Jose Carlos Zertuche
24-year-old Mexican engineer looking to move to SF to be surrounded by the best. Currently at Oracle, but big tech hasn't been the most exciting ride — which is why I can't stop building side projects.
I started working at 15 when my dad passed away. Four years of university while working 35+ hours a week non-stop — customer support, a startup, side projects running in parallel. I want to build something of my own.
Experience
Software Engineer 2 — Cloud Native Environment
June 2025 - Present
- Security Point of Contact for Oracle Communications Cloud Native Environment (OC-CNE); drove secure design, development, and QA practices across every release.
- Orchestrated a full security assurance program using SAST (Fortify), DAST (RestFuzz), and SCA (Trivy, Black Duck).
- Reduced vulnerability remediation time by over 20% through streamlined CVE triage and pen-test tracking.
Co-Founder & Software Engineer
Aug 2025 - Feb 2026
- Co-founded a music learning and discovery platform — "Duolingo for music" — combining instrument learning, real-time stem separation, and artist content in one product.
- Built end-to-end onboarding on a Next.js frontend backed by a Python service layer (Shazamio for song ID, Demucs for stem separation, FFmpeg-based transcoder).
- Productionized a polyphonic guitar transcription pipeline by transfer-learning the Onsets & Velocities CNN onto GuitarSet, converging ~5x faster than training from scratch.
Software Engineer Intern — DB Space Management
July 2024 – June 2025
- Optimized PUA block chunk distribution in C, reducing unnecessary redo generation and improving database efficiency.
- Achieved a 46% reduction in physical reads and a 93% decrease in DB file scattered reads through new tracking mechanisms.
- Enhanced SecureFiles dispenser logic, cutting redo blocks written by 6.7% and logical reads by 13%.
Software Engineer
2023 - 2024
- Reported directly to CTO; first real taste of a fast-paced startup environment.
- Drove full-stack feature development end-to-end and confirmed I want to found my own company someday.
Customer Support Representative
May 2021 - Nov 2023
- Handled high-volume customer interactions while studying full-time — 35+ hours of work a week throughout university.
- Built strong communication skills; was offered a significant raise to stay when I finally landed my first engineering role.
Projects
NoteJoscaz
Polyphonic guitar transcription via a transfer-learned Onsets & Velocities CNN fine-tuned on GuitarSet.
BrainPods
Real-time AI-powered video study rooms for up to 15 users, with 13+ academic subjects and personalized game-like question sessions.
Your next project
Coming soon.
Your next project
Coming soon.