Lucio Duran

Professional Summary

22+ years architecting and shipping software products across healthcare, e-commerce, and marketplace verticals — from system design to production deployment. I lead engineering organizations where AI is not a feature but the core infrastructure layer. My work spans agentic AI systems, LLM integration patterns, full-stack development (React, React Native, Node, Python, iOS), and the strategic decisions that turn technical capabilities into revenue. I've built and scaled cross-functional teams across LATAM, the US, and Europe, owning the full product lifecycle: architecture decisions, CI/CD pipelines, cloud infrastructure, API design, and frontend performance. I operate at the intersection of hands-on engineering and executive technology strategy — I still read the PRs, and I still make the technical calls. Current focus: AI-augmented product development, agentic workflows, and building technology that compounds.

Professional Experience

Areas of Expertise

Technical Proficiencies

Education & Certifications

Core Competencies

• Align technology investments with P&L impact — define build-vs-buy decisions, reduce operational cost through automation, and instrument ROI tracking across engineering initiatives
• Allocate and coordinate engineering work — match task complexity to team capability, manage cross-team dependencies, and balance delivery speed against technical quality
• Analyze SEO and analytics data — crawl budget optimization, Core Web Vitals correlation with rankings, conversion funnel analysis, and custom GA4 event taxonomy design
• Analyze financial and operational reports — identify inefficiencies, model cost scenarios, and recommend technology-driven improvements backed by quantitative evidence
• Apply market intelligence and trend analysis to product classification and positioning — leverage AI-driven insights and historical performance data to inform strategic decisions
• Architect and operate cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP) — define IaC strategies with Terraform/Pulumi, manage multi-environment deployments, and enforce cost governance
• Architect and ship native mobile applications (iOS/Android) — define navigation patterns, offline-first strategies, push notification systems, and app store optimization
• Architect reusable component libraries and shared packages — define API contracts, versioning strategies, tree-shaking compatibility, and cross-project dependency management
• Architect, build, and ship production web applications and PWAs — from database schema design through API layer to client-side rendering strategies (SSR, SSG, ISR)
• Articulate technology strategy to investors and partners — translate architecture decisions, scalability plans, and AI capabilities into business value narratives backed by technical metrics
• Assess business value across epics and themes — model expected impact using conversion data, user research, and competitive positioning to maximize ROI per sprint
• Author and maintain infrastructure-as-code documentation, architecture decision records (ADRs), runbooks, and system topology diagrams for all production environments
• Author technical design briefs — define problem space, constraints, success metrics, target personas, and technical boundaries before design execution begins
• Bridge engineering and business — translate technical constraints into business tradeoffs, and translate business requirements into technical specifications non-engineers can validate
• Build and evolve design systems from scratch — token architecture, component libraries (Figma + code), versioning strategies, and cross-platform consistency enforcement
• Build and maintain strategic relationships with key partners, investors, and stakeholders — serve as the technical authority in due diligence and partnership evaluations
• Build and scale high-performing engineering teams — define career ladders, establish engineering culture, drive retention through technical challenge and ownership
• Build high-fidelity interactive prototypes — micro-interactions, state transitions, responsive behavior, and real data integration for realistic user validation
• Build product budgets and delivery timelines — resource allocation modeling, cost forecasting, vendor spend tracking, and burn-rate analysis across product lines
• Collaborate with Product Management to maintain a value-ranked backlog — prioritize by ROI modeling, customer impact scoring, and strategic alignment metrics
• Collaborate with cross-functional leadership on product launches — coordinate engineering readiness, QA sign-off, monitoring setup, and go-to-market technical requirements
• Conduct mixed-method user research — field observations, contextual inquiries, moderated/unmoderated usability testing, surveys, and behavioral analytics to validate design hypotheses
• Conduct systematic competitive audits across UX patterns, feature sets, and technology stacks — extract actionable design intelligence to inform product differentiation
• Coordinate cross-functional feature delivery — align engineering, design, QA, and product on scope, technical approach, and acceptance criteria from discovery through release
• Create prototypes that validate core interaction hypotheses — clickable Figma flows, coded prototypes in React, and AI-assisted rapid prototyping for user testing
• Create visual assets across digital touchpoints — product graphics, brand identity systems, marketing collateral, and UI illustrations using Figma, Illustrator, and Photoshop
• Define and enforce design standards — spacing scales, typography systems, color token hierarchies, responsive breakpoint strategies, and interaction pattern libraries
• Define and execute technology strategy — align architecture decisions, team structure, and tooling investments with business objectives and growth targets
• Define cloud security posture — IAM policies, network segmentation (VPC, security groups), secrets management (Vault, AWS Secrets Manager), and zero-trust architecture principles
• Define product vision and roadmap — identify growth vectors, map feature dependencies, and sequence delivery based on market timing and technical readiness
• Define social media technology strategy — content scheduling automation, analytics integration, AI-driven engagement optimization, and cross-platform publishing workflows
• Design QA pipelines and data protection frameworks — automated testing strategies (unit, integration, e2e), GDPR/HIPAA compliance controls, and data encryption at rest and in transit
• Design and execute cloud migration strategies — lift-and-shift, re-platforming, and re-architecting legacy systems into cloud-native services with minimal downtime
• Design and execute engineering growth frameworks — structured 1:1s, technical mentorship programs, code review culture, and competency-based performance evaluations
• Design and implement developer tooling and infrastructure — CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI), monorepo tooling, linting configs, and local development environments
• Design and maintain test automation frameworks — cross-browser testing matrices (Playwright, Cypress), device lab strategies, visual regression testing, and CI-integrated test suites
• Design and optimize CI/CD pipelines — automated build, test, and deployment workflows, environment promotion strategies, and release automation with rollback capabilities
• Design system troubleshooting and maintenance procedures — runbooks, escalation paths, monitoring dashboards, and automated remediation scripts for common failure modes
• Develop technology-driven business strategies — align short-term execution with long-term platform architecture, balancing growth velocity against technical sustainability
• Diagnose UX failures through data — analyze funnel drop-offs, heatmaps, session recordings, and A/B test results to design evidence-based solutions
• Direct content strategy and production — define editorial workflows, SEO-driven content architecture, and AI-assisted content generation pipelines
• Direct cross-functional operations — align engineering, product, and design output with company OKRs, tracking execution through KPIs tied to revenue and user impact
• Drive market and user research — analyze TAM/SAM/SOM, run cohort analysis on user behavior, and feed insights into product roadmap prioritization frameworks (RICE, ICE)
• Enforce engineering standards across teams — code review protocols, PR size limits, test coverage thresholds, and architectural conformance checks in CI pipelines
• Enforce regulatory and compliance requirements — data protection (GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2), software licensing, security policies, and ethical AI usage guidelines
• Evaluate and adopt emerging technologies — AI/ML frameworks, new runtime environments, build tools, and developer productivity platforms through structured PoC processes
• Evaluate and integrate multi-channel communication platforms — push notification systems, real-time messaging (WebSockets, SSE), and AI-powered engagement automation
• Evaluate and negotiate with technology vendors — assess SLAs, API reliability, pricing models, data residency compliance, and integration complexity for third-party services
• Evaluate cloud solutions through hands-on PoCs — benchmark latency, throughput, cost per transaction, and operational complexity before production adoption
• Evaluate go-to-market strategies through a technical lens — assess product-market fit signals, define feature-driven growth experiments, and build data-informed product roadmaps
• Evaluate, benchmark, and integrate frontend frameworks and tooling — runtime performance profiling, bundle analysis, DX evaluation, and migration path assessment
• Evolve agile practices beyond textbook Scrum — adapt ceremonies to team maturity, implement Kanban hybrids, and measure flow metrics (cycle time, throughput, WIP limits)
• Execute production deployments, hotfixes, and zero-downtime updates — manage deployment pipelines, database migrations, and post-deploy verification
• Execute the full visual design lifecycle — from moodboards and wireframes through high-fidelity mockups to developer-ready specs with token references and responsive breakpoints
• Execute visual design from concept to production — define color systems, typographic scales, layout grids, and asset pipelines using Figma, Illustrator, and code-based design tools
• Facilitate product discovery workshops — run design sprints, stakeholder alignment sessions, and user story mapping exercises to define design goals and technical constraints
• Govern cloud resource utilization — implement tagging policies, cost anomaly detection, right-sizing recommendations, and reserved instance strategies across environments
• Identify and integrate emerging technologies — AI/ML pipelines, agentic workflows, LLM integration patterns, edge computing, and serverless architectures into production systems
• Identify gaps, ambiguities, and contradictions in requirements — propose alternatives with technical tradeoff analysis and guide teams to unblocked execution paths
• Identify technology inflection points — evaluate AI breakthroughs, platform shifts, and user behavior changes that create strategic opportunities or existential risks
• Integrate marketing technology stack — analytics SDKs, conversion tracking pixels, AI-powered personalization engines, and attribution modeling across channels
• Integrate third-party APIs and external data sources — design resilient integration layers with retry logic, circuit breakers, rate limit handling, and response caching
• Investigate and resolve complex technical issues — distributed system debugging, memory leak analysis, race condition identification, and cross-service failure correlation
• Lead UI design teams — establish visual design standards, component design processes, design-to-code handoff protocols, and individual contribution on high-impact surfaces
• Lead design critiques and UI/UX reviews — evaluate interaction patterns, accessibility compliance (WCAG), visual hierarchy, and component API design against design system standards
• Lead engineers across seniority levels — establish code review standards, pair programming practices, technical RFC processes, and a culture of ownership over assigned work
• Lead mobile engineering teams — define native/hybrid architecture decisions (React Native, Swift, Kotlin), establish release cadences, and drive platform-specific quality standards
• Lead technical feasibility assessments — estimate complexity using story points and spike investigations, identify architectural risks, and propose phased delivery strategies
• Lead the UX practice — define research methodologies, design review cadences, usability benchmarks, and quality gates that ensure consistent user experience across products
• Maintain a healthy backlog pipeline — stories are refined, estimated, and technically unblocked at least two sprints ahead of execution
• Maintain deep domain expertise in target verticals — healthcare regulation, e-commerce conversion patterns, marketplace dynamics, and LATAM market specifics
• Make cloud provider and service selection decisions — evaluate multi-cloud vs single-cloud tradeoffs, assess managed service maturity, and define vendor lock-in mitigation strategies
• Make technology investment decisions — evaluate ROI on platform bets, AI tooling adoption, team scaling, and infrastructure spend against projected business outcomes
• Manage backlog operations — story decomposition, acceptance criteria definition, dependency mapping, and sprint-level iteration planning with capacity-aware commitments
• Manage content pipelines and CMS architecture — headless CMS configuration, asset optimization workflows, CDN invalidation strategies, and editorial workflow automation
• Manage production deployments — blue/green and canary release strategies, database migration orchestration, feature flag management, and post-deploy health verification
• Monitor platform performance with real-user metrics (Core Web Vitals, LCP, FID, CLS) — implement observability pipelines, alerting thresholds, and performance budgets
• Operate and monitor system infrastructure — uptime SLAs, health checks, capacity planning, auto-scaling policies, and incident response procedures
• Operate as Product Owner across scrum teams — own sprint planning, backlog grooming, story mapping, and sprint retrospectives with data-driven velocity analysis
• Optimize frontend and backend performance — code splitting, lazy loading, CDN caching strategies, database query optimization, connection pooling, and memory profiling
• Own end-to-end product design — from user research synthesis through information architecture, interaction design, visual design, and developer handoff with pixel-level specs
• Own release planning and delivery cadence — define release trains, feature flag strategies, canary deployments, and rollback procedures across product lines
• Own software delivery lifecycle — sprint capacity planning, dependency management, technical debt budgeting, and delivery predictability tracking
• Own the full cloud stack — compute orchestration (ECS, EKS, Lambda), managed databases (RDS, DynamoDB), CDN configuration, and platform-level monitoring and alerting
• Perform root cause analysis on production incidents — correlate logs, metrics, and traces to identify failure patterns and implement systemic fixes
• Perform root cause analysis on systemic business and technical failures — design corrective action plans with measurable outcomes and prevention mechanisms
• Present architecture proposals, product concepts, and design solutions to C-level stakeholders — iterate based on technical and business feedback with versioned decision logs
• Prioritize product backlog using data-driven frameworks — weigh user impact, technical effort, strategic alignment, and revenue potential for every feature decision
• Produce detailed UX deliverables — annotated wireframes, interactive prototypes, information architecture diagrams, and user flow maps with edge case documentation
• Produce production-grade visual assets — icon systems, illustration libraries, motion design specs, and brand-consistent graphic components optimized for web and mobile
• Provide L2/L3 technical support — debug production issues across the full stack, analyze logs and traces, and escalate infrastructure-level incidents with detailed diagnostics
• Provision and configure cloud environments — VPC networking, IAM roles, managed services setup, DNS configuration, and SSL/TLS certificate management
• Resolve operational and security incidents — incident classification, containment procedures, forensic analysis, and implementation of preventive controls
• Review and develop UX concepts — evaluate information architecture, navigation patterns, interaction flows, and accessibility compliance against user research findings
• Run continuous feedback loops with stakeholders to drive product iteration — synthesize qualitative input into actionable backlog items with measurable acceptance criteria
• Run structured competitive benchmarks — performance audits (Lighthouse, WebPageTest), feature parity matrices, and pricing/positioning analysis with actionable recommendations
• Set product vision and communicate it across engineering and stakeholders — define the 'why' behind every epic, and ensure technical execution maps to strategic intent
• Ship user-facing features end-to-end — from component architecture and state management (React, Redux, Zustand) through API integration to production deployment and monitoring
• Solve complex UX problems through systematic decomposition — reduce cognitive load, eliminate unnecessary states, and design progressive disclosure patterns for power users
• Track competitive landscape systematically — monitor competitor feature releases, technology choices, hiring patterns, and funding rounds to anticipate market shifts
• Track engineering KPIs and budget execution — DORA metrics (deployment frequency, lead time, MTTR, change failure rate), cloud spend, and team velocity trends
• Track martech evolution — evaluate AI-driven personalization engines, attribution modeling tools, CDP platforms, and programmatic advertising infrastructure
• Translate brand strategy into design execution — maintain visual consistency across platforms while adapting to medium-specific constraints and interaction paradigms
• Translate product requirements into scalable design systems — atomic design methodology, token-based theming, and component APIs that serve both design and engineering
• Triage and resolve production defects — prioritize by user impact and blast radius, implement fixes with regression tests, and conduct post-mortems on critical incidents
• Validate technical feasibility of UI/UX designs — assess rendering performance, animation frame budgets, component complexity, and cross-platform implementation constraints