Jose Constela: Tech Lead / Engineering Lead, Generative AI & AI Agents

Tech Lead and Engineering Lead for Generative AI and AI agents, based between Brussels (Belgium) and Spain. Python, Node.js, AWS.

Open CV (PDF) | LinkedIn profile | Email jose@joseconstela.com

At a glance

• Role: Engineering Lead at bpost (Belgium). Earlier: CTO, Software Architect, Senior Backend Engineer.
• Focus: Generative AI in production: AI agents, LLM tools, LLM gateways and cost control, sensitive-data redaction.
• Stack: Python, Node.js, AWS, Apache Kafka, event-driven microservices, Domain-Driven Design.
• In Belgium since: 2019 — Tata Consultancy Services (2019 – 2022), Nutrinomics (2022 – 2024), bpost (2024 – present).
• Experience: production systems since 2012, Generative AI since 2023; employers and clients in Belgium, the UK, the US, Spain and Australia.
• Languages: Spanish (native), English (professional), Portuguese (advanced).

Summary

Engineering lead, or tech lead in most job descriptions, with 14 years building production systems, the last 3 focused on Generative AI (GenAI) and agentic AI: AI agents and tools built on large language models (LLMs). I work embedded with the business, from use-case workshop to production MVP, and leave teams able to maintain what we built. Hands-on in Python and Node.js on AWS. Clients in Belgium, the UK, the US, Spain and Australia, among them bpost, Tata Consultancy Services, Beamery, Collectable, Nightset and the University of Vigo.

Skills

• Generative AI: LLMs (Claude, Gemini, local models with Ollama), AI agents, prompt engineering, LLM gateways and cost control, sensitive-data redaction
• AI-assisted development: AI coding agents (ReArch, Claude Code, Cline)
• Backend: Python, Node.js, REST APIs, microservices, event-driven architecture (Apache Kafka), Domain-Driven Design, MQTT, PHP
• AWS: IoT Core, Lambda, ECS, EC2, API Gateway, S3, CloudFront, RDS, IAM, CloudWatch, CloudFormation, Secrets Manager, Certificate Manager, Elastic Beanstalk, Route 53
• Data: MongoDB and Atlas, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis
• Delivery: Docker, CI/CD, Git, end-to-end testing (Playwright, Ronsel), security and performance testing
• Frontend: Angular, React
• Leadership: technical direction, mentoring, workshops with business stakeholders, team processes and documentation

Selected GenAI Projects

• ReArch: self-hosted background AI coding agents for whole teams. Each person gets an agent in a sandboxed container working on the team’s real repositories, with live previews, cost tracking and a pull request at the end.
• LLM proxy (open source): gateway that secures and controls LLM usage across an organisation: what data leaves, who uses which model and at what cost.
• redact (open source): detects sensitive data in repositories before it reaches an LLM.
• Ronsel (open source, MIT): end-to-end test framework where each test is a Markdown notebook the whole team can read, review in a pull request and run against real APIs, PostgreSQL, MQTT and browsers, locally or in CI. Flows can be drafted by Claude, Gemini or a local Ollama model.
• More at github.com/joseconstela.

Experience

Engineering Lead — bpost, Belgium

Logistics · 2024 – Present

• Lead enterprise-level architecture and systems design for a nationwide network of IoT devices.
• Applied Domain-Driven Design (DDD) to untangle complex infrastructure constraints and built highly scalable, distributed backend systems.
• Designed and helped implement an event-driven microservices architecture on Apache Kafka.
• Run cloud-native deployments on AWS, orchestrating containerised applications and serverless compute (ECS, EC2, Lambda, API Gateway, IAM, CloudWatch).
• Defined REST API design standards, system integration patterns and CI/CD pipeline strategies and guardrails.
• Mentor the engineering team on backend system design, data architecture and security standards.

Chief Technology Officer — Nutrinomics, Belgium

E-health · 2022 – 2024

• Led the gradual migration from a monolith to a microservices architecture.
• Managed AWS for performance and cost savings (API Gateway, Cognito, IAM, EC2, S3, CloudFront, Certificate Manager; MongoDB Atlas).
• Built a new back office with React-admin, maintained the Angular application, added push notifications and payments to the mobile app, and built reporting on MongoDB pipelines.
• Represented the company in large European projects integrating technology from several partners, and at conferences and round tables on technology in food and health.

Software Architect — Tata Consultancy Services, Belgium

Logistics · 2019 – 2022

• Relocated to Belgium. Planned, designed, documented and maintained high-traffic, highly scalable services on AWS, mainly large IoT projects.
• Found and implemented changes that drastically reduced end-user response times.
• Led brainstorming sessions to improve operations and how end users perceive the technology; took part in business end-to-end testing and product planning.
• Grew the teams’ knowledge of development best practices; drove and supported security and performance testing.
• AWS: IoT Core for large deployments, API Gateway, EC2, ECS, S3, Lambda, CloudWatch, Secrets Manager, CloudFront, CloudFormation, Certificate Manager.

Product Technology — Send2Me, Spain

Logistics · 2019 – 2020

• Helped plan and build the software for new hardware products: advised on technology choices, planning and integrations.
• Designed and developed web services, back offices and IoT projects (Node.js, Angular, Electron; Protobuf communication protocols).
• Managed AWS (IoT Core, API Gateway, EC2, S3) and ran project management.

Senior Backend Engineer — Collectable.com Inc., Boston, USA

Mobile application · 2017 – 2019

• Built scalable scraping systems that ingested data on more than USD 2B worth of sports collectibles.
• Migrated the backend to RESTful APIs and built an MVP web application in one week.
• Stack: AWS (EC2, Lambda, API Gateway, Elastic Beanstalk, CloudFront, Route 53, RDS), MongoDB Atlas, Redis, Node.js, MeteorJS, Docker, Dokku, Heroku, Selenium, Puppeteer.

Senior Backend Engineer — Nightset, London, UK

Social application · 2016 – 2018

• Designed and built the API (Node.js, Swagger, MongoDB), AWS Lambda microservices, data analysis and aggregation, and scraping and curation tools, some driven by Slack bots.

Senior Backend Engineer — Beamery, London, UK

Formerly Seed.jobs (AngelPad 2014), CRM for HR · 2014 – 2015

• Moved the team from vanilla PHP to a framework-driven architecture and laid the foundations of the Node.js microservices.
• API design, documentation and implementation; ATS integration; data analysis tools on MongoDB and MapReduce.
• Managed AWS and cut IT costs; set up team processes and documentation.

Software Developer — Totally Communications, London, UK

Digital agency · 2012 – 2013

• Web applications and sites in LAMP environments: PHP on Zend Framework, custom WordPress, JavaScript (jQuery, ExtJS), Twitter, Google Maps and YouTube APIs.

Backend Developer and AWS Manager — Vimirk, Barcelona, Spain

Facebook application · 2012

• Migrated the platform to AWS (Elastic Beanstalk, EC2, IAM, load balancers, SSL); PHP development; Facebook and YouTube APIs; process and infrastructure documentation.

Languages

Spanish (native), English (professional), Portuguese (advanced)

Get in touch

Hiring a Tech Lead or Engineering Lead for Generative AI in Belgium, or want to compare notes on AI agents in production? Email jose@joseconstela.com or connect on LinkedIn. The CV is also available as a PDF.