# Daniel Z

## Technical Lead

Turning complex business problems into reliable, production-grade software.

### Full-Stack Problem Solver
Technical Lead at Two Red Kites. Sits at the intersection of engineering and strategy: leading the team, setting technical direction, building internal developer tooling, and staying hands-on with the code across FinTech, HealthTech, Construction, and SaaS projects.

### Experience
- **3+** Years at Two Red Kites
- **4+** Industries delivered
- **10+** Years agency experience

### Tech Stack & Expertise
- Ruby on Rails
- PostgreSQL
- TypeScript
- Elixir
- Crystal
- .NET
- AWS
- Docker
- CRM Platforms
- Payment Platforms
- Identity Providers
- REST APIs
- GraphQL APIs

## AI & Automation
Tooling I use to deliver faster, smarter, and with higher quality.
- Claude
- CodeRAG Systems
- N8N Workflows
- Multi-LLM Architecture
- OpenAI

## Key Solutions
### Serverless for Monoliths
Making Monoliths Scale Like Microservices
- Taking traditional monolithic Rails applications and deploying them on serverless infrastructure (ECS/Fargate, Lambda). Teams stop firefighting deployments and start building. Breaking changes revert in minutes. High-traffic spikes handle themselves.
- ⚡ Rollbacks in minutes  
- 🔒 Zero client-facing downtime  
- 🏗 Event-spike resilient

### AI-Powered Delivery
Building Better Software with Purpose-Built AI
- Architect and lead developer behind Janus, Gaia, Hermes, and Soteria: four specialist AI systems that let a small senior team deliver the breadth of a much larger firm. From parallel code review to automated security assessment, AI is woven into every stage of how we work.
- 🤖 4 purpose-built AI systems  
- ⚡ 5-phase automated delivery  
- 🔍 Parallel expert code review

## Industries
### FinTech & Payments
- Payment processing, international transfers, compliance-grade infrastructure, and Stripe integrations.

### HealthTech & Mental Health
- HIPAA-compliant systems, sensitive data handling, and privacy-first application architecture.

### Construction & Trades
- Estimation tools, project management software, and workflow automation for field operations.

### SaaS & Coaching Platforms
- Subscription systems, client portals, and scalable platforms built to grow with the business.

## Outside the Code
"When I'm not building software, I'm building memories with family, pizza, video games, and the Queensland coastline."
- 🎮 Video games with family
- 🍕 Pizza nights
- 🏖 Australian beaches
- 👨‍👩‍👧 Family first, always

### [LinkedIn Profile](https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-zambrano-82bb2031)

### Posts by Daniel Z
- **Insights**
  - [Vibe Coding for Paying Clients: Why Cheap and Fast Is a Ticking Time Bomb](https://2rk.co/blog/vibe-coding-for-paying-clients-time-bomb/) - May 13, 2026
  - [Serverless or a Single System: How We Decide (No Hype)](https://2rk.co/blog/serverless-or-single-instance-how-we-decide/) - April 28, 2026
  - [The AI Slope: Technical Debt as a Strategy](https://2rk.co/blog/ai-slope-why-technical-debt-is-now-a-strategy/) - April 14, 2026
  - [Why We Built Four AI Systems (Not a Bigger Team)](https://2rk.co/blog/why-we-built-four-ai-systems/) - March 24, 2026
  - [Custom HMI vs SCADA for Water Treatment Monitoring](https://2rk.co/blog/custom-hmi-vs-scada-water-treatment/) - March 24, 2026
  - [Why Software Estimates Are Always Wrong (And What We Did About It)](https://2rk.co/blog/why-software-estimates-are-always-wrong/) - February 25, 2026
  - [What Clients Should Know About Software Maintenance](https://2rk.co/blog/what-clients-should-know-about-software-maintenance/) - January 21, 2026
  - [The Problem With AI-Generated Code (And How We Solved It)](https://2rk.co/blog/problem-with-ai-generated-code-how-we-solved-it/) - January 14, 2026
  - [Running Effective Client Meetings When You're a Small Dev Team](https://2rk.co/blog/running-effective-client-meetings-small-dev-team/) - December 17, 2025
  - [Open Source Licensing: The Compliance Trap Most Teams Ignore](https://2rk.co/blog/open-source-licensing-compliance-trap/) - November 19, 2025
  - [Choosing Your Rails Hosting: Fargate vs Kamal vs Dedicated Servers](https://2rk.co/blog/choosing-rails-hosting-fargate-kamal-dedicated/) - October 15, 2025
  - [When Bots Attack: Protecting Your Web App Without Breaking the Bank](https://2rk.co/blog/when-bots-attack-protecting-web-app/) - September 17, 2025
  - [PCI Compliance for Dev Teams: What's Actually Required](https://2rk.co/blog/pci-compliance-dev-teams-what-is-required/) - August 20, 2025
  - [Building Internal Tools That Actually Get Used](https://2rk.co/blog/building-internal-tools-that-actually-get-used/) - June 18, 2025

## Got a Problem Worth Solving?
Tell us about what you need built.