Strategy is the lore. Code is the canon. I keep them in one universe.
I work on platforms everyone uses, where the goals are clear but execution has stalled, and I help turn them into delivery-focused roadmaps. I spent more than twenty years as a developer, and the last ten leading products, so I'm equally at home in a technical discussion and in a business-metrics review, and I like being the bridge between the two. On the AI front, the teams I coordinate already have agents in production, and I build my own for the way I work. If you're building an AI or platform product from scratch, or one that needs turning around, I'd love to hear about it!
The stories behind the numbers
Call centers, auctions, tax forms. I fall for the problems nobody writes songs about.
01Avalara · 2024 – now
Retiring the legacy catalog behind every Returns product
Every Avalara Returns product runs on the same execution layer: the tax forms the platform fills and files. That layer lived in an aging monolith, the Tax Form Catalog, that spread form management across 15+ separate products, exposed no shared API, and blocked new work on top of it (from AI features to testing tools). It could not be switched off, because every product depended on it.
I directed the program that replaced it. I drove the spec and the gap analysis against the old system and sequenced a quarter-by-quarter parity roadmap. Engineering re-platformed the monolith onto RESTful microservices, and the business verticals that rely on them (Exemption Certificates, Property Tax, Treasury Services, among others) are now adopting a GraphQL layer that lets those services evolve without impacting them. In parallel, the authoring interface was rebuilt in React, and the teams that work on the forms (content research, form mapping, property tax, compliance) moved onto it.
A single production cutover in June 2025 moved 15+ dependent systems onto the new services with no downstream disruption. The platform now holds 18,000+ forms across 17 tax domains, and the legacy catalog is on track to retire by the end of 2026.
02Avalara · in progress
Putting AI agents to work on tax-form mapping
Every time a jurisdiction changes a rate, a formula or an address rule, someone has to map that change into the affected tax forms by hand. Across the platform, that mapping and review runs to about 700 hours a month.
I coordinate the program that hands this work to AI agents, setting the process, metrics and requirements with engineering and the mapping teams. The first agents are already in production: they analyze jurisdiction changes, tell the mappers how to apply them, and run end-to-end tests, with people staying in the loop for the complex cases.
The goal is to cut those hours at least in half. That result isn’t in yet.
03Superbid · 2021 – 2023
Standardizing customer support tooling across LatAm
Every month, around 60 support tickets spilled past the first line with nowhere structured to go. Five departments touched them and none owned them.
I coordinated the definition and adoption of a single help-desk system for Brazil and the rest of LatAm, with SOPs that brought Legal, Sales, Operations, Engineering, and Product into the same process.
Overflow dropped by roughly 54%, and resolution time by about 23%.
04Superbid · 2021 – 2023
Opening vehicle auctions to remote buyers
Vehicle auctions only drew local buyers. Whoever won had to go and pick the car up, so anyone far away simply didn’t bid.
I spotted the gap and brought in a third-party shipping partner that quotes delivery at bid time, so remote buyers could bid knowing the full cost.
Over the first three events, auctions with shipping closed roughly 27% higher, adjusted for inflation and vehicle pricing. About 80% of the winners were buyers from other regions who hired the service, and shipping fees returned a ~7% commission to the platform.
05Round Pegs / Superbid · 2019 – 2023
From Gate 2.0 to a platform for auctioneers
Everything Superbid auctions has to be digitized first: imported, described and priced. When I joined in December 2019, that ran on Gate, the company’s first digitization tool, and the biggest clients sent files from different ERPs that someone cleaned and standardized by hand before anything could be ingested.
My first goal was Gate 2.0, built with my squad to replace it. We swapped the manual file work for standardized ingestion and ETL tooling and moved legacy systems onto microservices. After I became Head of Product, Gate 2.0 became the Digitalization module of Gestor, a new micro-frontend platform where auctioneers imported products, created auctions and priced them for Superbid Exchange.
We built the module around data quality: a 90% completeness target for every asset, with questions and photo prompts guiding the auctioneer, and anything under 70% needing an account manager’s approval to go live.
Cycle time on that file work improved by roughly 21%, and I later took Gestor to four more LatAm countries.
Freelance track record
45 projects, 100% client success
From 2007 to 2019, I also freelanced: software shipped for clients in many industries and countries.
Every engagement was tracked and scored by the freelance platform, not self-reported.
What clients and colleagues say
“He’s the best Product Manager I’ve worked with so far. Fernando brings a huge amount of experience, is kind, responsive, and consistently professional. I can’t recommend him enough.”
Mykhail Heraskin, AmberEnhance
“Over two years, Fernando managed several teams, including LATAM, across both delivery and product discovery. His engineering and product knowledge made build-versus-deliver decisions simple and sound, and together we moved the business needle.”
Head of Product & Engineering, LATAM
Pedro Antunes, Superbid
Translated from the original Portuguese
“We couldn’t be where we are today without his knowledge, mentorship and refined soft skills. He helped me as a founder build upon an idea and turn it into an industry recognised product.”
Product Manager & Mentor
Adri Leite, Cliffside Cybersecurity
“Amazing organization managing the projects. His communication was top-notch, and he met all deadlines.”
Product Owner & Team Lead
Gabriela De Luca, RoundPegs
“Engaged Fernando for a CMS build, he was very proficient at handling the project. Timely, easy to work with, excellent comms and all round good guy. Will be working with him again.”
Multi-country Website Build
Enrolmy
“A gifted developer, knowledgeable about so many aspects of development, from code quality through dev-ops, deployment, git hygiene, project management, and much more.”
Project Lead & Development
Scott Yewell, Purpose Built Software
“He takes the time to document, research, back up, explain, and implement. We understand the fix, and the codebase is stable and reliable.”
Web Development
Jon Haller, PTC
“Probably the best developer we have found so far. Very professional, and takes great care communicating, providing reports, and suggesting solutions and improvements.”
ISP Infrastructure
Peter Saunier, WebAgency