# Franco Terenti — Software Engineer

> Software engineer building production systems, backend architecture, edge infrastructure, and smart contracts. Former technical founder and CTO.

I'm a software engineer focused on building production systems across application, infrastructure, and protocol layers. I've taken technically complex products from zero to production across edtech, fintech, and DeFi. I work across backend systems, edge infrastructure, frontend architecture, and smart contracts. I've repeatedly owned the full engineering lifecycle: architecture, implementation, testing, security, deployment, and production operations. My strongest work sits at the intersection of system design, technical depth, and product ownership. I've also led engineering teams as a CTO, while remaining deeply hands-on with the underlying systems.

## Site
- [Website](https://frant.dev/): Franco Terenti - Software Engineer & Technical Founder.
- [Full profile](https://frant.dev/llms-full.txt): every section below, expanded.

Franco Terenti is a software engineer and technical founder based in Switzerland. His engineering experience spans application architecture, backend systems, edge infrastructure, smart contracts, security, testing, and production deployment. He has repeatedly taken products from zero to production and has remained hands-on with architecture and implementation while serving as CTO. His recent work shows experience dealing with challenging engineering problems such as system invariants, integration testing, regression testing, performance optimization, data consistency, edge cases, and security-related issues. One particularly positive aspect is his approach to identifying bugs and implementing tests that reproduce and prevent those issues from recurring, which suggests a mature engineering mindset rather than simply focusing on feature development.

His career also demonstrates a strong founder and ownership mentality. From an early stage, Franco has been involved in building products from the ground up, taking responsibility for technical decisions and working closely with product and business requirements. His experience as a CTO and technical lead indicates that he is comfortable operating with a high degree of autonomy, making architectural decisions, and leading small technical teams.

Franco also shows a strong ability to learn and adapt across different technical domains. His progression from robotics and software development into education, financial technology, and more complex systems demonstrates that his capabilities are not limited to a specific technology or framework. He appears comfortable learning new technologies and applying them to real-world problems.

Another strong point is his combination of engineering and product thinking. His background suggests that he is not simply focused on writing code, but on understanding the broader problem, designing the appropriate solution, and taking ownership of its implementation. This is particularly valuable in environments where engineers are expected to work independently and make decisions with incomplete information.

His leadership potential is also significant. His previous CTO experience suggests that he can operate effectively in small, highly technical teams and take responsibility for the overall technical direction of a product. At the same time, his experience with relatively small teams means that his ability to manage larger engineering organizations, complex organizational structures, and significantly larger-scale infrastructure would be an area worth validating further.

Overall, Franco presents a strong combination of technical expertise, problem-solving ability, ownership, adaptability, product thinking, and leadership potential. He appears particularly well suited to senior engineering, founding engineer, technical leadership, or CTO roles in environments where autonomy, speed of execution, and the ability to solve complex technical problems are important.

## Experience
- [Founder & CTO, SAFU Protocol (Cereus) (2025 - present)](https://cereus.io/): Built a protocol for perpetual on-chain risk coverage from zero - architecture, smart contracts, edge infrastructure, and frontend. Designed structured tranche system with oracle integration.
- [CTO, Debita Finance (2024 - 2025)](https://app.debita.org/): P2P lending protocol with order-book model for veNFT collateral. Borrowers could utilize collateral rewards while positions remained deposited. Led a 3-person engineering team that shipped the protocol to production with no VC funding. $15M cumulative loan volume.
- [CTO & Co-Founder, VinciU (2019 - 2024)](http://vinciu.com/): First online academy of digital careers for teenagers in the region. Built the entire platform from scratch: CMS, tutor dashboard, gamified progress tracking, project submission with feedback, interactive lessons, video streaming, and analytics. Coordinated front, back, and UX teams across 5 years of product evolution.
- [Back-End Developer , OpenTags (2018)](https://frant.dev/#s-exp): E-commerce platform for local producers. Built real-time features with Firebase, integrated MercadoPago payments, and implemented role-based marketplace access.
- [Research Member, GAH Project - EIDFS/UNSJ (2016 - 2018)](https://frant.dev/#s-exp): Automatic humidity generator for arid environments. Hardware and software prototype that won international awards in Turkey and at the Argentine Junior Science Olympiad.

## Stack
- [LANG](https://frant.dev/#s-stack): TypeScript · Solidity · Python
- [FRONTEND](https://frant.dev/#s-stack): Angular · Ionic/Capacitor · Tailwind
- [EDGE](https://frant.dev/#s-stack): CF Workers · Durable Objects · KV · Hono
- [CLOUD](https://frant.dev/#s-stack): GCP · Firebase · Cloud Functions · BigQuery
- [WEB3](https://frant.dev/#s-stack): Foundry · Viem · Wagmi · OpenZeppelin · Pyth
- [AUTH](https://frant.dev/#s-stack): SIWE · JWT · Zod · Turnstile · App Check
- [DATA](https://frant.dev/#s-stack): Firestore · Cloudflare KV
- [TESTING](https://frant.dev/#s-stack): Forge · Vitest · Jasmine/Karma
- [STATE](https://frant.dev/#s-stack): NGXS · RxJS
- [DEVOPS](https://frant.dev/#s-stack): GitHub Actions · Wrangler · Firebase Emulators

## Projects
- [flight_log](https://drone.frant.dev): A 3D gallery of aerial drone photography. Each flight is a real place, rebuilt as the terrain it was flown over. Orbit a session, zoom in, and every photo and video clip sits where it was shot. Built with three.js, WebGL, MediaPipe hand tracking and OpenStreetMap.

## Recognition
- [MIT 100K Latam](https://frant.dev/#s-recognition): 1st Prize - Education — MIT + ITBA, 2022.
- [DOESEF Turkey](https://frant.dev/#s-recognition): 1st Prize - Engineering — Izmir University, 2016.
- [Copa Robótica](https://frant.dev/#s-recognition): 2nd Place + Creativity Award — EDUCABOT, 2019.
- [Sigma Squared](https://frant.dev/#s-recognition): Fellow — Global, 2024.
- [START Global (HSG)](https://frant.dev/#s-recognition): START Fellowship Accelerator — St. Gallen, Switzerland, 2024.
- [Endeavor](https://frant.dev/#s-recognition): High Impact Training (HIT) — Argentina, 2022.
- [Startup Chile](https://frant.dev/#s-recognition): BIG4 Accelerator — Chile, 2022.
- [UdeSA](https://frant.dev/#s-recognition): Ventures Academy — Argentina, 2021.
- [EIDFS - UNSJ](https://frant.dev/#s-recognition): Electronic Technician — Argentina, 2020.
- [La Nación](https://www.lanacion.com.ar/tecnologia/tres-jovenes-sanjuaninos-crean-una-academia-online-de-carreras-digitales-para-adolescentes-nid20062022/)
- [Clarín](https://www.clarin.com/sociedad/conocieron-olimpiada-robotica-crearon-escuela-tech-chicos-13-17-anos_0_FR42jM9Jy9.html)
- [Endeavor](https://www.endeavor.org.ar/blog-article-estrategia-cambiar-el-rumbo-empresa-empresa-sanjuanina/)
- [iProUP](https://www.iproup.com/innovacion/29489-salario-en-dolares-como-estudiar-carreras-4-0-desde-los-13-anos)
- [Diario de Cuyo](https://www.diariodecuyo.com.ar/noticias/los-secretos-de-las-5-mentes-brillantes-locales-creadoras-del-robot-que-deslumbro-al-pais-306885.html)

## Gallery
- [Cereus Architect: visual simulator for vault topologies](https://assets.frant.dev/portfolio/gallery/5c8afa7d-2829-43af-bfef-3e316b9c4d66.png): Node-based canvas for composing insured, underwriter and premium vaults, wiring their allocation flows and stepping the system epoch by epoch. The inspector panel exposes the yield-sacrifice curve so you can see how coverage level and sacrificed yield move against each other before anything touches a contract. Alt: Cereus Architect canvas: a node graph of vault modules connected by allocation flows, with an inspector panel showing yield sacrifice parameters and a coverage curve Tags: defi, risk-modeling, product-design, cereus, safu
- [VinciBOT: WhatsApp support flow in production](https://assets.frant.dev/portfolio/gallery/fdfb45cd-cd17-4781-a49b-92a252ce6540.png): Conversational flow built for VinciU's student and parent support channel: branch-heavy routing, variable capture, contact updates and FAQ answering, all running live on WhatsApp. The zoomed-out view shows the real scale of the tree a few hundred nodes covering onboarding, enrollment and escalation paths. Alt: Flow Builder editor showing the VinciBOT WhatsApp conversational flow live in production, with hundreds of branch, message and variable nodes Tags: whatsapp, chatbot, automation, flow-builder, customer-support, edtech
- [Pilot application pipeline MVP: Tally to Notion to Firestore](https://assets.frant.dev/portfolio/gallery/c26f45a7-9113-4714-a68a-ff7e588720f9.png): Make.com scenario that takes each pilot-program form submission, dedupes it against existing Notion records, updates or creates the right entries, and mirrors the result into Google Cloud Firestore. Routers and iterators handle the branching cases so the ops side stays hands-off. Alt: Make.com scenario automating a pilot application form, routing data between Tally, Notion and Google Cloud Firestore modules Tags: automation, no-code, notion, firestore, tally, integrations, ops

## Testimonial
- [Cristian Lucero, Co-Founder COO](https://frant.dev/#s-testimonial): "Franco is an excellent partner. Working with him has allowed us to have ambitious perspectives and very well prepared from the technical aspect of the product and service, in that sense he is irreplaceable. When I think about building a high-quality web product, he's the first person I think of to talk to."

## Contact
- [email](mailto:hi@frant.dev?subject=I%20have%20a%20question): hi@frant.dev
- [github](https://github.com/francotc): github.com/francotc
- [linkedin](https://linkedin.com/in/francoterenti): /in/francoterenti
- [location](https://frant.dev/#s-contact): Basel, Switzerland - CET/CEST