makevoid.com Ticino, Switzerland · CET

Francesco Canessa

Tech Lead & software engineer. I build backend systems and blockchain infrastructure, and lead the teams that ship them.

Now

Tech Lead, Backend Wallet Projects at UBQ S.A. — designing and running the backend services and blockchain transaction indexers behind multiple projects for clients such as Tether.

About

I've spent 20+ years writing software and the last decade leading engineering organisations. As CTO of Applied Blockchain in London I led 40+ developers across 8 teams and delivered 60+ blockchain projects for clients such as Shell Trading, Toyota Financial Services, KLM, the United Nations, Algorand, Ledger and SITA. I've hired 200+ engineers and was hands-on on the architecture of a 9-figure trading platform.

Most recently I was CTO of Aura Blockchain Consortium, building the luxury industry's shared blockchain platform with a 12-person team. Today I'm back to what I enjoy most: being close to the code as a tech lead.

Experience

  1. Dec 2025 —

    Tech Lead, Backend Wallet Projects · UBQ S.A.

    Leading the backend of two mobile wallet projects.

    Serving clients such as Tether. Hands-on architecture, code review and delivery for a small senior team.

  2. 2023 — 25

    CTO · Aura Blockchain Consortium

    Luxury-brand product traceability platform with a 12-person engineering team.

    Private Ethereum (Quorum / Besu / Tessera) on AWS and AKS, shared by LVMH, Prada Group, Cartier and other members.

  3. 2018 — 23

    CTO · Applied Blockchain, London

    40+ developers, 8 teams, 60+ production projects for Fortune 500 clients.

    Built the DevOps foundation (AWS, Docker, Terraform, EKS, CI/CD) that shipped them; hired 200+ engineers over five years.

  4. 2005 — 18

    Earlier · freelance & startups

    Thirteen years of Ruby backends, web products and games for agencies and startups. Notable: Figurone for SKY TV Italia — a Facebook web game that grew to 1.3M monthly active users.

    Full 20-year history on LinkedIn →

Stack

Languages
Ruby, TypeScript / JavaScript, Python, Solidity
Backend
Node.js, Roda, Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, Redis, MongoDB
Blockchain
EVM chains, Bitcoin, Solana; private Ethereum (Quorum, Besu, Tessera); transaction indexers
Infrastructure
AWS, Kubernetes (EKS / AKS), Docker, Terraform, CI/CD

Contact

Say hi on X or connect on LinkedIn