Matteo Depalo

Software Engineer

Profile

A fast-learning, versatile engineer with a strong interest in front-end development. Passionate about creating great products and ensuring they feel right in the hands of users. I thrive on taking on new challenges, including optimizing team workflows and processes. Outside of work, I spend time with my two daughters or play chess.

Experience

Shopify

Senior Developer, DevTools Team

  • Led the implementation of dev-mcp, bringing Shopify's AI capabilities to third-party IDEs like Cursor (60+ PRs merged)
  • Became technical lead for the AI assistant powering shopify.dev, improving GraphQL syntax accuracy from 9% to 80%
  • Built evaluation framework using PromptFoo with comprehensive golden prompts; contributed improvements upstream to the open source project
  • Established direct collaboration with OpenAI, influencing the Assistants API to add score_threshold and metadata filter parameters
  • Led foundational rework of the Shopify CLI frontend using React/Ink (98+ PRs merged), shaping how developers experience Shopify tooling
  • Created CLI UI component library and documentation patterns adopted across CLI contributors
  • Completed Prometheus course and applied knowledge to rewrite internal observability dashboards for dev assistant and dev-mcp

Zapnito

Senior Software Developer

  • Developed features for the Zapnito knowledge-sharing platform built with Ruby on Rails and Ember.js
  • Built an in-app chat system with a messaging notification system powered by Twilio
  • Mentored 2 junior developers, providing code reviews and technical guidance

Caldera Labs

Ruby and JavaScript Contractor

Founded Caldera Labs, a consulting company specializing in Ember, Rails, and Elixir development in London.

  • The Trainline – Architected and implemented a new JSON API in Ruby that established a common communication protocol across all company services
  • Kayako – Contributed to a major product rebuild in Ember.js
  • Zapnito – Developed features for the main application built with Ruby on Rails and Ember.js
  • GlobalWebIndex – Built internal reports and visualizations with D3.js
  • DVELP – Developed a website for a London gym using Rails and Vue.js
  • Featurist – Implemented new features and refactors for an app built with hyperdom.js

AlphaSights

Product Lead

  • Shipped a major reimplementation of the main internal product using Ember.js
  • Contributed to the development of an internal front-end framework built with SASS and Ember components
  • Implemented a new approach to understanding and serving internal users using Intercom
  • Introduced weekly release cycles with structured changelogs for the main product
  • Improved global team communication through the adoption of Discourse

Responsa

Co-founder & CTO

Co-founded Responsa, a startup offering an embeddable Q&A widget, incubated at H-Farm in northern Italy.

  • Led a team of 4 engineers delivering a front-end heavy product built with Backbone.js, sold to multiple clients
  • Successfully migrated infrastructure from Heroku to DigitalOcean using Capistrano and Chef

Lucido

Web Developer

Built Playround, a platform for gamers in Ruby on Rails. Collaborated on iOS apps including ColorManiac (iPad) and Manistone (iPhone).

IFAE

Research Intern

Worked at the High Energy Physics Institute (IFAE) in Barcelona on characterization of hardware for astronomical observations. Development in ROOT environment (C++).

Open Source

Education

Università degli Studi di Siena

Bachelor's Degree in Physics and Advanced Technologies

106/110