Engineering leadership · Fractional technology & AI advisory

Turn technology change into measurable delivery.

I help companies modernise engineering organisations, bring platform and AI initiatives into operation, and align architecture and delivery with business outcomes.

Best suited to leadership teams facing slow or unpredictable delivery, platform fragmentation, difficult modernisation decisions, or AI initiatives that need a credible path from experiment to production.

Available from January 2027 25+ years in software engineering Led distributed teams of 20+ professionals Product, platform, and AI transformation
Discuss an engagement See selected outcomes Explore how I can help

Based in Italy · Available from January 2027 for fractional, advisory, and engineering leadership mandates. Send the context, desired outcome, and timing on LinkedIn; CV and direct contact details are shared on request.

Selected outcomes

Evidence from transformations already delivered.

Three examples of turning leadership, architecture, and engineering execution into business-relevant change.

Enterprise transformation

Modern delivery and integration at Datlas / Selecta

Led the ERP modernisation programme and its system-integration architecture while defining enterprise DevOps, GitOps, data automation, and CI/CD strategies.

Faster deployment Higher release frequency Lower operational cost
Product innovation

Task Mining from initiative to IBM offering

Led development of the myInvenio Task Mining platform and the integration of RPA and AI into business processes; the platform became part of IBM's offering.

Product delivery AI & automation Operational efficiency
Scale and modernisation

Automation and cloud-native change at YNAP

Led distributed teams of more than 20 professionals across fulfilment automation, Kubernetes adoption, application modernisation, personalisation, and safer experimentation.

Reduced processing time Infrastructure savings Improved conversion
How I can help

Clear mandates for difficult technology transitions.

Engagements can be fractional, advisory, or embedded in an engineering leadership role, depending on the problem and the level of ownership required.

Fractional technology leadership

For organisations that need senior technology direction before, during, or instead of a permanent executive appointment.

Roadmaps Operating model Architecture governance

Engineering and platform transformation

For companies where delivery performance, platform fragmentation, or accumulated complexity is limiting product and business speed.

Assessment Platform strategy DevOps & GitOps

AI adoption and innovation advisory

For leadership teams moving from experiments to governed AI-enabled workflows, products, and operational capabilities.

Use-case framing Data foundations Operational governance
Experience

Recent leadership roles and the outcomes behind them.

A career built across enterprise delivery, platform transformation, innovation programs, and hands-on software engineering.

Open to Fractional / Advisory roles — Technology & AI

Available for new engagements
From January 2027
Milan, Italy
  • Available for fractional CTO / technology advisory engagements with companies modernising platform, delivery, and engineering organisation design.
  • Open to advising leadership teams on practical AI adoption — from AI-enabled engineering workflows to the platform and data foundations that make AI initiatives operational.
  • Looking for mandates, one or several in parallel, where DevOps, platform engineering, and innovation leadership experience can be applied to specific transformation problems.

Head of DevOps and Automation

Datlas S.p.A. (formerly Selecta S.p.A.)
August 2023 – May 2026
Milan, Italy
  • Defined enterprise-wide DevOps and GitOps strategy to reduce time-to-market and time-to-deploy.
  • Built automation and integration approaches that improved quality, operational efficiency, and delivery consistency.
  • Introduced analytics and KPI practices across teams and domains.

Head of Digital, Architectures, Innovation and Delivery

Selecta S.p.A.
June 2022 – September 2023
Milan, Italy
  • Orchestrated digital transformation and defined the architecture needed to support future growth.
  • Led adoption of microservices and event-driven systems to improve resilience and scalability.
  • Introduced API-first strategy that opened new partner integration and revenue opportunities.

Software Development Lead

OT Consulting S.p.A.
January 2021 – June 2022
Reggio Emilia, Italy
  • Designed advanced security solutions for critical banking systems.
  • Embedded DevSecOps practices into the software lifecycle and delivery process.
  • Mentored teams on DevOps, automation, monitoring, microservices, and Kubernetes adoption.

Head of Innovation

myInvenio (an IBM Company)
May 2020 – December 2020
Reggio Emilia, Italy
  • Pioneered RPA and AI integration into business processes for measurable operational gains.
  • Led development of the Task Mining platform that became part of IBM's offering.

Manager, Automation Engineering and Special Projects

YOOX NET-A-PORTER GROUP (YNAP S.p.A.)
October 2014 – May 2020
Milan Area, Italy
  • Architected end-to-end automation for fulfilment and reduced order processing time.
  • Led Kubernetes adoption and cloud-native modernisation with meaningful infrastructure savings.
  • Built real-time personalisation and experimentation capabilities that improved conversion and release safety.
Earlier career highlights
Mahiz S.r.l / Mahiz Sas — founder and co-founder roles focused on secure, reliable, scalable software consulting and delivery (2012–2014).
Self-employed consultant — multi-tier applications, integration solutions, banking projects, Agile delivery, and enterprise software development (1998–2012).
Earlier software engineering roles — Step S.p.A., Sysproject Reply S.r.l, and IL MIO WEB S.p.A. across .NET, web services, SQL Server, and business application delivery.
Technical depth

Hands-on domains that reinforce leadership decisions.

Breadth matters here because it supports better calls on architecture, platform, tooling, and delivery models.

Architecture & platforms

Microservices, event-driven systems, serverless, domain-driven design, SOA, cloud-native architectures.

AWS Azure Google Cloud Kubernetes Docker

Delivery & operations

CI/CD, GitOps, Terraform, Ansible, Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD, observability and automation at scale.

GitLab CI Terraform ArgoCD Grafana Loki

Engineering stack

C#, Java, Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, .NET Core, Spring Boot, Node.js, React, Angular, Vue.js.

C# Python TypeScript React .NET
Thought leadership

Public signals that support executive and recruiter confidence.

Speaking, podcast appearances, credentials, and community presence show how I communicate ideas, not only how I execute them.

Book preview · in Italian Il Senior Amplificato — experience, judgment, and agentic frameworks

IBM Cloud · Kubernetes · Data Science / Microsoft MCAD

2021–2022 · IBM · 2002–2003 · Microsoft

Agentic Harness Manifest poster preview

Agentic Harness Manifest

The chassis that turns raw intelligence into a controllable system.

Download PDF ↗

Selected talks

Enhancing Software Release Reliability by Integrating End-to-End Testing into DevOps Flows · Strategic Guide for Devs: Building an Application Platform with .NET Aspire and Dapr · Information Flow Processing with Dapr · Development and Deployment of Microservices with Microsoft Tye.

Browse talk catalogue ↗

Italian talks

Orchestrare Modelli di Linguaggio Avanzati con Semantic Kernel e C# · Creare una Development Platform con Backstage in modalità DevOps · DevOps potenziato dall'IA · Da DevOps a MLOps con Azure e GitHub.

Available in conference listings and event archives below.

Podcast

UGIdotNET / DevOps Time — Aumentare la fiducia nei rilasci con i test E2E.

Watch episode ↗

Podcast

UGIdotNET — DevOps verso Platform Engineering: cosa, come, quando e perché.

Watch episode ↗

Recent writing on agentic AI, data readiness, and augmented senior engineering.

Data is the enabling factor of agentic transformation

LinkedIn Article · Italian

Read on LinkedIn ↗

Coding Bunker Meetup
November 2024 · Luiss Hub, Milan

Come To Code
September 2024 · Palazzo Pignola, Potenza

Codice Futuro
September 2024 · Officine Credem, Reggio Emilia

DevOpsHeroes
2022 and 2019 · Parma

Cloudgen / Virtual Global Azure
2021 · Verona

DevOps@Work / A.I. Day / weDev / Developer Zone
2020–2021 · Italy / Online

Contact

Bring the context. We can quickly test whether there is a fit.

Send a short LinkedIn message with the business situation, the outcome you need, and the expected timing. I am available from January 2027 for fractional, advisory, and engineering leadership mandates; CV and direct contact details are shared on request.

Discuss an engagement i-n-f-o [at] lucamilan [dot] eu Review selected outcomes