Nobody opened the door for me. So I helped my way in.

The story

2016 · Getting in

At seventeen I had no contacts. No money either. What I had was time, and I showed up. I earned a scholarship to study Systems Engineering at Universidad Metropolitana. Not for grades — it was a civic-commitment scholarship, and I earned it Saturday after Saturday helping out at schools around my community.

A résumé would never have opened that door. People did. I’ve never forgotten it.

2020 · Learning to build

Then I learned to build. C#. Angular. Vue. NestJS. Backend at eleven at night. At SinNotaria I was Product Owner in the morning and backend developer in the afternoon. I wrote the tickets. Then I had to go build them.

Empathy is cheap until you’ve had to ship your own vague ticket at 11pm. I never wrote a vague one again.

2022 · The leap

Then they put me in charge of what gets built. And why. I still felt like a developer.

I said yes before I felt ready, and trusted the people around me to teach me the rest.

2022 – 2025 · Ridery

So I built a team. And I hired people better than me. Ridery became Venezuela’s #1 ride-hailing app. I started as Product Owner shipping tickets and ended up leading the team I’d built from scratch.

By the end I was the least technical person in my own meetings, and the team still shipped the right thing. That’s what winning looks like.

2025 · Now

Today I lead product at the #1 BNPL in Latin America. At Cashea I own the long-term vision and the portfolio roadmap, turning the country’s biggest retail BNPL into an ecommerce platform. Building was never the hard part. Saying no was.

One rule: every feature has to defend why it exists. And I’m not done.

ValentinoDestefano

Systems Engineer · MSc in Digital Transformation
Product Manager @ Cashea · People first

The receipts

For whoever’s scanning

Cashea

Now

Product Manager · Fintech / BNPL

I own the long-term vision and the portfolio roadmap, lead ecommerce features and new digital sales channels, set quality standards across the department, and ground every decision in user research. Turning the country’s biggest retail BNPL into an ecommerce platform.

New vertical 0→1Jun 2025 → Now

Ridery

PO → Product Leader · Mobility

I built a high-performance product team from scratch, opened new business lines from strategic leadership, and set delivery standards across the department — after two years driving features end to end as Product Owner. Venezuela’s #1 ride-hailing app.

A team from scratch2022 → 2025

SinNotaria

Product Owner & Backend Dev · LegalTech

I worked directly with the CEO and CTO on product vision and roadmap, led the dev team’s delivery cadence, and built the backend systems and APIs in NestJS. Both roles at once, for a year.

Two roles at once2021 → 2022

Gálac · ISEP · Shadees

Backend & Web Developer

Backend in C# at Gálac Software, web in Angular at Universidad ISEP, web in VueJS at Shadees Digital Service. The foundation that still lets me scope what’s real.

3 stacks2020 → 2021

Education

Systems Engineering · Universidad Metropolitana
civic-commitment scholarship2016–2021

MSc in Digital Transformation & Innovation
INESDI Business Techschool2024–2025

Certifications

Prompt Engineering2025

High Impact Leadership · Blum2025

Scrum Foundation Professional · Certiprof2024

Toolkit

Product · Discovery · Roadmapping · User research · OKRs · Prioritization · A/B testing
Technical · Angular · VueJS · NestJS · C# · REST APIs · SQL
AI · Prompt engineering · AI-assisted prototyping

The person

Languages · Spanish (native) · English
How people describe me · Friendly · Collaborative · Passionate
Off the clock · Football · Gaming · Travel

Let’s build something that improves our users’ lives.

Open to product roles, freelance projects, and good conversations. Happy to talk shop, or just get to know each other.

valentinodestefanod@gmail.com LinkedIn ↗