Carlos Astrada
Washington, DC Metro, US
carlosastrada@gmail.com

Cloud-native vCISO with a full-stack engineering background. I build security programs that integrate directly into the dev lifecycle rather than blocking it. Specializing in AWS environments and high-growth startups, I translate complex compliance requirements into practical, automated infrastructure. I focus on high-impact implementation—fixing vulnerabilities and optimizing costs without killing your team's velocity.

Experience


Founder
February 2022
 — 
Present
Xagax Solutions
  • Guided startups through complex compliance landscapes
  • Secured global enterprises with diverse cloud and on-premise infrastructures
  • Designed and implemented cost-effective cybersecurity strategies
Co-Founder
April 2020
 — 
May 2022
Meteor Fantasy
  • Built team of developers, marketers, and managers.
  • Led development of platform from idea stage to launch
  • Navigated tricky regulatory state landscape
Co-Founder
February 2017
 — 
April 2020
Super Monedero
  • Built team of developers, marketers, and managers.
  • Led development of platform from idea stage to launch
  • Navigated tricky regulatory state landscape
Acting CEO
April 2014
 — 
March 2020
Meteor Affinity, Inc
  • Built and led turnaround team
  • Achieved consistent profit after starting with 50k avg monthly losses
  • Negotiated multiple contract extensions with NASCAR for the Official NASCAR Members Club Property
Co-Founder
January 2016
 — 
March 2018
Fig Money
  • Launched successful wizard-of-oz marketing campaign to test MVP ideas.
  • Developed and filed successful patent application
  • Led initial marketing research to develop MVP approach with Lean Startup methodologies.
VP of Technology
May 2010
 — 
April 2014
Stoneacre, Inc
  • Built and led developer team in Europe, US, and South America
  • Led initiative to build and optimize membership platform technology
Co-Founder
September 2007
 — 
February 2011
Ecommerce Techs
  • Built a consulting firm specializing in Magento, Wordpress, and Drupal ecommerce development.
  • Built team of 27 engineers in 6 countries
  • Developed processes and methodologies to operate distributed team successfully
  • Successful exit in 2011
Research Associate
March 2003
 — 
October 2008
The George Washington University
  • Developed IT-based research projects for the Center for Equity and Excellence in Education (CEEE) while pursuing my graduate studies.
Developer
August 1999
 — 
June 2003
Hitachi Innovation Solutions
  • Worked with CSS, SOAP, ASP, and VBScript back when all that was cutting-edge!

Education


Georgia Institute of Technology
January 2026
 — 
Present
Master of Science in Computer Science in AI & Machine Learning
Hack Reactor
January 2018
 — 
January 2018
Advanced Software Engineering Immersive in Software Engineering
The George Washington University
January 2003
 — 
January 2005
Master of Business Administration - MBA (incomplete) in Business Administration and Management, General
University of Maryland
January 1996
 — 
January 2000
Bachelor of Science - Management Information Systems

Publications


Systems and Methods for Providing User-specific Product Results Based on Financial Assessment
November 2017
The United States Patent and Trademark Office

A patent for systems and methods to test-drive a product or service and provide user-specific results that includes a look-back period, a forward projection, or both.

Languages


English:
Native speaker
Spanish:
Native speaker
Portuguese:
Minimum Professional Proficiency
French:
Limited Working Proficiency
Italian:
Limited Working Proficiency

Skills


Management:
Project Management, Product Owner, Scrum, Agile, Lean Startup Methodology
Information Security:
CISO, Cloud Security, Cybersecurity, Cloud Engineering, AWS
Frontend:
HTML / JSX, SCSS / CSS / BEM / Styled Components, Javascript / Typescript, React / Next, Full-Stack Development
Backend:
Node, Express, Ruby, Python, Postgres, Redis, Serverless, Full-Stack Development
Devops:
AWS, Heroku, Caching, Docker
Data Science:
R, Data Analysis, Statistics, Data Studio
Digital Marketing:
Facebook Ads, Google Adwords, SEO, Email Marketing, Analytics
UI/UX:
Figma, Sketch, Invision

Interests


Personal:
guitar, cooking
Learning:
history, philosophy, mathematics, science

References


Jon-Paul Da Prato

Carlos embodies that rare blend of extremely driven and highly conscientious that one rarely encounters in another human being. In title and position, we were peers, and Carlos went out of his way to make me feel that I was justified to consider myself his equal, but at the same time, because he is a consummate professional and extremely competent, I always found myself motivated to go above and beyond in order to live up to the standard that he sets for himself and to warrant the profound faith he has in me. Carlos is a leader. He is a model of excellence, and he is truly one-of-a-kind! If you ever have a chance to work with him, do yourself a favor and make it a reality. You will thank me later for the advice.

Duke Goulden

Carlos has a knack for tackling difficult subjects, teaching others, and is a natural leader. I would strongly recommend Carlos for a software engineering position.

Scott Tivey

Carlos brings a wealth of technical prowess & professioalism to his role as SVP of Technology. You won't find anyone who is at the forefront of the tecnological revolution and more importantly, understands exactly how to deploy those best practices to benefit his organizations bottom line performance. He does this all with keeping both long & short term goals in sight, as well as a proactive foresight into how technology and data can be leveraged optimally. Carlos comes highly recommended as a true professional in his field and I look forward to working with him wherever he is.