About Me

The Journey

I'm Felipe Triana Castañeda, a Colombian software engineer who found a home in Berlin. My journey in tech started in Bogotá, where I earned my Systems and Computing Engineering degree from Universidad de los Andes with a thesis on AI-powered skin disease detection using ontologies.

Over the past 12+ years, I've built distributed systems serving hundreds of millions of users at companies like eBay, Zalando, and Prodigious. What drives me is the intersection of scale, architecture, and innovation—especially now with AI transforming how we build software.

Today, I'm a Staff Software Engineer at eBay, where I lead technical projects from design to delivery and extensively leverage AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot) for 75%+ of my daily workflow. I'm passionate about functional programming, system scalability, and making AI work in production.

Beyond the Code

Music is my second language. In 2025, I founded Cumbé, a traditional gaita music ensemble from the Montes de María in Berlin. We play gaita (Colombian flute) and percussion, bridging my Colombian heritage with Berlin's diverse music scene. I also study bandola llanera, the string instrument from the Eastern Plains used to play joropo.

What I Value

• Learning continuously - From quantum computing workshops to financial markets courses
• Building for scale - Systems that serve millions while staying maintainable
• AI augmentation - Using LLMs as thought partners, not just autocomplete
• Cultural bridges - Bringing Colombian music to Berlin, bringing Berlin engineering to global teams
• Pragmatic excellence - Ship working solutions, then iterate toward elegance