Álvaro Freire

About me

Galicia, Spain

I care more about what systems accomplish than what they're built with. I got into this field because I like solving problems — not in the abstract, but the kind where you can point at something and say "that used to be broken, now it works."

I studied Computer Engineering at Universidade da Coruña, spent a semester abroad in Timișoara (Romania) through Erasmus, and started working at Innogando while still in school. That overlap taught me early on that shipping matters more than perfecting, and that the best engineering serves the business, not the other way around.

These days I split my time between building internal tools and infrastructure at Innogando (IoT/agrotech) and co-founding Trazea, a food traceability startup. I've also started offering automation and consulting services to other companies — helping them build the systems I've been building for years.

Outside of work, I organize hackathons, mentor young professionals through Galicia's youth mentoring program, and coordinate Erasmus+ mobility projects. I like building things and helping people build things.

Experience

Co-founder

Trazea

2026 — Present

Building a mobile app that digitizes food traceability for hospitality businesses. Own the full technical side — Expo/React Native app, OCR pipeline, backend, infrastructure.

Engineer

Innogando

Jul 2022 — Present

Building CoWtrol (internal ERP), leading infrastructure migration to Kubernetes/GKE, managing CI/CD pipelines, GitHub Actions, and GitFlow across all repositories, and building a WhatsApp support chatbot with a knowledge base from real tickets. IoT/agrotech startup — RUMI GPS collars used by thousands of farmers.

Software Engineer Intern

Avansig

Sep 2023 — Dec 2023

Developed geospatial data processing solutions and optimized database queries for GIS applications.

Community

Hackathon Organizer

Sep 2022 — Present

HackUDC, GPUL

Organized three editions of one of Spain's largest student hackathons. Managed sponsors, logistics, and 200+ participants.

Participant & Mentor

2022 — Present

HackUPC

Competed and mentored at Catalonia's biggest student hackathon. Built Wordle League in a weekend (HackUPC 2022).

Attendee

2024 — Present

FOSDEM

Regular attendee at Europe's largest open-source conference in Brussels.

Mobility Coordinator

Oct 2023 — Dec 2025

Xeración

Coordinated Erasmus+ youth mobility programs across European countries.

Mentor

2024 — Present

Xuventude Mentoring Galicia

Guiding young professionals in career development, technical skills, and job-seeking strategies.

How I build

Backend

I default to FastAPI and PostgreSQL — both are fast, well-documented, and boring in the best way.

Mobile & Web

For mobile, I prefer Expo and React Native — TypeScript keeps the codebase readable and you ship to both platforms from one codebase. On the web, React and Next.js. I avoid framework churn.

Infrastructure

Docker from day one on most projects. CI/CD early (GitHub Actions). Kubernetes and ArgoCD when scale demands it — not before. Monitoring with Grafana and Prometheus, because what you can't see will hurt you.

Automation

n8n and Make for workflow orchestration. WhatsApp Cloud API and Telegram Bot API for conversational interfaces. CRM integrations for keeping data in sync across systems.

Education

Computer Engineering

Universidade da Coruña, Spain

2020 — 2024

Erasmus+ Exchange

Universitatea de Vest din Timișoara, Romania

2024