
Jacek Mech
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Engineer and Developer
Wroclaw Metropolitan Area, Poland
Toptal member since August 14, 2026
Jacek is a senior software engineer and technical delivery professional with 24 years of experience building and scaling SaaS, data-intensive, and AI-powered products. He combines hands-on full-stack engineering, architecture, and production delivery with a strong focus on delivery excellence, turning ambiguous needs into reliable software.
Portfolio
Experience
- Python - 16 years
- PostgreSQL - 16 years
- JavaScript - 16 years
- React - 7 years
- Node.js - 7 years
- Express.js - 7 years
- TypeScript - 2 years
- FastAPI - 1 year
Preferred Environment
Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Node.js, Express.js, React, TypeScript, Python, FastAPI, JavaScript, PostgreSQL
The most amazing...
...solution I've built is GeoForm, a cloud-native geospatial platform that turns complex spatial data into practical neighborhood and real estate insights.
Work Experience
Independent Software Engineer and Technical Delivery Lead
Self-employed
- Contributed to a production AI assistant, implementing evaluation and observability foundations, golden datasets, production sampling, and Grafana dashboards.
- Built a Shopify-based solution for managing rental locations, products, bookings, payments, and operational workflows for space-rental businesses.
- Designed, built, and deployed an end-to-end platform for spatial analysis, with dataset management, geospatial processing, interactive maps, analysis workflows, and real-estate reports.
- Engineered an AI agent using LangChain, LangGraph, OpenAI, and LangSmith to turn open-ended location questions into asynchronous spatial analyses, map outputs, and structured results.
- Modernized GeoForm delivery with GitHub Actions, ArgoCD/GitOps, Kubernetes/K3S, Docker-based deployment, and cloud-native operational practices on Hetzner and AWS.
- Designed an artifact-driven workflow using PRDs, technical concepts, implementation plans, and agent skills to guide AI-assisted delivery. Validated across Codex, Claude Code, Gemini CLI, and OpenCode.
- Architected a Poland-focused service combining OpenStreetMap and demographic data for regional benchmarking, population and land-area analysis, demographic insights, and interactive maps.
- Designed and developed a customer and product management platform with dynamic product modeling, audit-trail tracking, cross-customer relationship management, and advanced reporting capabilities.
VP of Engineering
Schwarz Media Platform (Schwarz Dienstleistungen)
- Spearheaded a 30-engineer multidisciplinary team spanning front end, back end, data, ML, and DevOps.
- Delivered the first production release of the Schwarz Media Platform across multiple European markets.
- Coordinated engineering execution across teams and markets to turn product and platform goals into executable delivery scope and production readiness.
- Aligned front-end, back-end, data, ML, DevOps, product, and platform stakeholders around priorities, dependencies, sequencing, and delivery risks.
- Led the architecture board as an open forum for major technical decisions.
- Refreshed the technical concept process and introduced Architecture Decision Records.
- Introduced production-grade reliability practices, including SLOs, on-call structures, incident response, clearer service ownership, and operational follow-up.
- Acted as a technical product owner for platform and DevOps topics by prioritizing infrastructure deployment, developer experience, and platform stability improvements.
- Supported integration with the Schwarz Star Data Insights ecosystem and the transition from an independent unit into the Schwarz IT organization.
- Guided engineering managers and senior engineers by supporting ownership, people development, performance management, and leadership-layer stability.
Senior Vice President of Engineering
TrustYou
- Directed and stabilized a 50+ engineer organization across 12 teams by improving engineering structure, delivery, governance, leadership capacity, and platform evolution during organizational transition.
- Coordinated engineering execution across 12 teams supporting platform product infrastructure and data-related initiatives.
- Introduced director and engineering manager roles, clearer ownership boundaries, decision-making structures, and a structured engineering salary grid.
- Introduced lightweight governance mechanisms, including DORA KPIs, technology radar, and architecture chapters, to improve alignment, visibility, and technical decision-making.
- Worked closely with the CEO and product leadership to align technical execution with business priorities, clarify trade-offs, support predictable delivery, and handle selected engineering procurement discussions with external platform vendors.
- Helped guide the adoption of scalable data and infrastructure technologies, including ClickHouse, Kubernetes, and ArgoCD.
- Identified, promoted, and coached engineering managers and directors, strengthening leadership capacity and enabling decentralized decision-making.
- Established communication practices, team structures, and working agreements for effective remote-first engineering delivery.
Director of Engineering
TrustYou
- Scaled the engineering organization from two to five teams by establishing team structures, delivery practices, technical coordination mechanisms, and operational foundations for future growth.
- Expanded the organization from two to five cross-functional teams, defining ownership boundaries, coordination mechanisms, and team responsibilities.
- Managed delivery across engineering, QA, and professional services, coordinating around 50 people involved in customer-facing and platform work.
- Introduced clearer delivery planning, OKR-based workflows, incident management, and root-cause analysis practices.
- Established front-end and QA chapters to improve development consistency, technical alignment, and product quality.
- Supported the delivery of new platform capabilities, including TrustYou Restaurants and Mobile, helping expand the product offering and support new revenue streams.
- Managed engineering managers and mentored senior engineers, creating the early leadership foundation for a larger engineering organization.
Team Manager
TrustYou
- Managed a team of approximately 10 engineers responsible for TrustYou Analytics.
- Collaborated closely with engineers on system design, delivery planning, and production support.
- Managed the delivery process across development, QA, and operations.
Technical Project Manager
TrustYou
- Led technical delivery of the Accor Voice of the guest platform used by 4,000+ hotels worldwide.
- Acted as the main technical contact for Accor-specific platform development, translating customer requirements into executable technical work.
- Coordinated engineering teams, product stakeholders, and rollout activities delivery across multiple markets.
Senior Software Architect
TrustYou
- Designed core components of the TrustYou platform, including data-processing workflows, SSO services, and analytics systems.
- Implemented core components of the TrustYou platform, including data-processing workflows, SSO services, and analytics systems.
- Contributed to the technical foundation of the company's analytics data platform through architecture work and hands-on implementation.
Senior Developer
HDPublish
- Developed HDtrack, a web-based eCRM platform for PR communications professionals.
- Implemented multiple WordPress websites, including JavaScript dynamic functionality and PHP back-end plugins.
- Supported TrustYou in the development of the first version of the analytics platform.
Senior Software Engineer
Avid Technology
- Led the development of data migration components for the Interplay 2.0 media platform.
- Designed and implemented Interplay 2.0 engine features, including front-end Java Swing functionality and back-end Java and JBoss.
- Hardened a beta Avid video player by reproducing defects, identifying root causes, implementing fixes, and validating stability ahead of release.
Senior Technical Consultant
Autonomy (Acquired by HP)
- Developed enterprise search platform extensions for KPMG using the Autonomy IDOL stack.
- Architected multiple customizations of Autonomy's search platform for smaller customers.
- Designed and implemented features for Aungate, an eDiscovery, legal compliance, and enterprise information governance platform.
Team Lead | Analyst
ABG S.A. (Acquired by Asseco Poland)
- Worked as a system analyst on the IACS system for ARiMR, collaborating directly with customer representatives on PRD-level requirements.
- Designed and implemented features of the IACS, an EU agricultural subsidy and farm registry management system.
- Drove server-side implementation for the CEPiK national vehicle registry system, contributing to large-scale government system design.
Experience
GeoForm
https://geoform.ioI designed and built the platform end-to-end, covering product architecture, back-end and front-end development, geospatial processing, interactive mapping, data workflows, reporting, and production deployment.
The platform integrates spatial and environmental datasets, supports analysis of locations and their surrounding areas, and generates user-facing reports that combine maps, metrics, and derived insights. I also built the operational foundations around the product, including containerized workloads, cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, observability, and asynchronous processing.
More recently, I extended GeoForm with an AI-powered geospatial analysis agent that translates open-ended location questions into structured spatial analysis workflows and map-based results.
BOT AI UEW
My work includes designing durable golden dataset management, evaluation-run workflows, production response sampling, evaluation of real production interactions, and Grafana dashboards for monitoring system quality and behavior. I also contributed to the broader architecture and evolution of the multi-source retrieval and agentic serving pipeline, helping turn experimental AI capabilities into a measurable and maintainable production system.
PIK 2.0 Platform
I designed and developed core parts of the platform, including customer management, flexible dynamic product modeling, cross-customer relationship management, audit-trail tracking, and advanced spreadsheet-like reporting with filtering, aggregations, and configurable listings. I also worked on the platform's authentication and authorization foundations using Keycloak, including later enhancements such as two-factor authentication.
The project combined the modernization of an existing business-critical system with ongoing delivery of new functionality and production maintenance.
Schwarz Media Platform
My involvement covered architecture governance, technical concepts and ADRs, platform and DevOps priorities, production readiness, service ownership, SLOs, on-call and incident-response practices, and coordination of complex integrations with internal Schwarz systems and external technology providers.
Accor Guest of Voice
The solution helped replace fragmented and manual guest-feedback processes with a more consistent, scalable approach to collecting, analyzing, and acting on guest reviews and experience data across Accor's hotel network.
Education
Master's Degree in Marketing and Management
Wroclaw University of Economics - Wrocław, Poland
Master's Degree in Computer Science
Wroclaw University of Technology - Wrocław, Poland
Certifications
Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO)
Scrum.org
Professional Scrum Master (PSM)
Scrum.org
Sun Certified Enterprise Architect
Sun Microsystems
Sun Certified Web Component Developer
Sun Microsystems
Sun Certified Programmer
Sun Microsystems
Skills
Libraries/APIs
React, Node.js, REST APIs, OpenAI API
Tools
Knex.js, GitHub, Keycloak, Claude Code, Codex
Languages
JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, SQL, CSS, HTML, PHP, Java
Frameworks
Express.js, Material UI, Next.js, LangGraph
Paradigms
Agile Project Management, Application Architecture
Storage
PostgreSQL, PostGIS
Platforms
Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Mapbox, Kubernetes, WordPress, JBoss, Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
Other
FastAPI, Software Development, People Management, Agile Delivery, Architecture, Scrum Master, Scrum Product Owner, Leadership, Technical Leadership, Team Leadership, Remote Team Leadership, Agentic Coding, Full-stack, Software Architecture, Product Management, APIs, Back-end, Cloud, Front-end, Full-stack Development, SaaS, Web Development, Systems Design, GitHub Actions, Hetzner, LangChain, OpenStreetMap, Enterprise Content Management (ECM), Enterprise Java Beans (EJB), Web Logic, Product Owner, Qdrant, Agentic AI, AI Agents
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