Danilo Freitas - Chief Technology Officer

Q: Where is Danilo based?

Danilo is based in Berlin, Germany .

Q: What languages does Danilo speak?

Danilo speaks the following languages: Portuguese (Native), English (Advanced), German (Elementary) .

Q: How many years of experience does Danilo have?

Danilo has at least 19 years of experience. During this time, Danilo has worked in at least 9 different roles and for 9 different companies . The average length of individual experience is 2 years and 9 months . Note that Danilo may not have shared all experience and actually has more experience.

Q: What is Danilo's latest experience?

Danilo's most recent position is Chief Technology Officer at VR Smart Guide .

Q: What companies has Danilo worked for in recent years?

In recent years, Danilo has worked for VR Smart Guide , HomeTogo , and Finleap Connect .

Q: Which industries is Danilo most experienced in?

Danilo is most experienced in industries like Information Technology (IT) , Banking and Finance , and Government and Public Administration . Danilo also has some experience in Retail , Tourism and Hospitality , and Education .

Q: Which business areas is Danilo most experienced in?

Danilo is most experienced in business areas like Information Technology (IT) , Product Development , and Project Management . Danilo also has some experience in Finance , Strategy and Planning , and Marketing .

Q: Which industries has Danilo worked in recently?

Danilo has recently worked in industries like Banking and Finance , Information Technology (IT) , and Tourism and Hospitality .

Q: Which business areas has Danilo worked in recently?

Danilo has recently worked in business areas like Information Technology (IT) , Product Development , and Finance .

Recommended expert

Berlin, Germany

Experience

Jan 2023 - Present

3 years 2 months

Chief Technology Officer

VR Smart Guide

Responsible for the digitalization of complex financial processes by leveraging AI capabilities and stabilizing a technical team with strong engineering culture
Member of the company's senior management alongside the CEO and COO, defined and executed the P&L strategy
Rebooted the engineering team by replacing underperforming people, adding flexible engineering profiles for experimental projects, supporting the business, and restructuring the P&L by freezing financially unproductive scopes
Actively supported fundraising by deep-diving into financial structures and validating the business rationale to focus on strategic goals
Freezing products with no relevant revenue streams
Prioritizing the pivot toward data products
Renegotiating vendors
Cleaning up unproductive SaaS
Reorganizing the tech org chart into a flexible team to reduce committed cash burn
Created data and AI teams and introduced AI specialists who produced core business solutions such as innovative prediction models for financial scoring and digitalization of the banking process
Created and executed fintech compliance requirements in accordance with ZAG/BaFin
Responsible for creating and executing a data-driven view to leverage financial services based on transnational data for SMEs' financial risk evaluation and management
Formed first-level engineering leadership by creating cross-functional teams and introducing platform teams for speed and reliability
Created a lean strategy for implementing a scalable microservices-based architecture using event-driven design and migrated existing projects from bare metal to GCP with CI/CD pipeline

Nov 2021 - Jan 2023

1 year 3 months

Director of Technology

HomeTogo

Drove a Marketing Engineering team of 16+ engineers to deliver marketing products for revenue generation
Transformed the department toward a hyper-scale culture by raising the hiring bar, bringing autonomy to teams as cross-functional units, coaching existing leaders, and fostering new ones
Ensured diversity through a structured hiring process and bias-free talent review
Built the next leadership level to close the gap between engineering managers and senior leadership
Modernized system architecture for scalability and solidified stability with observability and incident management
Ensured teams delivered on business KPIs by securing strong quarterly plans
Facilitated stakeholder management
Structured the Marketing Engineering department by consolidating stakeholder workflows and matching engineering deliverables with business KPIs
Formed a truly cross-functional team of business managers, product owners, data analysts, data scientists, and engineers
Achieved a 5% uplift in email marketing revenue by re-architecting the email send-out infrastructure
Delivered a 20% rise in customer engagement through data science-driven content recommendation
Improved SEO-related page speed by 400%, adding 2% revenue over non-paid marketing channels

Mar 2020 - Oct 2021

1 year 8 months

Director of Technology

Finleap Connect

Led 25+ engineers (plus 30 outsourced) in small teams with senior and engineering managers; completed fusion of two companies to build a performance-oriented team and enabled revenue growth and country expansion
Finalized two M&A operations: resolved a morale crisis in the first acquired company to decide on technology retention, and onboarded a second company with a predefined merging plan ensuring psychological safety post-merge
Reverted two large customer resignations by managing expectations and building an effective delivery strategy
Structured teams around data streams to enable new business use cases
Created a high-performance team capable of cross-team impact and set engineering culture
Expanded OpenBanking to the EMEA region and mediated technical meetings between the Bahrain Central Bank and Batelco on Open Banking APIs
Merged technology of both companies by deactivating unsuccessful projects, reducing 20 third-party positions, moving 10 engineers within the group, and removing duplicated technology while maintaining customer base
Responsible for mid and long-term engineering strategy for Open Banking technologies and the SaaS product finX API
Coached engineering leadership and ensured compliance with GDPR, PDPL, and BaFin standards
Supported onboarding of large customers such as Deutsche Bank, Sparkasse, Commerzbank, O2 Telefonica, and Samsung
Facilitated technical rounds during fundraising and successfully underwent due diligence scrutiny
Developed high-revenue products and led technical due diligence for M&A processes
Grew a diverse talent pool and fostered inclusive culture
Conducted strategic and tactical quarterly planning alongside business stakeholders

Oct 2018 - Feb 2020

1 year 5 months

Senior Engineer Manager

Wayfair

Led 25+ engineers, including engineering managers, and drove major architectural decisions alongside business stakeholders and engineering leaders
Restructured a high-impact data processing workflow for exponential revenue gain
Introduced a machine learning product complaint review, reducing review time from 10 minutes to 1 minute and offshore workforce by 80%
Grew the team from 5 to 25 engineers in 8 months
Reduced $980K in cash burn by redesigning the catalog-stock communication system with event-driven distributed architecture
Untangled project ownership between Berlin and Boston teams to increase productivity and reduce internal friction
Restructured the engineering QA process, reducing time to market
Introduced distributed systems and container orchestration for Berlin merchandise teams
Contributed to leadership coaching program by growing 4 new leaders and establishing a training library
Served on the hiring committee and performed over 200 technical interviews

Aug 2016 - Sep 2018

2 years 2 months

Chief Technology Officer (co-founder)

RideLink

As CTO and managing director, led the original team that built the product and extended it into Germany, the United Kingdom, and Spain
Managed engineering budget and all personnel in Berlin, including non-IT staff
Successfully ran a fundraising campaign, ensuring investors understood the technical capabilities of the platform
Responsible for system architecture, server infrastructure, due diligence support, hiring, and team culture
Built a cross-functional team of mobile, backend, and frontend engineers and UX designers

Oct 2015 - Jul 2016

10 months

Technical Lead

RideLink

Built an end-to-end MVP carsharing platform in 9 weeks leading 10 engineers and 2 UX designers
Developed a fully-fledged payments system, back-office, and CRM integration for the MVP

Oct 2012 - Sep 2015

3 years

Technical Lead

Rocket Internet

Served as technical project leader responsible for building tech startups from scratch alongside business managers and hiring initial teams
Ridelink: see CTO RideLink experience
Ridesurf (ridesharing): worked on MVP specification and development, handled real-time communication between moving devices and scalable connections, and implemented an operational dashboard for demand management
Tripda (carpool): led product specification with product owner and design team, impacting time to market, and managed geofences for platform launch in 16 countries

Jan 2012 - Aug 2012

8 months

Local CTO Westwing Brazil

Rocket Internet

Led 12 engineers as interim local CTO to launch Westwing Brazil, Westwing Shop, and Bamarang
Responsible for local engineering team management, internationalization, hiring, and team culture

Feb 2009 - Jan 2012

3 years

Software Engineering Manager

TV1

Led a team of 6 engineers and was responsible for engineering the Official Brazilian government portal (Brazil.gov.br) and federal portals such as Presidencia.gov.br and Secom.gov.br

Feb 2007 - Jan 2008

1 year

Full Stack Engineer

Estúdio Ziper

Developed embedded systems for industrial design projects and web services

Jan 2006 - Jan 2007

1 year 1 month

Technical Trainee

Universidade Federal de São Carlos

Developed an internal system to control the electronics workshop and performed electronic equipment repairs

Industries Experience

See where this freelancer has spent most of their professional time. Longer bars indicate deeper hands-on experience, while shorter ones reflect targeted or project-based work.

Experienced in Information Technology (11 years), Banking and Finance (4.5 years), Government and Administration (3 years), Retail (2 years), Tourism (1 year), and Automotive (1 year).

Information Technology

Banking and Finance

Government and Administration

Retail

Tourism

Automotive

Business Areas Experience

The graph below provides a cumulative view of the freelancer's experience across multiple business areas, calculated from completed and active engagements. It highlights the areas where the freelancer has most frequently contributed to planning, execution, and delivery of business outcomes.

Experienced in Information Technology (18 years), Product Development (14.5 years), Project Management (4 years), Finance (3 years), Strategy (1.5 years), and Marketing (1 year).

Information Technology

Product Development

Project Management

Finance

Strategy

Marketing

Skills

Software Engineering: Real-time Systems, High Scalability Applications, Data-driven Systems, Microservices Architecture, Unit/integration/functional Tests, Design Patterns (Structural, Creational, Behavioral), Domain-driven Development, Design Principles (Dry, Grasp, Solid), Php/js/nodejs/c#/python/java, Cross-functional Development With Mobile, Machine Learning And Data Science.
Infrastructure: Cloud And Bare Metal Networks, Microservice Topology, Docker, Kubernetes, Rabbitmq, Kafka, Aws, Gcp And Digital Ocean, Observability, High Availability.

Languages

Portuguese

Native

English

Advanced

German

Elementary

Education

Oct 2011 - Jun 2013

Instituto Europeo di Design

Master · Industrial Design · Milano, Italy

Oct 2007 - Jun 2010

Universidade São Judas Tadeu

Bachelor · Industrial Design

Oct 2004 - Jun 2005

Senac

IT Technician · Information Technology · Sénac, France

Profile

Created

April 2024

Last Update

November 2025

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Frequently asked questions

Do you have questions? Here you can find further information.

Where is Danilo based?

Danilo is based in Berlin, Germany.

What languages does Danilo speak?

Danilo speaks the following languages: Portuguese (Native), English (Advanced), German (Elementary).

How many years of experience does Danilo have?

Danilo has at least 19 years of experience. During this time, Danilo has worked in at least 9 different roles and for 9 different companies. The average length of individual experience is 2 years and 9 months. Note that Danilo may not have shared all experience and actually has more experience.

What roles would Danilo be best suited for?

Based on recent experience, Danilo would be well-suited for roles such as: Chief Technology Officer, Director of Technology, Senior Engineer Manager.

What is Danilo's latest experience?

Danilo's most recent position is Chief Technology Officer at VR Smart Guide.

What companies has Danilo worked for in recent years?

In recent years, Danilo has worked for VR Smart Guide, HomeTogo, and Finleap Connect.

Which industries is Danilo most experienced in?

Danilo is most experienced in industries like Information Technology (IT), Banking and Finance, and Government and Public Administration. Danilo also has some experience in Retail, Tourism and Hospitality, and Education.

Which business areas is Danilo most experienced in?

Danilo is most experienced in business areas like Information Technology (IT), Product Development, and Project Management. Danilo also has some experience in Finance, Strategy and Planning, and Marketing.

Which industries has Danilo worked in recently?

Danilo has recently worked in industries like Banking and Finance, Information Technology (IT), and Tourism and Hospitality.

Which business areas has Danilo worked in recently?

Danilo has recently worked in business areas like Information Technology (IT), Product Development, and Finance.

What is Danilo's education?

Danilo holds a Master in Industrial Design from Instituto Europeo di Design and a Bachelor in Industrial Design from Universidade São Judas Tadeu.

What is the availability of Danilo?

Danilo is immediately available for suitable projects.

What is the rate of Danilo?

Danilo's rate depends on the specific project requirements. Please use the Meet button on the profile to schedule a meeting and discuss the details.