Curriculum Vitae
Gabriel Villenave
Engineering Leader · Ex-Microsoft · Startup Founder · US/French Citizen
Seattle, WA | [email protected] | linkedin.com/in/gabvil | gabvil.com
Summary
Engineering leader with 15+ years building and scaling high-performing teams at Microsoft, growth-stage startups, and a mission-driven nonprofit. Sets technical vision, drives cross-functional alignment, and grows engineers into senior and principal-level contributors. Hands-on technical depth, backed by founder experience and an MBA.
Experience
Senior Engineering Manager
- Lead 12 engineers across 2 teams that own core platform and data ingestion – the data foundation of the Cortex internal developer portal.
- Design and build a new integrations platform that connects Cortex to third-party engineering tools such as GitHub, PagerDuty, and Datadog.
- Champion AI transformation across engineering with an AI-native software development lifecycle (SDLC). In one year: 3x faster cycle time, 3x PR throughput, 2x deployment frequency, and 30% fewer incidents.
Technologies: Kotlin, Spring Boot, TypeScript, Postgres, GCP, Temporal, Kafka
Senior Engineering Manager
- Owned the full integrations platform (REST APIs, SDK, 50+ connectors, and infrastructure processing millions of daily syncs) – the primary mechanism for connecting Hyperproof to third-party compliance and security tooling.
- Turned customer needs and commercial commitments into a sequenced integration roadmap, set with Product and Business Leadership.
- Directed quality and infrastructure investments to support enterprise growth: reliability improvements, observability, and scalable connector architecture.
- Built a team of 13 through structured hiring, growth frameworks, and formal performance reviews.
Technologies: TypeScript, C#/.NET Core, Java Spring Boot, Python, Go
Senior Engineering Manager
- Led the Clinical Applications full-stack team, delivering business-critical features on the Crisis Care platform supporting 1M+ people annually.
- Executed a high-stakes product roadmap with direct clinical impact, scoped and planned with Product, UX Design, and Data.
- Ran the full hiring lifecycle, from job descriptions and sourcing to interview design and offer decisions, growing a high-performing, mission-aligned team.
- Established performance reviews, calibration, and career development frameworks for the team.
Technologies: Go, TypeScript, React, AWS, Databricks, Sisense
Engineering Manager
- Managed a team of 8 engineers (entry level to Principal) building collaboration and enterprise security features for Office 365, directly tied to $5B+ enterprise contracts.
- Partnered with Product, CX, and Security & Compliance to define the product roadmap and manage cross-team dependencies across multiple departments and time zones.
- Owned execution and on-time delivery of flagship enterprise features; maintained tight feedback loops between ICs and senior leadership to surface blockers early.
- Continuously improved engineering processes across the org: planning cadences, incident reviews, and on-call health.
Technologies: C++, C#/.NET, React, Azure, Power BI
Technical Lead / Senior Software Engineer
- Led small cross-functional teams on multiple large-scale projects building real-time collaboration for Microsoft Office across consumer and enterprise markets.
- Steered architecture, planning, and delivery using experimentation, telemetry, and customer feedback – features now serving 10M+ daily sessions.
- Managed 6 engineers through performance cycles while maintaining IC technical leadership.
Technologies: C++, C#/.NET, React Native, Azure
Co-Founder & CTO
- Co-founded the company: business plan, incorporation, investor relations, and early fundraising.
- Designed and built the end-to-end technical architecture: infrastructure, backend, database, web client, and hybrid iOS/Android mobile clients.
- Launched to market and grew to 10K+ users in under 6 months.
Technologies: TypeScript, Node.js, React, React Native, Firebase, AWS, GCP, Heroku
Software Engineer II
- Re-architected core components of the shared Office application stack (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) to improve performance and scalability of real-time collaboration – shipped to 1M+ daily sessions.
- Improved reliability of the core I/O pipeline for cloud file operations (opening, saving, syncing) across all Office platforms.
Technologies: C++, C#/.NET, Azure
Quality Assurance Engineer
- Designed and maintained automated testing software for the Amadeus Global Distribution System, which handles 500M+ travel reservations yearly.
Skills
Leadership: Engineering management, Technical vision, Roadmap planning, Cross-functional alignment, Hiring & organizational design, Performance management, Executive communication
Technical: Full-stack (TypeScript/Node.js, Kotlin/Java, C#/.NET, Go, React), Distributed systems, Platform & API design, Cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, GCP), Event-driven systems
AI: AI-native SDLC, Agentic AI adoption, Claude Code, Custom agent harnesses, AI internal tooling (design, code review, incident response)
Domain: Developer tooling & internal platforms, SaaS integrations, Real-time collaboration, Compliance/security software, Crisis-care technology
Languages: French (Native), English (Bilingual)
Education
Master of Science in Engineering (M.Sc.), Information Systems
5-year engineering program; Student Union President.
Master of Business Administration (MBA), Industrial Management
Double degree with the EIGSI M.Sc. program.
International Exchange, Computer Science & Entrepreneurship
Exchange program during the EIGSI M.Sc.: a full academic year focused on CS and entrepreneurship in Olin's project-based curriculum.