Available for senior opportunities

Ricardo
Wagemaker

Platform Lead & Full-Stack Engineer

25+ years turning complex enterprise infrastructure into clean, sustainable,
AI-powered platforms—backed by deep expertise in Data Protection & Cyber Resilience.

Sustainable Engineering Cyber Resilience Data Protection Platform Leadership AI Integration
Ricardo Wagemaker – Profile
25+ Years Exp.
34PB Data Managed
15 Engineers Led

Engineering meets Leadership

I'm a Platform Lead and hands-on Full-Stack Engineer with over 25 years of experience, including 16 years at NatWest Group. My career is built on a strong foundation of data protection, cyber resilience, and enterprise storage—evolving major infrastructure while ensuring the highest level of security and recoverability for mission-critical systems.

I excel at combining high-level platform strategy — managing costs, transformation, and teams — with deep practical software engineering. Today, I leverage decades of operational rigor to champion sustainable software architectures, reduce carbon footprints through optimized code, and integrate AI to build robust, modern applications.

Outside my day role I actively turn innovative ideas into practical open-source tools on GitHub, using modern cloud services and CI/CD pipelines.

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Award-Winning Work

Led development of an award-winning climate dashboard at NatWest Group.

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Enterprise Scale

Managed 34PB+ storage portfolios and £100M+ contracts across UK & India.

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Open Source

Active contributor with tools like Terminal Intelligence, SCMD, and EasyEditor.

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AI Champion

Leading responsible in-house AI tooling to improve features and developer efficiency.

Technology & Expertise

🎯

Leadership & Strategy

Platform Leadership Agile Methodologies Product Ownership People Management Cost & Financial Planning Stakeholder Management Risk Management
⚙️

Software Engineering

Go Python React JavaScript Vite Full-Stack Development API Design Solution Architecture Sustainable Software
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AI & ML

Ollama (Local LLMs) Google Gemini Amazon Bedrock AmazonQ GitHub Copilot AI Integration pgvector / Semantic Search
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Cloud & Infrastructure

GCP / Firebase AWS Kubernetes Docker Terraform Storage Architecture CyberVault PaaS / IaaS
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Data & Databases

PostgreSQL MongoDB SQLite GCP Firestore AWS Aurora NetApp / EMC Data Protection
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DevOps & Tooling

GitLab CI/CD GitHub Actions VSCode Kiro Antigravity NetBackup LTO Tape Libraries

Languages

🇬🇧EnglishFull Professional
🇳🇱DutchFull Professional
🇵🇹PortugueseFull Professional
🇪🇸SpanishLimited Working

Career Timeline

Jan 2022 – Present

Platform Lead, Sustainable Enterprise Solutions

NatWest Group · Edinburgh, UK
Current

I am a Platform Lead and hands-on Full-Stack Engineer with over 25 years of experience, including almost 17 years at NatWest Group. My career has a strong foundation in data protection, storage management and cyber resilience with a focus on modern platform strategy, cost management, and sustainable software engineering. As a Platform Lead, I successfully established and matured a specialized sustainability innovation team from a blank canvas within the technology division. This initiative drove innovation, resulting in the development of the multi-award-winning NatWest Climate Dashboard. Over a four-year period, I grew this team to manage a diverse portfolio of 13–15 distinct change streams, aligning technology and engineering capabilities with broader organizational sustainability goals. Today, I leverage decades of operational experience to champion sustainable software architectures, designs and integrate AI to build robust modern applications, and actively contribute to the open-source community on GitHub.

  • Leading responsible in-house AI tooling to improve application features and developer efficiency.
  • Direct application deployment across modern cloud environments:
      including IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Product as a Service), and SaaS (Software as a Service).
GoPostgresSQLPythonReactGCPAI/MLAgile
2018 – Jan 2022

Head of Backup & Storage

NatWest Group · Edinburgh, UK
  • Product Owner for 34PB+ of online and offline storage across multiple locations.
  • Achieved 99.98% data protection success rate — 20,000+ backups & 3.5PB on single weekends.
  • Involved in contract deals over £100M+.
  • Managed ~50 people across UK and India.
  • Led design and deployment of a highly secure CyberVault during large-scale storage migrations.
  • Successfully led all internal and external auditing processes for 3 consecutive years.
NetAppNetBackupDell TechnologyCyberVaultBudget ManagementTeam Leadership
2012 – 2018

Technical Backup Manager

NatWest Group · Edinburgh, UK
  • Defined overall backup strategy and delivered reliable backup solutions for EMEA infrastructure.
  • Spearheaded cost and finance planning for hardware, software licensing, and capacity growth.
  • Led people management to grow team skills and ensure smooth operations.
EMEA InfrastructureCapacity PlanningNetBackup
Jul 2009 – 2012

Backup Specialist

NatWest Group · Edinburgh, UK
  • Expert-level administration for enterprise backup environments using NetBackup, Networker, DataDomain, and LTO Tape Libraries.
NetBackupNetworkerDataDomainLTO
1995 – 2009

Senior Storage & Backup Consultant

T-Systems · Atos Origin · Centrica · Accenture · Symantec / Veritas · Legato · Dell
  • T-Systems – Senior Storage Consultant (2007–2009)
  • Atos Origin – Backup Consultant (2006)
  • Centrica Plc – Senior Storage Support (2003–2006)
  • Accenture – NetBackup / Storage Consultant (2001–2002)
  • Symantec / Veritas – Technical Consultant (2000–2002)
  • Legato Software – Support Analyst (1999–2000)
  • Dell Computer – Network Support (1995–1999)
Storage ConsultingData ProtectionNetBackupLegato

Personal Projects

Terminal Intelligence (TI)

A lightweight, highly responsive, open-source CLI-based IDE written in Go. Features integrated AI assistance running Ollama, Gemini, Bedrock and other API based LLMs. Designed to reduce the energy footprint of heavy traditional IDEs.

GoCLIAI IntegrationSustainable
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SCMD – AI-Powered CLI Search

An AI-powered command knowledge base using semantic vector search as both a CLI and Web UI in Go. Integrates with PostgreSQL, SQLite, local Ollama models, and Google Gemini.

GoPostgreSQLpgvectorOllamaGeminiSQLite

Learning & Certifications

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AWS Certified AI Practitioner

AIF-C01 · In Progress

In Progress
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Climate Change Transformation Program

University of Edinburgh · 12 Weeks

Completed
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Determining to Lead & Challenging Potential

Leadership Development

Completed
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Full Stack Bootcamp

Certification

Completed

Java Bootcamp Course

Certification

Completed
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Computer Science

A-levels Equivalent

Completed

Let's Connect

Based in Edinburgh, UK. Open to senior engineering leadership and platform architecture opportunities.