea (an operational system for CEPSA to manage hydrocarbon spills) and a Leaflet plugin to visualize wind and marine currents directly in the browser.
I loved the applied science side and also learning from colleagues with diverse backgrounds (civil engineers, environmental engineers, biologists, physicists...).
During this period, I also completed my remote Computer Engineering degree at UOC, and soon after, I taught GIS at UOC and in several expert courses at the University of Cantabria.
Still, I had the ambition to keep growing. For a while, I combined my main job with freelance work developing fullstack and web GIS applications remotely... and eventually, I decided it was time to open a new professional chapter.
Major Startups with Global Reach
CARTO was everything I was looking for at the time: a cutting-edge GIS product, built with quality and international projection.
I joined as a frontend engineer and eventually led the Frontend team for several years. We evolved the platform towards a cloud-native architecture, grew my team (up to 8–9 people), increased ambition, and I learned to become a real Tech Lead and Manager, adapting to the needs of a scaling startup.
I went through everything from working on the complex but powerful initial Builder code, to trying to develop a custom rendering library (CARTO VL, which I presented at FOSS4G in Bucharest before it was deprecated), to successfully integrating with deck.gl and contributing to the open-source vis.gl ecosystem, creating the new frontend architecture with React & Redux, struggling with tooling, growing the team (motivating, leading, hiring, planning...) and, of course, always delivering solidly. When we reorganized into more autonomous teams, I also led a fullstack team in the account & workspaces area (including everything related to authentication and permissions, APIs and general services, the Design System, and the frontend Dashboard…).
It was an incredibly rewarding stage with many challenges overcome, but it eventually came to an end.
Currently, I’m working at Tinybird, and the challenge is huge: building a developer-first platform for real-time data handling and analytics, with major clients like Vercel, Canva, and many more. Super-strong technical team and no time for boredom (Python for the API, ClickHouse as the database engine, Next.js for the frontend…).
Best regards,
@VictorVelarde