Advisory Solutions Architect · MongoDB · Mexico City · Latin America

Alex
Richmond

30 years across enterprise IT, cloud architecture, and cybersecurity — from call centers and restaurant chains to blockchain startups to AWS and MongoDB. Now advising the most ambitious technology teams and executives on how to build technology platforms that scale, perform, and last.

🔒 CISSP 🕵️ CEH ☁️ AWS Pro SA ☁️ AWS Security Specialty ☁️ AWS Networking Specialty ☁️ AWS GenAI 🍃 MongoDB Certified ×4 📊 MSc Business Data Science

Engineering Projects

Tools, platforms, and experiments. Private projects require access — reach out via LinkedIn.

● Live 🔒 Private
Mapa de Aventuras

Family trips end up scattered across phones and group chats. Mapa gathers each one into a shared map of places and photos that you can replay as a route and print as a book or a poster. The whole API runs as a single Lambda function, and photos stay private, opened only through signed links. By invitation.

MongoDB Atlas React Node.js Leaflet AWS Lambda Cognito S3/CloudFront
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OnFire Habits

Habit apps only work when you remember to open them. OnFire puts your streak on the face of your Garmin watch, so every time you check the hour you see whether today is on track. The watch face reads today's state straight from one small serverless endpoint.

PWA Web Push AWS Lambda DynamoDB S3/CloudFront Garmin Connect IQ
Framework
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Framework

How do you run a portfolio of software projects when most of the work is done by AI agents? Every request, defect and decision becomes a numbered item in one queue, and each agent works in a fixed role (product owner, developer, designer) and hands off through files the others read. The agents propose and deliver; a person approves, and nothing costly or irreversible runs without a written authorization.

S3 + CloudFront AWS Lambda DynamoDB Cognito Web Push Static site
● Live 🔒 Private
DayPlan

To-do lists grow until nobody reads them. DayPlan gives you one place to capture anything and lets you choose at most five things for today; older items come back to be decided instead of piling up. The list lives in the phone's own storage, and the cloud only syncs it and sends the reminders.

PWA Vanilla JS IndexedDB AWS Lambda DynamoDB EventBridge Web Push
● Live 🔒 Private
Dory

Before a meeting it is hard to remember what you know about each person in the room. Dory matches your calendar with your notes and shows, for each attendee, who they are and what you meant to talk about. Your notes stay as you wrote them; AI only condenses them into a short summary per person.

PWA AI AWS Lambda DynamoDB Cognito Web Push
● Live 🔒 Private
Sonar

Taking notes during a call or a conversation pulls you out of it. One press on your Garmin watch starts the transcription on your Android phone, and AI feedback on what is being said reaches your wrist while you talk: a question for you, rising tension, an agreement, your name. The audio never leaves the phone; only text goes to the cloud.

Android whisper.cpp Garmin Connect IQ AI AWS Lambda Cognito
● Live 🔒 Private
Wealth

If something happens to you, your family needs to know what you own and where it is. Wealth keeps the household's net worth in one currency, walks you through a short monthly review, and holds an emergency guide that is encrypted in the browser before it is saved, so the server never sees your passphrase. A copy on a USB drive opens without internet or an account.

PWA AWS Lambda DynamoDB Cognito EventBridge SES noble ciphers
● Live 🔒 Private
Misión: México a tu manera

Hosts rarely know what a young visitor actually wants to see in Mexico City. Misión is a short phone game where visitors pick what excites them, and the hosts read the answers on a private page to plan the visit. A static site with hand-drawn SVG and Web Audio, no third-party packages, and one small API that stores the answers.

Static site SVG Web Audio API AWS Lambda DynamoDB
● Live 🔒 Private
Portfolio Strategy Manager

Without agreed limits, every trade is decided in the moment. Portfolio Strategy Manager manages a trading portfolio and its strategies inside an agreed framework of money management and risk. The exchange key is read-only and stays on the server, never in the browser.

PWA Kraken API AWS SAM AWS Lambda DynamoDB
🍃
🔒 Advisory
MongoDB Advisory Corner

POC implementations, architectural reference designs, and technical decks from advisory engagements in telecom, finance, and retail — each access-gated per client.

☁️
🔒 Advisory
AWS Architect Corner

Three years of AWS advisory work: Well-Architected patterns, serverless blueprints, security architectures, GenAI implementations, and LATAM telco transformation playbooks.

⚡
◐ In Dev
More in the lab

Smart home automation, IoT sensor networks, and new MongoDB Atlas Vector Search experiments are in active development. New projects published here as they ship.

MongoDB Atlas IoT Vector Search

How I Got Here

I started in IT in 1994 as a technician at a call center in Costa Rica. Over the next several years I worked my way from hands-on support to running the company's data and telephony network. Learning technology under real operational pressure, with real users depending on it every day, set the foundation for everything that came after.

The next two decades took me through enterprise IT at scale: IT Manager at Grupo Britt, a multinational coffee producer and retail brand (built the first Cisco VoIP contact center in Central America and the first airport WiFi in Costa Rica), Infrastructure Manager at SYKES running 1,000+ seat data centers across 3 sites, then Director of IT at QSR International — overseeing technology for 151 restaurants across 16 countries in the Caribbean and Latin America, including early self-order kiosk and digital menu board rollouts.

Then I founded RichmondLabs and built several things over six years: a blockchain platform with a crypto wallet and European financial regulatory approvals, IoT remote monitoring for distributed properties, distributed digital signage networks, and consulting across network, ERP, and MDM transformations for companies in multiple industries and countries.

After that came three years at AWS as Senior Partner Solutions Architect, partnering with LATAM telecoms on their cloud journeys, contributing to GenAI roadshows and AWS Summits, and building technical content and enablement programs at scale.

Today I'm an Advisory Solutions Architect at MongoDB, helping enterprises modernise their data architectures, adopt cloud-native and AI-enabled systems, and get real value from the MongoDB platform. I hold a BSc in Computer Systems Engineering an MSc in Business Data Science, and more certifications than I probably need — though I do genuinely enjoy earning them.

Cybersecurity is a real passion, not a credential exercise — I hold the CISSP and CEH and have spent years on both the architecture and offensive side of the discipline. Outside work I'm usually on a bike — cycling and endurance sports are how I clear my head. I live in Mexico City with my wife and our dogs who have strong opinions about when the working day should end.

Certifications
🔒 CISSP — ISC² Security
🕵️ CEH — Certified Ethical Hacker Security
☁️ AWS Solutions Architect — Professional AWS
☁️ AWS Security — Specialty AWS
☁️ AWS Advanced Networking — Specialty AWS
☁️ AWS Machine Learning / GenAI AWS
🍃 MongoDB Certified DBA MongoDB
🍃 MongoDB Certified Developer MongoDB
🍃 MongoDB Data Modeler MongoDB
🍃 MongoDB Atlas Administrator MongoDB
Education
📊 MSc Business Data Science Graduate
🎓 BSc Computer Systems Engineering CS
Career snapshot
Advisory Solutions Architect
MongoDB · 2025–Present
Senior Partner Solutions Architect
Amazon Web Services · 2022–2025
Principal SA / Founder
RichmondLabs Consulting · 2016–2022
Director of Information Technology
QSR International · 2007–2016 · 16 countries
IT Infrastructure Manager
SYKES LATAM · 2003–2007 · 1,000+ seats
IT Manager
Grupo Britt · 2001–2003
Network Administrator
ACER Information Services · 1994–2001

Thoughts & Perspectives

30 years of opinions on data architecture, cloud security, and building things that last.

Topics I write about

Things I've actually done — and things I'm watching closely. All of it lives on LinkedIn for now.

MongoDB Atlas for enterprise modernisation — what actually works in production
Cloud security beyond compliance — a CISSP's real-world perspective
Lessons from 3 years at AWS: partner strategy, scale, and what LATAM wants from cloud
Building a blockchain company from scratch — what I'd do differently
GenAI for enterprise: separating the signal from the noise
Technologies on the horizon — what's coming next and why it matters now
Endurance racing and enterprise transformation — more in common than you think
Read my posts on LinkedIn

Architecture Notes

My public field notebook. Short ideas about architecture, data, AI, security, innovation, and technology decisions.

One Note. One idea. Less than a minute.
Open Architecture Notes

Let's build something serious.

Whether you're an engineering team working on a complex data problem, a recruiter looking for someone who's genuinely done it all, or a peer who wants to talk architecture — I'm always open to interesting conversations.