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Marco Sabatini
Professional Summary
Engineering leader with 15+ years of experience in building scalable data platforms, distributed systems, and cloud infrastructure across fintech, cybersecurity, and travel-tech industries. Proven track record in leading engineering teams, designing modern data architectures, and delivering production-grade data platforms for analytics, risk modeling, and data-driven decision making. Strong expertise in data pipelines, big data ecosystems, cloud-native infrastructure, and platform engineering. Passionate about mentoring engineers, building high-performing teams, and aligning technical platforms with business strategy.
Core Competencies
Data Platform Architecture
- Data Lakehouse architectures
- Data ingestion and processing pipelines
- Streaming and event-driven systems
- Data lifecycle management
- Data quality and reliability
Cloud Data Platforms
- AWS & Azure storage solutions
- AWS & Azure RDS databases
- Kubernetes container orchestration
- Infrastructure as Code with Terraform
Data Engineering & Technologies
- Apache Spark for big data processing
- Databricks for data analytics
- SQL and NoSQL databases (Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL)
- Elasticsearch and SOLR for search
- Data orchestration and microservices architecture
- Programming: Python, Java, Ruby, TypeScript, Bash
Leadership & Strategy
- Engineering team leadership and management
- Platform strategy and architecture design
- Cross-team technical coordination
- Stakeholder alignment with product and business teams
- Mentoring and developing engineering talent
Professional Experience
Associate Director – Software Engineering
UBS – Lugano, Switzerland
November 2024 – Present
Lead a team of 15 engineers responsible for migrating financial risk models to cloud-native data platforms supporting enterprise analytics and risk management.
Key Achievements
- Led migration of US mortgages probability of default and loss given default risk modeling workloads from on-premises to Azure cloud platforms, managing a portfolio of 100,000 mortgages across the entire US
- Designed scalable architecture using Azure Kubernetes, Databricks, and cloud storage
- Implemented Infrastructure as Code with Terraform for standardized deployments
- Improved scalability and reliability of data processing pipelines for quantitative team of 5 people
- Coached four engineers and promoted engineering best practices across the team
Technologies: Azure Storage, Kubernetes, Databricks, Python, Terraform, Docker, Oracle Database, GitLab
Senior Software Architect
Denexus – Lugano, Switzerland
May 2022 – November 2024
Architected and developed cyber risk intelligence platform for aggregating and enriching large-scale network asset and vulnerability data.
Key Achievements
- Designed cloud-native platform for cybersecurity data ingestion, enrichment, and indexing
- Built scalable data pipelines using Python and Databricks for intelligence data processing
- Implemented microservices in Python using Fast API for data discovery and search across industrial networks
- The platform calculates risk for approximately 20 sensitive industrial plants in the USA and Europe, involving ingestion of terabytes of data and optimized model execution in minutes
- Collaborated with leadership on platform architecture and roadmap development
Technologies: AWS (ECS, EC2, S3), Databricks, Python, FastAPI, Terraform, Docker, PostgreSQL, Splunk
Senior Software Engineer
Nozomi Networks – Mendrisio, Switzerland
November 2020 – May 2022
Contributed to the development of an asset-indexing and search platform for industrial sites. Implemented Ruby APIs for search and Elasticsearch integration, and designed index schemas to support high-throughput queries (hundreds of searches per second). Developed Terraform scripts for provisioning automated test and production environments. The platform is in production for approximately 100 customers.
Senior Software Engineer
lastminute.com – Chiasso, Switzerland
November 2015 – November 2020
Worked across three core areas: flight pricing, talent acquisition & training, and hotel search architecture. Contributed to the flight pricing engine using Kotlin — responsible for requirements definition and implementing production features for a high-throughput pricing system capable of searching and marking up thousands of fares per second across multiple carriers. Owned production monitoring, incident response, and maintenance for critical services.
Led technical recruiting and onboarding activities, running a two-week developer bootcamp focused on Test-Driven Development (TDD), incremental Agile delivery, code quality, and release practices. Served as area architect for hotel search, managing three teams: defined roadmap and delivery plans, supervised engineering through pairing and code reviews, and provided continuous training and mentorship to improve performance and delivery quality.
Earlier Experience
Solution Architect Consultant
Wedjaa – Rome, Italy
2011 – 2015
Worked as a consultant on multiple enterprise projects, leading client engagement, technical assessment, solution architecture, and software delivery. Responsibilities included defining architectures, developing software, and forming or shaping internal and external development teams.
Major projects during this period included:
- A Java-based ticketing system for an Italian cinema chain with approximately 30 locations and hundreds of screens, supporting peak holiday loads of 20,000 daily bookings.
- An online medical reporting platform for the Lazio region, integrating Alfresco and the open-source eHealth Integration Framework (IPF) for patient data management.
- A project reporting and accounting platform for an international telecom company, managing requirements definition and Java development with Jira integration.
System Analyst
IDS – Rome, Italy
2009 – 2011
Contributed to the development of two aerospace systems for flight procedure design and obstacle management in controlled aerospace. Responsibilities included requirements gathering, feature development, and production releases. Developed most of the application backend in Java, with frontend components in JavaScript and HTML. The software was deployed to production and used by approximately ten national and international aviation and airport authority organizations.
Software Developer
IBM – Rome, Italy
2008 – 2009
Developed a Java-based search engine using Apache Lucene for information retrieval. As a junior software engineer working alongside a senior engineer, I helped define and implement features to replace a proprietary search engine for a publishing lifecycle system serving international magazines. The solution indexed millions of documents per client in both batch and real-time modes, using Java 1.4 version with socket-based integration to the publishing platform. The product went into production for around thirty customers.
Education
Master of Science in Computer Science
University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy
Thesis: Integration of Legacy Systems Using SOA Principles
Grade: 107/110
Professional Development
- Advanced Test Driven Development – J.B. Rainsberger
- Surviving Legacy Code – J.B. Rainsberger
- Applied Functional Programming – Avanscoperta
- Machine Learning & Predictive Analytics – Simone Scardapane
- Secure Coding – Nozomi Networks