Senior Software Engineer · Technical Lead

I build security-critical platforms that regulated institutions can trust.

I turn ambiguous, high-stakes requirements into production systems—combining hands-on architecture and implementation with technical leadership across banking, digital assets, and pharmaceutical research.

20+ years in production engineering · Switzerland · Open to Staff, Principal and Technical Lead opportunities

Based in Lugano · Available for remote and hybrid roles across Switzerland

Portrait of Luca Marrocco, senior software engineer and technical lead based in Lugano, Switzerland
Luca Marrocco

Distributed backend platforms, security-critical infrastructure and applied AI for banking, digital assets and pharmaceutical research.

20+ years Production engineering
Tier-1 bank Institutional integration delivered
Cardano DEX Exchange & launchpad delivered 0→1
Pharma R&D Scientific analytics platform delivered

About

Hands-on by default.

I'm a hands-on software engineer and technical lead with more than 20 years of experience building and modernizing systems where correctness, security and operational reliability matter. My strongest areas are distributed backend platforms, institutional integrations and security-critical infrastructure using Rust, C, C++, Java and Kotlin—with Objective-C and Swift for native iOS and React/TypeScript for the web. I remain close to implementation while aligning engineering, product, security, compliance, scientific and executive stakeholders.

Selected experience

Delivery where failure has consequences.

Two decades across institutional custody, bank integrations, digital-asset markets, scientific analytics and high-scale consumer media.

Institutional digital-asset custodySenior Software Engineer · Technical Lead

Leading hands-on engineering for security-critical custody capabilities in Rust, spanning distributed key management, policy-controlled operations, credential isolation and production readiness.

  • Established an AI-assisted engineering process with automated verification and explicit human approval for security decisions.
  • Worked across architecture and implementation to turn custody requirements into deployable increments.

Banking ledger & blockchain integrationSenior Software Engineer · Technical Lead

Owned delivery of high-stakes ledger and blockchain integrations across engineering, product, partner banks and compliance.

  • Shipped a Hyperledger Besu integration for a tier-1 bank.
  • Delivered Stellar integration work that supported a successful grant application.
  • Resolved production-critical indexing and reserve-clearing defects and contributed to institutional-ledger delivery.

Digital-asset markets — DEX & launchpadSenior Software Engineer · Technical Lead

Led engineering of a decentralized exchange and launchpad from initial architecture through production operation.

  • Owned client, backend, event-stream, wallet and KYC integration decisions.
  • Established deployment and operational foundations on GCP and Kubernetes.
  • Helped deliver a significant token sale on the launchpad.

Pharmaceutical scientific analyticsSenior Software Engineer · Technical Lead

Led development of a scientific analytics platform for toxicology and RNA-seq phenotype analysis.

  • Worked directly with scientists to translate research workflows into validated software capabilities.
  • Delivered well beyond the original brief, with the platform used for high-priority RNA-seq studies.
  • Delivered scientific and operational value adopted across the research program.

Consumer media & music streamingSenior Software Engineer · Technical Lead

Built and operated large-scale consumer media platforms, including a music-streaming service serving 600K+ active users across a portfolio of more than one million.

  • Built native iOS clients in Objective-C for music streaming and media playback.
  • Owned backend, streaming delivery and operations for high-volume consumer traffic.

Earlier experience spans technical leadership and software engineering across banking, insurance and consumer platforms—including co-founding an assistive-hearing iOS product, whose real-time audio engine I built in C++ and Swift, downloaded more than 100,000 times, and operating semantic search over 2M+ documents while cutting indexing from six days to four hours.

Case studies

Engineering decisions made inspectable.

Selected production deliveries and independent systems showing the problem, constraints, architecture, tradeoffs, implementation and verification evidence.

Production and institutional delivery

Banking · Blockchain integration Professional delivery

Tier-1 bank ledger integration

A Hyperledger Besu integration shipped for a tier-1 bank, delivered across engineering, product, partner banks and compliance—alongside a Stellar integration behind a successful grant application and fixes to production-critical indexing and reserve-clearing defects.

Role
Senior Software Engineer · Technical Lead
Outcome
Tier-1 bank integration delivered to production; critical defects resolved
Pharmaceutical · Scientific analytics Professional delivery

Scientific analytics platform

An analytics platform for drug-induced toxicity and RNA-seq phenotype analysis, built in direct collaboration with scientists to turn research workflows into validated software that outperformed the original delivery expectations and was adopted across high-priority RNA-seq studies.

Role
Senior Software Engineer · Technical Lead
Outcome
Adopted across the toxicology research program over 3.5 years
Digital assets · DEX and launchpad Professional delivery

Cardano DEX and launchpad

A decentralized exchange and launchpad led from initial architecture through production operation on GCP and Kubernetes, spanning client, backend, event streams, wallet integrations and KYC— delivering a significant token sale on the launchpad.

Role
Senior Software Engineer · Technical Lead
Outcome
Production operation; token sale supported
Digital assets · Custody Professional delivery · Current

Institutional custody engineering

Hands-on engineering for security-critical custody capabilities in Rust—distributed key management, policy-controlled operations, credential isolation and production readiness—with an AI-assisted process that keeps explicit human approval for security decisions.

Role
Senior Software Engineer · Technical Lead
Outcome
Custody capabilities advanced toward production readiness

How I operate

Technical leadership from ambiguous problem to production ownership.

01

Platform architecture and delivery

Turn business and regulatory outcomes into system boundaries, delivery plans, technical contracts and deployable increments.

  • 0→1 platforms and critical integrations
  • Architecture decisions and incremental modernization
  • Reliability, observability and production-readiness criteria
  • Hands-on implementation of the highest-risk components
02

Security and financial correctness

Design explicit trust boundaries and controls for systems where failure creates financial, regulatory or operational exposure.

  • Custody, threshold signing and key-management boundaries
  • Policy enforcement, approval workflows and auditability
  • Ledgers, reconciliation and deterministic monetary operations
  • Threat modelling, isolation and recovery design
03

Technical leadership across teams

Create alignment and reusable engineering leverage beyond a single codebase or delivery team.

  • Cross-team architecture and design reviews
  • Executive, product, customer and compliance alignment
  • Engineering standards, decision records and mentoring
  • Incident learning and systemic reliability improvements
04

Controlled applied AI

Apply AI to engineering and product workflows with measurable evaluation, traceability and human accountability.

  • Context engineering and reusable delivery workflows
  • Automated evaluation, testing and review loops
  • Provider resilience, cost and latency controls
  • Human approval for security and cryptographic decisions

Independent engineering lab

Self-directed systems, honestly labelled.

Independent engineering used to explore custody, consensus, financial correctness and applied AI beyond employer work. None of these are client systems; each carries its real status.

Custody architecture Development

Medusa Custody

Designed a Bitcoin and Stellar custody architecture that separates policy enforcement from signing, prevents inbound connections to the secure zone, and records approvals in a tamper-evident governance ledger. Includes threat modelling, M-of-N approval workflows and testnet verification.

KotlinSpring BootHashiCorp VaultReact
Financial correctness Development

Accounting Ledger

Designed double-entry digital-asset books around immutable postings, idempotent settlement workflows, reconciliation and arbitrary-precision monetary operations. Verified core financial invariants independently in Kotlin and Rust.

KotlinRustPostgreSQLDouble-entry
Trust boundaries Development

Gandalf Wallet

Built a Manifest V3 wallet that keeps plaintext secrets inside a Rust/WebAssembly security boundary and exposes only controlled signing operations to JavaScript. Added an Argon2id-encrypted vault and multi-ledger transaction support.

RustWebAssemblyBitcoinCryptography
Distributed systems Development

Tetra Blockchain

Built a five-node proof-of-stake network to explore fork choice, deterministic validation and byte-exact Kotlin/Rust interoperability. Verified a continuous 2,510-block network run with more than 300 automated tests.

KotlinRustConsensuseUTXO
Operational resilience Development

Bitcoin Explorer

Designed reorg-safe Bitcoin indexing and transaction broadcasting with retry recovery, preserved chain history, dual data stores and independently implemented signature-hash verification.

KotlinBitcoinCassandraPostgreSQL
AI Engineering Beta

Stack Sensei

Built a voice-native AI interview coach with speech-provider failover, user-isolated LLM routing and resilience controls across multiple model providers.

KotlinSpring WebFluxReactVoice AI