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Roch Grondin
Software Engineering Manager
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Roch Vincent Grondin

SUMMARY

Senior Engineering Manager with 15+ years of experience in Server-Side and Full-Stack development. Currently leading high-impact, cross-functional mobile initiatives at American Express with $1M+ revenue outcomes. Proven track record of mentoring engineers, optimizing developer experience, and building internal tools and architecting platform-wide initiatives that accelerate engineering velocity and establish shared frameworks to ensure consistency.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

  • Languages: Kotlin, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, Solidity (Base Bootcamp 2024)
  • Backend: Spring, Ktor, REST, Kafka, RabbitMQ, Redis, Splunk, OpenTelemetry, Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB
  • Frontend: ReactJS, HTML/CSS, Bootstrap, AngularJS
  • APIs & Architecture: Backend for Frontend (BFF), Event-driven, Microservices, WebSockets, Server-Driven UI (SDUI)
  • Testing & Quality: BDD/TDD, JUnit 5, Mockito, AssertK, MockK, WireMock, Jest, Gherkin DSL
  • DevOps & Tooling: GitHub Actions, Docker, Jenkins, MermaidJS, Docusaurus, GitHub Copilot
  • Leadership: Agile/Scrum, Mentorship, Solution Design, Strategic Roadmap Alignment

EXPERIENCE

Senior Engineering Manager, Mobile | American Express

August 2022 - Present (3 years and 6 months) / Remote

Strategic Delivery & Leadership

  • Team Orchestration: Lead a distributed team of 8 engineers, managing the full SDLC for Chat and Search domains while ensuring high team velocity and morale.
  • Revenue Impact: Facilitated a 20% cost-per-chat reduction through the delivery of numerous Chat features and a streaming event-driven BFF handling 800K+ daily messages across 17 global markets.
  • Revenue Impact: Led the of Mobile Chat with a Server-Driven UI system, enabling real-time configurable offers that generated $1M+ in annual revenue.
  • Global Scale: Directed the development of the Mobile Search feature, supporting 50K+ daily queries across 5 global markets with high availability (8 TPS).
  • Talent Development: Mentored and promoted 2 engineers to senior levels and coached an engineer through a performance improvement plan (PIP).

Platform Engineering & Innovation

  • Governance Tooling: Single-handedly designed and launched the Architecture Checklist Review (ACR) system; scaled a team of 4 to expand the platform across the Mobile and Web organizations to streamline governance.
  • Framework Design: Engineered a Kotlin DSL-based SDUI server-side framework; led a 7-engineer team to deliver a 10-screen POC, standardizing UI delivery patterns across the global mobile app.
  • Operational Visibility: Built a GitHub Pages-hosted roadmap site machine-readable Mermaid syntax; providing teams with instant insights into project timelines and engineer bandwidth and resource utilization while facilitating instant, self-service roadmap interrogation via VS Code Chat, bypassing the limitations of static charting platforms.
  • BFF Modernization: Engineered a Kotlin-native POC for BFF development using Ktor, removing systemic friction in the API lifecycle and allowing engineers to focus on business logic rather than boilerplate.

Senior Engineer I, Mobile Service Layer | American Express

August 2021 - August 2022 (1 year) / New York City, NY (Remote)

  • High-Throughput APIs: Developed 30+ BFF APIs (Secondary Auth., MFA) handling up to 80 TPS. Migrated 5+ APIs from legacy systems to modern architectures.
  • Developer Productivity: Spearheaded platform-wide DX initiatives, including IDE code templates and shared test fixtures, the integration of IntelliJ HTTP Client for local API testing—replacing Postman Enterprise to reduce context-switching and streamline the developer inner loop, and led the transition to JUnit 5.
  • Dependency Intelligence: Designed a visualization tool surfacing 100+ libraries across Android, iOS, and Web, enabling proactive vulnerability tracking via Slack.
  • Systems Modernization: Re-architected a legacy internal tools platform into a ReactJS SPA with a Ktor REST API, significantly improving team velocity and feature support.

Engineer III, Mobile Service Layer | American Express

October 2018 - August 2021 (2 years and 10 months) / New York City, NY

  • APIs: Developed BFF APIs supporting core features like Lounge Finder and Paperless billing.
  • Legacy Transformation: Migrated 12+ legacy SOAP Backend integrations to REST Backend APIs.
  • Quality Engineering: Developed a Gherkin-style DSL into internal regression testing frameworks to improve test readability and maintenance.
  • Talent Development: Directed 2 interns in the design and implementation of a PII obfuscation engine.

Software Architect | Spruce Finance

July 2017 - July 2018 (1 year) / New York City, NY (Remote)

  • Engineering Standards: Defined architecture and coding standards for a distributed microservices ecosystem, authoring reference implementations that aligned development across multiple teams.
  • Built Java/Spring RESTful APIs for external partner integrations and led the development of a real-time Chat component and full audit trail for loan applications.

Senior Software Engineer | Spruce Finance

April 2015 - July 2017 (2 years 4 months) / New York City, NY (Remote)

  • Monolith Decoupling: Served as a primary contributor to the architectural shift from a legacy PHP monolith to a modern Microservices + ReactJS SPA ecosystem; designed and implemented foundational service patterns and RESTful APIs.
  • Financial Engineering: Built high-performance calculation engines for Loan and PACE products, optimizing database performance and isolating business logic.
  • Systems Transformation: Led a high-priority, 12-month migration of the core financing workflow from a monolithic PHP stack to a React and Microservices architecture; eliminated architectural bottlenecks and significantly reduced time-to-market for subsequent financial product launches.

Software Engineer | Clean Power Finance

April 2011 - March 2015 (4 years) / San Francisco, CA

  • Built a complete SaaS administrative system for financing configuration, significantly reducing manual paperwork and manual effort.
  • Developed end-to-end features for the financing lifecycle, from lead generation to automated quotes and final funding.

EDUCATION

  • Master of Science in Computer Science | SUPINFO International University | 2011
  • Baccalauréat in Science | Lycée Roland Garros, with honors | 2006

CERTIFICATIONS

  • Base Bootcamp (Smart Contract Development) | Base.org | 2024
  • Harvard Leadership Edge - Data-Driven Decision Making | Harvard Business | 2022
  • Management of IT | Dominican University of California | 2011
  • Business Applications Development | Dominican University of California | 2009

INTERNSHIPS

  • Software Engineer Intern | Hinnoya | Java, JBoss, Portlet Development | 2010
  • Web Developer Intern | Regioneo | PHP, Google Maps & Facebook API | 2009 - 2010
  • Software Engineer Intern | Clean Power Finance | PHP, Zend Framework | 2009
  • Systems & ECM Intern | Le Tampon City Hall | Nuxeo ECM, LDAP, Java | 2008
  • Junior Developer Intern | Le Tampon City Hall | PHP/MySQL, Full Lifecycle | 2007