Jose Zertuche
24-year-old Mexican engineer. Currently at Replit as a Member of Technical Staff on the Infrastructure team.
I started working at 15 when my dad passed away. Four years of university while working 35+ hours a week non-stop — customer support, a startup, side projects running in parallel. I want to build something of my own.
Experience
Member of Technical Staff
August 2026 - Present
- Cloud Infra @ Replit
Software Engineer 2 — Cloud Native Environment
June 2025 - July 2026
- Security Point of Contact (SPOC) for Oracle Communications Cloud Native Environment (OC-CNE) & OSO, owning the product-security triage, release assurance, security documentation, and remediation across Kubernetes-based telecom platforms.
- Designed centralized Go toolchain controls across 17 repositories through 20 merge requests, reducing 30+ detected Go vulnerabilities to zero..
- Led security assurance across 20 RC, GA, maintenance, and patch release-stage combinations using SCA, SAST/Fortify, DAST, malware, Trivy/Grype, TLS/SSH, and readiness evidence to support risk-based release conditions.
- Launched OSO Verizon 5.0 security-compliance program by creating the applicability matrix and test plan, decomposing 100+ requirements into 9 security test cases ready for execution in Kubernetes cluster
Co-Founder & Software Engineer
Aug 2025 - Feb 2026
- Co-founded a music learning and discovery platform — "Duolingo for music" — combining instrument learning, real-time stem separation, and artist content in one product.
- Built end-to-end onboarding on a Next.js frontend backed by a Python service layer (Shazamio for song ID, Demucs for stem separation, FFmpeg-based transcoder).
- Productionized a polyphonic guitar transcription pipeline by transfer-learning the Onsets & Velocities CNN onto GuitarSet, converging ~5x faster than training from scratch.
Software Engineer Intern — DB Space Management
July 2024 - June 2025
- Optimized PUA block chunk distribution in C, reducing unnecessary redo generation and improving database efficiency.
- Achieved a 46% reduction in physical reads and a 93% decrease in DB file scattered reads through new tracking mechanisms.
- Enhanced SecureFiles dispenser logic, cutting redo blocks written by 6.7% and logical reads by 13%.
Software Engineer
2023 - 2024
- Reported directly to CTO; first real taste of a fast-paced startup environment.
- Drove full-stack feature development end-to-end and confirmed I want to found my own company someday.
Customer Support Representative Intern
May 2021 - Nov 2023
- Handled high-volume customer interactions while studying full-time — 35+ hours of work a week throughout university.
- Built strong communication skills; was offered a significant raise to stay when I finally landed my first engineering role.
Projects
Atube
Multi-agent pipeline that autonomously runs a YouTube channel — AI agents handle idea generation, scriptwriting, voice synthesis, visual composition, and publishing end-to-end with zero human intervention.
NoteJoscaz
Polyphonic guitar transcription via a transfer-learned Onsets & Velocities CNN fine-tuned on GuitarSet. Launch post on X
BrainPods
Real-time AI-powered video study rooms for up to 15 users, with 13+ academic subjects and personalized game-like question sessions.
Guard Angel
Native iOS personal safety app with geofencing, emergency SMS alerts under 2s latency via Twilio, and battery-optimized live location tracking — 99.9% crash-free session rate.
More about me :)
- Puentes 3 Interview
- Eventually I'll be adding more later