Brian De Vaca

I’m a results-driven engineering leader with over 20 years of experience building and guiding high-performing software teams. My career began at USAA, where I spent my first five years working in COBOL before finally convincing my manager to let me transition into Java development—a move that completely changed the trajectory of my career.

After USAA, I worked as a Java developer at Apptricity in Dallas, Texas. I left there to work in the greatest city in Texas—Austin was calling my name. I began working at Periscope Holdings in March 2012. The next five years were truly golden: we were a tight-knit group of developers who loved what we were building and the culture we had created. But all good things come to an end, and when the team went through major changes and most of the staff moved on, I was promoted to a lead developer role. A few months later, when the new director began interviewing for a manager, I realized it might be time to take a leap.

I decided to throw my name in the hat—something I’d never considered before—and it turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve made. That first year in management showed me how much I love leading teams, mentoring engineers, and helping others grow.

Since then, I’ve led multiple teams and large-scale initiatives at Periscope Holdings, Sovra (MDF Commerce), and now Thentia—overseeing modernization efforts, cloud migrations, and organizational change. Most recently, I led a successful migration from GCP to AWS, cutting monthly cloud costs from nearly $300K to $80K while improving scalability and performance.

I’m passionate about building teams that blend accountability, collaboration, and fun while delivering high-quality, reliable software. My technical background spans Java, Spring Boot, AWS, PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, and modern DevOps practices, and I’m always exploring new tools like AI-assisted development with Cursor to keep teams innovative and effective.