Carlos is available for hire
Hire CarlosCarlos Quiros
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Engineer and Developer
Reading, PA, United States
Toptal member since December 24, 2025
Bio
Carlos is a senior digital architect and software engineer with over 20 years of experience designing and scaling data-driven platforms. He specializes in Python back ends, data architecture, and analytics-ready systems, and has led complex, multi-country programs from concept to production. Known for clean architectures, robust data models, and senior-level technical leadership, Carlos consistently delivers high-impact solutions.
Portfolio
QLands
Python, Python 3, JavaScript, SQL, REST APIs, API Design, Back-end Architecture...
Freelance Clients
Python, Knowledge Graphs, Ontology Framework, Neo4j, Cypher, ETL, SPARQL...
Ontoforce
Knowledge Graphs, Ontology-based Modeling, Semantic Data Integration...
Experience
- Relational Databases - 20 years
- C++ - 20 years
- IT Project Management - 15 years
- Architectural Design - 15 years
- Python - 15 years
- ETL - 15 years
- Product Ownership - 10 years
- Cross-functional Team Leadership - 5 years
Preferred Environment
Linux, PyCharm, Qt Creator, IntelliJ IDEA, WebStorm
The most amazing...
...product I've built is FormShare, a scalable, multi-tenant platform for secure mobile data collection, governance, and analytics, used by global organizations.
Work Experience
Chief Technology Officer
2025 - PRESENT
QLands
- Defined and executed QLands' technology strategy, aligning platform architecture and APIs with business goals, and delivered a production FormShare platform supporting 400+ accounts and 50+ active organizations.
- Created an agentic Agile and Scrum methodology using Claude Code to produce fully featured SaaS applications, reducing time to beta by 80%.
- Migrated ODK Collect, an Android application carrying 17 years of active development and more than 200,000 lines of code, to iOS in 20 days using an Agentic Agile Scrum methodology.
- Architected FormShare, a production Python platform for managing structured and semi-structured data, built on FastAPI with Celery, WebSockets, Redis, and Elasticsearch.
- Built a multi-tenant data platform managing form submissions and datasets, enabling standardized schemas, metadata governance and secure access across tenants.
- Enabled governance through metadata standards, audit trails and role-based access across digital forms and data repositories, ensuring full traceability of data changes.
- Managed FormShare on AWS using containerization, environment configuration, and CI/CD pipelines.
- Increased user experience scores by 20% and reduced Azure resource consumption by 40% by owning all technical and UX decisions, including the front-end migration from jQuery to Vue.js.
- Led development of MassiveSpatial, integrating GIS and field data into analytics dashboards, and reduced GIS ingestion time by 50% through parallel GDAL processing.
- Forged global partnerships for digital data initiatives across agriculture, humanitarian aid and public health, placing FormShare with organizations including CGIAR, CABI and HealthRight.
Technologies: Python, Python 3, JavaScript, SQL, REST APIs, API Design, Back-end Architecture, Distributed Systems, Data Architecture, Database Modeling, Relational Databases, Non-relational Databases, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Neo4j, MongoDB, Spatial Databases, GIS, GIS Cloud, Geospatial Analytics, ETL Pipelines, Data Integration, Data Governance, Metadata, Superset, Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, Business Intelligence (BI), Cloud Architecture, AWS Cloud Architecture, Azure, Docker, CI/CD Pipelines, CircleCI, GitHub Actions, Git, Linux, Microservices, SaaS Design, System Scalability, Authentication, OAuth 2, SAML 2.0, OData, Elasticsearch, Message Queues, Celery, Asynchronous Processing, Parallel Processing, Multithreading, WebSockets, Integration, HTML5, CSS, CSS3, User-centered Design (UCD), Architecture, Technical Roadmapping, System Design, Open Source, Data Quality Management, Data Validation, Semantics, System Documentation, Cross-functional Team Collaboration, Team Leadership, Stakeholder Management, Scrum, IT Project Management, Pyramid, Flask, FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, Redis, Redis Cache, Leaflet, Geospatial Data, GeoTIFF, GDAL, GDAL/OGR, GeoJSON, Geospatial Search, Spatial Tiling, Cron, jQuery, Vue 3, Vue, Apache2, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Real-time Data, Snowflake, Dashboards, Data Visualization, Claude, Large Language Models (LLMs), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Pipelines, HIPAA, HIPAA Compliance, Data Analysis, Business Analysis, Data Modeling, Data Migration, Databases, Database Architecture, Big Data, Data Warehousing, Claude Code, Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Master Data Management (MDM), Data Processing, SQLite, Database Schema Design, Database Performance, JSON, Code Auditing, Agentic AI, Agentic Frameworks, AI Agent Orchestration, AI Agents, Role-based Access Control (RBAC), Model Context Protocol (MCP), Ontologies
Senior Software Engineering Agentic AI
2026 - 2026
Freelance Clients
- Built a multi-agent AI course creation platform on Python FastAPI and JavaScript, orchestrating seven or more specialized LLM agents through a state machine covering document parsing, learner personas, course outlining and assessment authoring.
- Delivered approximately 33,700 lines of production code across a JavaScript front end and a Python FastAPI back end over 356 commits, using agentic Agile and Scrum workflows driven by Claude Code.
- Engineered multi-stage LLM prompt pipelines with defined input and output schemas, controlled vocabularies, worked examples, anti-patterns and self-check steps, returning strict JSON that downstream services consumed without manual correction.
- Implemented retrieval-augmented generation over PostgreSQL and pgvector, building a grounding embedder and image extractor that traced every generated course element back to its source document.
- Instrumented production LLM observability with Langfuse and OpenTelemetry, measuring output quality, schema consistency, token cost and latency at each prompt stage.
- Designed a Critical Impact of Failure risk score that routed high-stakes generated content to stricter validation while allowing lighter handling for the rest.
- Integrated Anthropic Claude and OpenAI models behind a single service layer, enabling model selection per workflow stage on cost and capability rather than a single vendor default.
- Shipped Stripe billing, Firebase authentication, and S3-backed workflow persistence as production services within the same platform.
- Replicated expert professional workflows, including accountancy and financial auditing, as reusable Claude Skills deployable across sectors.
- Authored the product requirements, architecture plans, and request-flow documentation that drove the agentic build, covering RAG implementation, S3 persistence, and user management.
Technologies: Python, Knowledge Graphs, Ontology Framework, Neo4j, Cypher, ETL, SPARQL, TigerGraph, Gremlin, RDF, OWL, Protégé, Large Language Models (LLMs), Claude Code, Claude API, FastAPI, JavaScript, Agentic Coding, Master Data, Data Processing, Database Schema Design, JSON, Code Auditing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Agentic AI, Agentic Frameworks, AI Agent Orchestration, AI Agents, Ontologies, Data Taxonomy
Senior Data Solutions Specialist
2024 - 2025
Ontoforce
- Grew the Michael J. Fox Foundation contract by approximately 275% by reorganizing their data and demonstrating DISQOVER's analytics capabilities, influencing enterprise renewal and expansion decisions.
- Secured a 10% contract value increase with Alexion by restoring client trust and implementing Poka-yoke style error-proofing across ETL pipelines.
- Consolidated 55 public and proprietary data sources into a single normalized, queryable system, including ClinicalTrials.gov, the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform, and EudraCT.
- Built the Citeline Trialtrove and Sitetrove ingestion pipelines, 226 components resolving trials, diseases, drugs, patient segments, and sponsors into canonical entities and mapping disease terms onto MeSH, SNOMED, ICD-9, and ICD-10.
- Reduced Snowflake data extraction time by 50% by writing SQL to partition the data and Python to retrieve it through parallel processing.
- Reduced ETL pipeline errors by 30% by building Python validation scripts that caught inconsistent date formats and mislabeled records in clinical study and Omics data before ingestion.
- Designed and deployed Python ETL microservices for large-scale ingestion, handling 2+ TB datasets in production Kubernetes clusters on AWS.
- Accelerated therapeutic target discovery by 30% by mapping Parkinson's disease target data into public biomedical knowledge graphs and defining new schema relationships.
- Directed the DISQOVER platform deployment on AWS, creating ECR images, authoring Kubernetes manifests, and integrating Solr, S3, and enterprise identity providers under ISO 27001-aligned controls.
- Conducted root cause analysis across biomedical datasets, verifying pipeline logic, tracing mapping inconsistencies and duplication, and writing unit tests that reduced downstream errors by 15%.
Technologies: Knowledge Graphs, Ontology-based Modeling, Semantic Data Integration, Data Modeling, Data Harmonization, Database Normalization, Metadata, Data Lineage, ETL Pipelines, ETL Testing, Multi-source Data Ingestion, Structured Data Processing, Data Processing, Search-Based Architectures, Apache Solr, Python, Microservices, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Kubernetes, REST APIs, API Integration, Data Quality Management, Life Science, Technical Leadership, Requirements Translation, Knowledge Transfer, Documentation, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Cross-functional Team Collaboration, Disqover, DISQOVER Plugins, Data Engineering, ELT, SQL, Data Integration, APIs, Data Visualization, Data Pipelines, HIPAA, HIPAA Compliance, Business Intelligence (BI), Data Analysis, Business Analysis, Data Migration, Databases, Database Architecture, Big Data, Master Data, Data Warehousing, Clinical Trials, Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Master Data Management (MDM), Healthcare, Database Schema Design, Database Performance, JSON, Role-based Access Control (RBAC), Ontologies, Data Taxonomy
Senior Digital Developer
2015 - 2024
Bioversity International
- Enabled a $2 million grant by leading the transformation of ClimMob's data infrastructure, redesigning back-end workflows and analytics to support Python-based experimentation across 50 global research programs.
- Secured a $100,000 grant by demonstrating how Python-based architectures could power ML chatbot decision support for low-resource research and development contexts.
- Led the migration of ClimMob from legacy PHP to Python on Pyramid, modernizing it into a SaaS-ready platform supporting more than 500 concurrent users and mentoring the team through the language transition.
- Consolidated FormHub and OnaData into FormShare, refactoring from Django to Pyramid to introduce asynchronous processing, modular architecture, and scalable cloud infrastructure.
- Modernized Crop Ontology by replacing an outdated JavaScript system and document database with a Python application using Neo4j for graph storage and Elasticsearch for search, raising inference accuracy by 20% and cutting search latency by 60%.
- Reduced MySQL query result time by over 90%, from several minutes to under 10 seconds, through join analysis, index tuning, and complex views.
- Merged data from three databases into unified SQL views, reducing manual consolidation time by 40%, and delivered decision-making dashboards in Power BI, Superset, and Jasper Reports.
- Introduced CI/CD pipelines with GitHub Actions, enabling weekly production releases and reducing manual deployment errors by 80%.
- Mentored junior developers and external consultants to raise code review acceptance rates by approximately 30% and ran Agile sprints, achieving on-time delivery for roughly 90% of planned features.
- Aligned program-level metrics with CGIAR's results framework and UN Sustainable Development Goal indicators so results from separate research programs could aggregate into organization-wide and donor-facing impact reporting.
Technologies: Python, Python 2, Pyramid, Flask, SQLAlchemy, Jinja, JavaScript, CSS, CSS3, jQuery, jqGrid, Leaflet, R, MySQL, MongoDB, PostGIS, PostgreSQL, HTML5, C++, Qt, Qt 5, Linux, IBM Watson, GeoJSON, GeoTIFF, Web GIS, GDAL, Geospatial Data, Geospatial Analytics, CKAN, Neo4j, Elasticsearch, Apache Solr, AWS IoT, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), RDF, Redis, Gunicorn, RESTFul APIs, Relational Databases, Non-relational Databases, Knowledge Graphs, Ontology Development, FAIR Data Principles, Data Governance, Data Quality Governance, Unit Testing, Citizen Science, ODK, Decision Support Systems (DSS), Cross-platform, ICT4D, Agricultural Trial Management, ETL, Localization, Internationalization, Product Ownership, Digital Strategy, Data Policy, Capacity Planning, Capacity Building, IT Project Management, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Cross-functional Team Collaboration, Architectural Design, Experimental Research, QGIS, Ontology Framework, Data Engineering, ELT, Amazon Web Services (AWS), SQL, Data Modeling, Data Pipelines, Data Analysis, Business Analysis, Data Migration, Databases, Database Architecture, Big Data, Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Data Processing, SQLite, Database Schema Design, Database Performance, JSON, Role-based Access Control (RBAC), Ontologies
Agricultural Information System Specialist
2005 - 2015
International Livestock Research Institute
- Reduced time from data collection to analysis by 50% by centralizing decentralized Excel data into a MySQL database using C++ ETL tools and providing seamless Excel access through custom APIs, extensions, and macros.
- Authored ILRI's data management policy and implementation plan, covering metadata schemas, access control, audit trails, and ethical data use, both published and citable.
- Managed a multidisciplinary team of seven technical staff, including developers and data managers, directing hiring, onboarding, mentoring, and day-to-day delivery.
- Engineered the ILRI research data management system using ODK, FormHub, MySQL, and CKAN, delivering data ingestion, HPC-cluster analysis, and publication workflows.
- Rewrote FormHub from Django to Flask, achieving concurrent processing and reducing survey ingestion time by 50%.
- Designed and maintained PostgreSQL and MongoDB databases, managing close to 1 million records with query response times under 2 seconds.
- Led development of ODK Tools, a reusable Python and C++ utility library later adopted by ClimMob and FormShare for ODK form processing, XLSForm conversion, and data export.
- Directed the technical build of an open monitoring and evaluation system for USAID's Accelerated Value Chain Development program, tracking approximately 300,000 beneficiaries with real-time reporting at several managerial levels.
- Coordinated ETL implementation teams across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, supporting more than 500 data collection assistants across time zones with minimal project delays.
- Reduced analysis time by 25% by building Excel dynamic data blocks pulled from MySQL over OData for researchers and analysts.
Technologies: Delphi, PHP, C++, Python, MySQL, PostgreSQL, GIS, Cross-platform, Qt, Geospatial Data, SQLite, Geospatial Analytics, Database Design, Remote Sensing, API Design, Quality Assurance (QA), Life Science, Performance Optimization, Multi-tasking, Relational Databases, Data Pipelines, Data Migration, Databases, Database Architecture, Microsoft Access, Data Processing, Database Schema Design, Database Performance, JSON, Role-based Access Control (RBAC)
Experience
FormShare Platform
https://formshare.orgFormShare is a scalable, multi-tenant platform for secure mobile data collection, data governance, and analytics integration. It was designed to support complex, real-world data programs that require high data quality, strong access controls, and analytics-ready outputs. The platform integrates ODK-compatible workflows with relational data models, APIs, and search capabilities, enabling organizations to transition seamlessly from data capture to analysis without requiring manual rework.
As CTO and lead architect, I designed the overall system architecture, core data models, and back-end services, and led the development of ingestion, validation, and access-control mechanisms. I translated diverse client requirements into a coherent, production-grade platform and established development standards, deployment practices, and long-term technical direction. My role combined hands-on engineering with system ownership, ensuring FormShare could scale across organizations, countries, and data volumes while remaining maintainable and extensible.
As CTO and lead architect, I designed the overall system architecture, core data models, and back-end services, and led the development of ingestion, validation, and access-control mechanisms. I translated diverse client requirements into a coherent, production-grade platform and established development standards, deployment practices, and long-term technical direction. My role combined hands-on engineering with system ownership, ensuring FormShare could scale across organizations, countries, and data volumes while remaining maintainable and extensible.
ClimMob Science Platform
https://1000farms.climmob.net/ClimMob is a participatory experimentation and citizen science platform used to manage agricultural trials across multiple countries and environments. It enables researchers and practitioners to design complex experiments, collect standardized data from field participants, and analyze results across locations and seasons. The platform supports a diverse range of trial designs while ensuring data comparability and integrity.
I led the technical design and ongoing development of ClimMob, including its back-end architecture, database schema, and core application logic. My involvement included designing analytics-ready data structures, integrating mobile data-collection workflows, and supporting contributions from distributed collaborators. I also worked closely with researchers to translate experimental methodologies into robust digital workflows, ensuring the system supported scientific rigor and practical field constraints. The result was a production system capable of supporting large-scale, multi-country experimentation programs.
I led the technical design and ongoing development of ClimMob, including its back-end architecture, database schema, and core application logic. My involvement included designing analytics-ready data structures, integrating mobile data-collection workflows, and supporting contributions from distributed collaborators. I also worked closely with researchers to translate experimental methodologies into robust digital workflows, ensuring the system supported scientific rigor and practical field constraints. The result was a production system capable of supporting large-scale, multi-country experimentation programs.
DISQOVER Platform
https://www.ontoforce.com/disqoverDISQOVER is an enterprise knowledge graph platform that transforms heterogeneous tabular datasets into search-optimized graph representations, enabling complex, cross-domain queries at scale. It is primarily used in life sciences and research contexts where large volumes of structured data must be integrated, harmonized, and analyzed efficiently.
In my role, I directed the technical delivery of data ingestion and integration pipelines, converting diverse internal and external datasets into canonical data models suitable for graph-based search and analytics. I designed semantic mappings, optimized indexing strategies, and ensured data quality and performance in production environments. I also worked directly with enterprise clients, owning the technical execution of strategic accounts and translating evolving requirements into scalable solutions. This work directly contributed to the expansion of platform adoption and significant contract growth.
In my role, I directed the technical delivery of data ingestion and integration pipelines, converting diverse internal and external datasets into canonical data models suitable for graph-based search and analytics. I designed semantic mappings, optimized indexing strategies, and ensured data quality and performance in production environments. I also worked directly with enterprise clients, owning the technical execution of strategic accounts and translating evolving requirements into scalable solutions. This work directly contributed to the expansion of platform adoption and significant contract growth.
Crop Ontology Platform
https://cropontology.orgThe Crop Ontology platform provides standardized vocabularies and semantic structures to enhance interoperability and facilitate the reuse of agricultural research data across institutions, tools, and analytics systems. By defining common terms, traits, and relationships, the platform enables consistent data interpretation and cross-dataset comparison in complex research environments.
I contributed to the technical design and implementation of ontology-driven data and metadata frameworks, working at the intersection of domain experts and software systems. My role involved translating semantic standards into usable digital structures, supporting API access, and aligning ontology concepts with data capture and management tools. I also supported stakeholder engagement to ensure the platform struck a balance between scientific accuracy and practical usability. This work helped embed semantic consistency into downstream systems and analytics workflows.
I contributed to the technical design and implementation of ontology-driven data and metadata frameworks, working at the intersection of domain experts and software systems. My role involved translating semantic standards into usable digital structures, supporting API access, and aligning ontology concepts with data capture and management tools. I also supported stakeholder engagement to ensure the platform struck a balance between scientific accuracy and practical usability. This work helped embed semantic consistency into downstream systems and analytics workflows.
Education
2006 - 2007
Master's Degree in Science and Technology Studies
Maastricht University - Maastricht, Netherlands
1998 - 2002
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
Latin American University of Science and Technology - San Jose, Costa Rica
Certifications
NOVEMBER 2023 - PRESENT
Certificate in Leadership
Cornell University
Skills
Libraries/APIs
REST APIs, SQLAlchemy, jQuery, Leaflet, GDAL, GDAL/OGR, Vue 3, Vue, Claude API
Tools
Claude, Claude Code, PyCharm, Qt Creator, Microsoft Access, IntelliJ IDEA, WebStorm, GIS, Superset, Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, CircleCI, Git, Celery, Apache Solr, jqGrid, IBM Watson, Web GIS, Cron, Protégé, ChatGPT
Languages
Python, SQL, C++, Visual FoxPro, Visual Basic, Python 3, JavaScript, HTML5, CSS, CSS3, Python 2, R, RDF, Delphi, PHP, Snowflake, Cypher, SPARQL, Gremlin, OWL
Paradigms
Database Design, ETL, Business Intelligence (BI), HIPAA Compliance, Role-based Access Control (RBAC), Back-end Architecture, Spatial Databases, Microservices, Scrum, Unit Testing, Cross-platform, Agile Project Management, Model Context Protocol (MCP)
Storage
Relational Databases, SQLite, Data Pipelines, Databases, Database Architecture, Database Performance, JSON, PostgreSQL, Data Integration, Master Data Management (MDM), SQL Server DBA, IBM Db2, Sybase, Database Modeling, MySQL, Neo4j, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, Data Validation, PostGIS, Redis, Redis Cache
Frameworks
Agentic Frameworks, OAuth 2, Pyramid, Flask, Jinja, Qt, Qt 5, Ontology Framework
Platforms
Linux, Azure, Oracle, GIS Cloud, Docker, Kubernetes, CKAN, AWS IoT, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Apache2, Amazon Web Services (AWS), TigerGraph
Industry Expertise
Healthcare
Other
Communication, Data Architecture, Metadata, Data Processing, Architectural Design, Data Engineering, ELT, APIs, Data Visualization, Data Migration, Big Data, Master Data, Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Database Schema Design, Systems Thinking, Digital Technology Evaluation & Selection, Analysis of Data Practices & Workflows, Data Modeling, Product Ownership, Real-time Data, Dashboards, Large Language Models (LLMs), Artificial Intelligence (AI), HIPAA, Data Analysis, Business Analysis, Data Warehousing, Code Auditing, Agentic AI, Ontologies, Data Taxonomy, Leadership, API Design, Distributed Systems, Non-relational Databases, Geospatial Analytics, ETL Pipelines, Data Governance, Cloud Architecture, AWS Cloud Architecture, CI/CD Pipelines, GitHub Actions, SaaS Design, System Scalability, Authentication, SAML 2.0, OData, Message Queues, Asynchronous Processing, Parallel Processing, Multithreading, WebSockets, Integration, User-centered Design (UCD), Architecture, Technical Roadmapping, System Design, Open Source, Data Quality Management, Semantics, System Documentation, Cross-functional Team Collaboration, Team Leadership, Stakeholder Management, IT Project Management, Knowledge Graphs, Ontology-based Modeling, Semantic Data Integration, Data Harmonization, Database Normalization, Data Lineage, ETL Testing, Multi-source Data Ingestion, Structured Data Processing, Search-Based Architectures, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), API Integration, Life Science, Technical Leadership, Requirements Translation, Knowledge Transfer, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Disqover, DISQOVER Plugins, GeoJSON, GeoTIFF, Geospatial Data, Gunicorn, RESTFul APIs, Ontology Development, FAIR Data Principles, Data Quality Governance, Citizen Science, ODK, Decision Support Systems (DSS), ICT4D, Agricultural Trial Management, Localization, Digital Strategy, Data Policy, Capacity Planning, Capacity Building, Experimental Research, QGIS, Remote Sensing, Quality Assurance (QA), Performance Optimization, Multi-tasking, FastAPI, Geospatial Search, Spatial Tiling, Technical Direction, MySQL DBA, Cross-functional Design, Customer Support, Semantic Search, Documentation, Internationalization, Agentic Coding, Clinical Trials, AI Agent Orchestration, AI Agents
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