Arnaud Valensi
AI Engineer & Software Architect | Agents, LLMOps
Summary
I build generative AI (GenAI) systems, deploy them on the infrastructure of your choice, and operate them in production over time: agents, LLM integration, LLMOps.
I designed and run Merlin Cloud (merlincloud.dev), a SaaS agentic coding platform built solo, end to end. Open source, in production.
Product software engineer, 15 years of experience. 4 years owning the architecture of critical financial systems at XBTO (crypto-finance), in a regulated environment on sensitive data. Before that: L'Oréal, Ekimetrics, Forest Admin (eFounders / Hexa, the startup studio behind Aircall and Spendesk).
I work with the best existing models, proprietary (GPT, Claude, Gemini) or self-hosted open-source (Llama, Qwen, Mistral), depending on your constraints; I don't train models. Whether you start from a POC, from scratch, or from a live product (finance, regulated or sensitive environments), I deliver a reliable system in production.
Skills
AI / Agentic
- AI Agents
- Multi-agent orchestration
- Large Language Models (LLM)
- Generative AI (GenAI)
- LLMOps
- RAG
- LangChain
- pgvector
- MCP
- Prompt engineering
Roles
- Forward Deployed Engineer
- Platform Architect / Engineer
- Tech Lead GenAI
Security & governance
- DevSecOps
- CI/CD vulnerability scanning (Snyk, Trivy)
- Enterprise SSO (Okta, Keycloak)
- GDPR
- AI Act
Languages
- Python
- TypeScript
- C#
- Go
- Rust
Backend
- FastAPI
- Node.js
- PostgreSQL
- SQL Server
- Redis
- NATS
- REST
- BigQuery
Frontend
- React
- Next.js
- HTMX
- Tailwind CSS
Infrastructure & operations
- Linux
- Docker
- Podman
- Kubernetes
- CI/CD
- OpenTelemetry
- Datadog
- Grafana
- Sentry
Cloud
- AWS
- Azure
- Google Cloud
- OVH
Domains
- SaaS platforms
- Financial systems (crypto-finance)
- Regulated and sensitive environments
- Business process automation
- Full-system product engineering
Projects(1)
- AI Agents
- Multi-agent orchestration
- LLM
- MCP
- LLMOps
- Python
- FastAPI
- Podman
- Stripe
- Clerk
- PostgreSQL
- SaaS
- GDPR
Production SaaS agentic coding environment at merlincloud.dev. An AI-native product, built and operated solo, end-to-end.
Multi-agent and multi-model orchestration, scheduled agents; plug in any model, proprietary or self-hosted open-source.
Security and governance: authentication, CI/CD vulnerability scanning, tests, observability, data governance (GDPR).
Deployment on infrastructure I control; multi-tenant container isolation and reverse tunneling for public dev-environment URLs.
The full product around it: positioning and pricing, UX/UI and marketing landing pages, billing, admin dashboard with events and analytics.
Stack: Python/FastAPI, HTMX, Tailwind, rootless Podman, PostgreSQL, Stripe, Clerk, MCP.
Work Experience(10)
Merlin Cloud is a production SaaS agentic coding environment (merlincloud.dev) that I designed, built, and operate solo, end to end, under my company BigSeed Studio. An AI-native product: multi-agent and multi-model orchestration with scheduled agents; plug in any model, proprietary (GPT, Claude, Gemini) or self-hosted open-source (Llama, Qwen, Mistral); security and data governance (GDPR); and the full product around it (positioning, pricing, UX/UI, landing pages, billing, admin dashboard).
Stack: Python, FastAPI, HTMX, Tailwind, rootless Podman, PostgreSQL, Stripe, Clerk, MCP.
I built and re-architected the financial data platform (crypto-finance, ~100 employees), in a regulated environment on sensitive data: ingestion and processing of high-volume market data (time series), reference data, balance and position engines, and the computation of AUM, NAV, PnL, and exposures.
I unified access to all this data behind a single self-service API (a single source of truth), also exposed via MCP servers, with two uses:
- for the teams (accounting, operations, product): investigate issues faster and get natural-language answers to their financial questions;
- for AI agents: triggered on error, they autonomously detect data anomalies and alert early, speeding up reconciliation and integrity checks, including finding the root cause where existing systems failed.
I also owned the internal web portal (React, TypeScript), with the dashboards accounting, operations, and product used every day to input, reconcile, and consume financial data.
I trained the tech teams on LLM tools.
Security and operations: enterprise authentication (Okta), CI/CD, data integrity checks, observability (Grafana), Kubernetes deployment on AWS.
Stack: Python, C#, TypeScript, React, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, ClickHouse, NATS, AWS, Kubernetes, Okta, Grafana, MCP.
Full-stack engineer for a major cosmetics group: I built a web platform that surfaces the outputs of a machine learning pipeline to business teams.
Stack: Node.js, React, Next.js, BigQuery, Google Cloud.
Built a full-stack application from scratch for a strategic L'Oréal cosmetics project.
Stack: Node.js, React, Next.js, BigQuery, Google Cloud.
Full-stack engineer at Forest Admin, a SaaS that plugs into a database to generate a full-featured admin panel.
Joined as the company scaled from seed to Series A ($3M then $7M raised). Forest Admin was part of eFounders (the startup studio behind Mailjet, Spendesk, Front, Slite, Aircall), a high-growth ecosystem that shaped how I think about scaling early-stage products.
Stack: Node.js, Ruby on Rails, React, Ember.js, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Docker, Redis.
CTO of a real estate company specialized in high-quality goods. Built and managed the technical stack.
Stack: Node.js, AngularJS.
Built an interactive online platform offering coding courses in different programming languages.
Stack: React, Node.js, PostgreSQL, Docker.
Co-founder and lead developer of MindUp, a mobile proximity-chat startup. Reached 10,000 users.
Stack: JavaScript, MongoDB.
R&D on a big-data platform for large French telecommunications companies.
Stack: C, C++.
R&D internship on a big-data platform.
Stack: Java.
Education(3)
Languages(2)
French
English
References(7)
All references are LinkedIn recommendations. Originals on my LinkedIn profile.
“ I've had the pleasure of working with Arnaud at XBTO for over 4 years — he is an exceptional full-stack engineer who moves from inception to delivery with incredible speed without sacrificing quality. He builds solutions that are intuitive, highly performant, and scalable — consistently meeting the most demanding requirements. Beyond his skills, Arnaud's positive attitude and collaborative spirit make him a true asset to any team. ”
“ I had the chance to work with Arnaud on the development of a business web app built around complex data visualization. I was on the design team, and Arnaud worked from our high-fidelity mockups. Arnaud has a real eye for detail, he made a point of matching the mockups to the letter (pixel perfect). We took the time to review his work together. Arnaud communicates well, he also knew how to challenge us on certain interactions, and he always had good suggestions. It was a pleasure to work with him! ”
“ I had the chance to work with Arnaud on a web development project for a large international group. Arnaud is efficient, a team player, and brings both structure and good spirits to the team. His involvement allowed us to deliver a high-quality application in record time, drawing on his strong technical skills and his relevant suggestions, combining innovation, realism, and practical value. I recommend him and hope to collaborate again on future projects. ”
“ I am impressed by Arnaud's work on this project: he is efficient, careful, and attentive, and he manages to bring sophisticated mockups to life. I hope we can work together again on a new project. ”
“ We brought Arnaud in on a strategic project with very short delivery deadlines. A web app had to be built from scratch. Arnaud was a great partner on the mission and brought his dev skills (React/Node), his versatility, and his good spirits to the project. He has a great mindset and successfully led several demos for our internal clients. I recommend him! ”
“ Arnaud worked at Forest Admin for nearly 2 years and the whole technical team is sad to lose him. Arnaud has brought us a lot both technically and humanely. Passionate about code and avid learner, he has strongly contributed to improving our codebase while delivering quality features in a short time. Arnaud is also a person you can count on when it comes to passing on knowledge and helping his team members. ”
“ Arnaud spent about 6 months with us, and he will be missed. He is a passionate, result-oriented software engineer with the drive of a reckless entrepreneur. Both opiniated and constructive, Arnaud also has a very good sense of humor that comes with consistently high spirits, and I have absolutely no doubt he will succeed in turning his projects into successful products & services. ”