Curriculum vitae

Gabriel Galán Pelayo

Senior Backend Developer & Technical Leader

30+ years in IT, 10+ of them building scalable backend systems. Expert in modernizing legacy applications, building high-performance APIs, and leading technical transformations. Specialized in Ruby on Rails, Python, and cloud-native architectures.

Download PDF · English English + Spanish Versión en español

30+Years of experience in the computer industry
200+Computers maintained simultaneously
20+Programming languages with which I have worked

Experience

Senior Backend Developer

Freelance · Independent & Open Source Projects

Nov 2025 – Present

Modernized PlebisHub, my fork of Podemos’ open-source Participa platform, from Rails 4.2 to 7.2 (Nov 2025) and then to Rails 8.1 / Ruby 3.4 / Devise 5 (Aug 2026): modularized into 9 Rails engines, 12,421 specs passing with 0 failures across 3 random seeds, 41 latent production bugs fixed, and zero findings from bundler-audit, Brakeman and RuboCop
Created HFL, an open-source Python server that runs Hugging Face models locally behind OpenAI, Ollama and Anthropic-compatible APIs: 29 releases on PyPI, 5,600+ tests and a 90% coverage gate
Published open-source tools: an Omarchy ARM64 VM for Apple Silicon (40 GitHub stars), a read-write NTFS automounter for macOS and a hardened remote MCP server
Proposed HFL as a local app in Hugging Face’s official huggingface.js library (pull request under review)
Run a self-hosted Debian server with Docker, Alertmanager-to-Telegram alerting and an auto-heal watchdog for unhealthy containers

Ruby on Rails 8.1
Python
FastAPI
LLMs
MCP
Docker

Senior Backend Developer (Ruby on Rails)

Ifeel · Mental Health Platform

Mar 2023 – Sep 2025

Led the complete Rails modernization from 6.0 to 7.2 in two phases, together with database query optimizations that clearly sped up the application
Built the application’s complete test suite from scratch: 800+ unit tests and 85% code coverage, which uncovered a large number of bugs, got them fixed and raised overall application quality
Migrated the test suite from fixtures to FactoryBot so that every test builds its own data and runs fully independently, eliminating the failures caused by shared test data being corrupted depending on test order
Implemented enterprise SSO integrations (SAML & SCIM protocols), enabling B2B client adoption and unlocking enterprise-tier contracts
Resolved critical security vulnerabilities as a recurring responsibility, and found the method to rotate the production database password with zero downtime when it became a requirement

Ruby on Rails 7.2
RSpec
SAML
SCIM
PostgreSQL
FactoryBot

DevOps Engineer

Ambiser

Jul 2022 – Jan 2023

Designed and implemented CI/CD pipelines, reducing deployment time and increasing release frequency
Orchestrated containerized infrastructure using Docker and Kubernetes for improved scalability
Automated infrastructure provisioning and monitoring, improving system reliability

Docker
Kubernetes
CI/CD
AWS

Backend Tech Lead

Kasaz · Real Estate Platform

Aug 2021 – May 2022

Led backend development team, establishing coding standards and best practices for scalable architecture
Mentored junior developers, conducting code reviews and technical guidance sessions
Designed RESTful APIs and database schemas for high-traffic real estate platform

Ruby on Rails
Python
PostgreSQL

Senior Developer - State Development Dept.

Podemos

Feb 2015 – Aug 2021

Developed and maintained critical internal platforms for political organization management
Built scalable web applications handling high-traffic periods during electoral campaigns
Collaborated with cross-functional teams on digital transformation initiatives

Ruby on Rails
PHP
JavaScript

Earlier career

2012–2015 Independent Consultant · Freelance
2006–2012 IT Department Director · G.T.I.S.A
2005–2006 Programmer Analyst · Norma 4
2003–2005 Freelance · Freelance
2001–2003 Director of IT and Data Processing Departments · INRA/ECO IPSOS
2000–2001 Technical and Functional Analyst · Cezanne Software
1999–2000 Programmer Analyst · Gestoría Calvo Canga
1996–1999 Head of the IT Department · Inner Research/Synovate

Technologies

Backend

Ruby on Rails
Python
Go
PHP

Databases

PostgreSQL
MySQL
Oracle

DevOps & Cloud

Docker
Kubernetes
AWS
CI/CD

Testing & Quality

RSpec
FactoryBot
TDD

Additional expertise

Languages: JavaScript, Java, C, C++, C#, Objective-C, Perl, Pascal, Assembler
Systems: Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS), Windows Server, Mac OS
Integration: SAML, SCIM, OAuth, RESTful APIs, Microservices
Methodologies: Agile, Scrum, TDD, Code Review, Mentoring

Key strengths

Legacy Modernization: Expert in upgrading critical systems with zero downtime
Technical Leadership: IT department head and team lead since 1996
Enterprise Integration: SSO, authentication protocols
Quality Champion: TDD advocate, comprehensive test coverage

Languages

SpanishNative
English (comprehension)Advanced
English (speaking)Upper-intermediate

Education

Computer Management Specialist
C.F.P. Leonardo Da Vinci · 1992

By the numbers

30+ Years of experience in the computer industry
200+ Computers maintained simultaneously
20+ Programming languages with which I have worked
30+ Operating systems used throughout career

Contact

Let's talk.

Looking for a senior backend developer, tech lead or principal engineer? Get in touch.

Email me

ggalancs@gmail.com

LinkedIn GitHub