Ale Miralles

Blitz is an e-sports platform designed to help competitive gamers master challenging games like League of Legends, Valorant, and Fortnite by providing cutting-edge gaming clients, insightful performance stats, and in-game overlays.

As a member of the backend team, I focused on building a high-performance, scalable, and resilient infrastructure capable of handling global demand without downtime.

Ensuring a seamless experience for millions of users worldwide, 24/7, was no small feat. We had to design systems that could handle sudden spikes in traffic—especially during major tournaments—without impacting performance.

One time, during a League of Legends championship event, we noticed an insane spike in traffic. We thought something had broken, but after a quick investigation, we realized that a famous streamer had just recommended Blitz to their audience mid-stream. We had to scramble to scale up capacity on the fly to accommodate the insane number of spontaneous signups!

• Elixir
• Phoenix/LiveView
• AI
• Data Pipelines
• Microservices
• PostgreSQL
• GraphQL
• Redis
• GCP
• CircleCI

Superkind operates at the intersection of social media, fashion, and e-commerce. The app allows users to purchase fashion items simply by snapping pictures. Whether it was a celebrity handbag or a unique pair of sneakers, the app leveraged AI-driven image recognition to find the item (or the closest match) and facilitate the purchase—any item from anywhere, with just a picture.

Superkind's unconventional journey started as a game studio, transitioned into augmented reality for architects, and landed in the AI/social/fashion space. As an early employee, I played a crucial role in shaping the company’s technology, owning backend development and DevOps operations.

Adapting to multiple pivots with a small, scrappy team of four was exhilarating and challenging. Each shift required rethinking our tech stack and scaling strategies with limited resources.

Ensuring the system ran smoothly and could handle real-time image processing and e-commerce transaction demands was a feat.

• Elixir
• Phoenix/LiveView
• PostgreSQL
• AI
• Data Pipelines
• GCP
• Docker
• Firebase
• Vertex

Canary is building the world’s most advanced and comprehensive risk investment database. By aggregating data from multiple sources—including public filings, proprietary research, and third-party providers—Canary empowers financial institutions to make smarter, faster investment decisions. Our stack combines real-time data pipelines, AI-driven analysis, and a slick React frontend to deliver high-impact insights to our users.

As a hands-on tech lead, I guide a team of five engineers across backend, frontend, and infrastructure. I spend most of my time in the trenches—writing Elixir code, debugging PostgreSQL queries, shipping features, and making sure our systems scale reliably.

My work spans everything from designing data models and optimizing APIs to working with AI-powered extraction pipelines that parse complex SEC filings. I also collaborate closely with product and data teams to make sure our tools deliver value to financial analysts and researchers.

Canary is an ambitious product in a high-stakes industry. Building reliable systems that ingest, clean, and serve massive volumes of financial data—without slowing down—has been one of the most rewarding challenges of my career.

• Elixir
• Phoenix/LiveView
• PostgreSQL
• React
• Microservices
• TypeScript
• AWS
• Docker
• Data Pipelines
• AI
• Tech lead

SnapCell provides CRM, video, and 360-degree solutions to enhance customer engagement in car dealerships, ultimately boosting sales and service profits. By leveraging video communication and digital tools, SnapCell helps dealerships build customer trust, streamline sales processes, and improve service revenue.

I was SnapCell's first technical hire, working closely with the CTO to advance the company in its early stages. In a fast-paced startup environment, I wore multiple hats: fixing bugs, leading critical integrations, and handling customer support when needed. I ensured that SnapCell's technology met the demands of our internal and customer teams.

As an early hire, it isn’t easy to pinpoint just a few contributions because I was involved in nearly every technical aspect of the company. However, looking back, my most impactful work centered around third-party integrations, eventually leading TradePending to acquire the company.

• Ruby
• Ruby on Rails
• PostgreSQL
• Redis
• JavaScript
• AWS
• Heroku
• Data Pipelines

Codementor is a platform that connects individuals with expert developers for live mentorship and freelance projects. Whether learning a new programming language, debugging complex issues, or shipping last-minute features, developers can get real-time guidance from industry professionals.

As a mentor and freelancer, I worked with individuals and small teams to help them complete their projects on time. My role ranged from assisting students in mastering new programming languages, frameworks, and data structures to helping startups and small businesses ship critical features—sometimes over a weekend.

Every session presented a unique challenge. One day, I explained recursion to a beginner, and the next, I optimized a database query for a startup struggling with performance issues.

Many clients needed urgent help, such as fixing last-minute bugs or implementing a feature overnight. Delivering solutions under pressure while maintaining quality was crucial in this role.

• Ruby
• Ruby on Rails
• Elixir
• JavaScript
• PostgreSQL
• Docker
• AWS
• GCP
• Heroku

ARW provides tools that help restoration contractors streamline invoicing and speed up collections. By integrating with QuickBooks and other third-party services, ARW automates financial processes, reducing manual work and improving contractors' cash flow.

I led a small engineering team in LATAM and coordinated efforts with our overseas colleagues to collaborate smoothly across time zones.

My work involved multiple third-party integrations, including QuickBooks, Twilio, and WePay. In addition to keeping the legacy system stable, I led the launch of a new platform version, ensuring a seamless transition for customers.

The most challenging moment for this project was when, two months before the shutdown, WePay casually informed us that we had to migrate to another vendor because they were ceasing operations. Do you mean deprecating? No. End of life by Jan 2nd, 2024.

After two months of full-speed development and sleepless nights, we shipped on time on Jan 1st, 2024.

• Ruby
• Ruby on Rails
• PostgreSQL
• Redis
• React
• JavaScript
• AWS
• API Integration
• Data Pipelines
• Tech Lead

About Fresh is a nonprofit organization dedicated to engineering social innovations at the intersection of food and healthcare. By partnering with health institutions, philanthropists provide healthy food to those in need via filtered spending cards.

Working with credit card systems is always an adventure, but working with legacy filtered-spend card systems takes it to a new level. At About Fresh, I helped develop and maintain systems that ensured restricted-use payment cards could only be used for healthy food purchases, ensuring compliance with program guidelines.

Working at the intersection of financial transactions and healthcare data meant strict adherence to HIPAA regulations. Ensuring data security while keeping the system functional was a constant challenge.

Knowing that every fix and feature enhancement contributed to getting fresh, healthy food to people in need made the challenges all the more rewarding.

• Elixir
• Phoenix/LiveView
• PostgreSQL
• Redis
• Docker
• CircleCI
• Azure
• Tech Lead
• HIPAA

Walkboard provides end-to-end moving services, covering everything from warehouse facilities and transportation to labor and logistics. The platform also features a partner portal where service providers can sign up and connect with customers—essentially, an Uber for moving services.

I led a small team that worked on two main projects: Walkboard's backend core services and the Cuber, our room-charting mobile app.

Handling real-time location and tracking moving crews was a significant technical challenge; however, budget constraints and innovative engineering were key for this project. As a self-funded company, Walkboard didn’t have a large budget for engineering or infrastructure. We had to be surgical in deciding what features to implement and which third-party services to integrate.

Adapting to the pandemic’s impact on logistics and team well-being was challenging, too, but we made it!

Today, Walkboard is still up and running strong.

• Python
• Django
• PostgreSQL
• Microservices
• JavaScript
• TypeScript
• React
• AWS
• GitHub
• CircleCI
• Tech Lead

Code Power is a consultancy and nearshore staff augmentation company that partners with early-stage and growth-stage startups to build high-impact software products. The company specializes in quickly embedding top engineering talent into client teams to accelerate delivery timelines and close capability gaps.

During my time at Code Power, I contributed to multiple client projects across a diverse range of industries, adapting quickly to new codebases and team dynamics. The work ranged from full-stack feature development to architecture consulting and performance tuning.

I collaborated with cross-functional teams to ship production-ready features, improve developer experience, and ensure engineering best practices were upheld.

• Node.js
• React
• Firebase
• PostgreSQL
• TypeScript
• JavaScript
• Ruby on Rails
• AWS
• GCP