Santiago Bolaños Vega

AI Builder at Groupon

About

I work as an AI Builder at Groupon, in Chicago.

I recently graduated from Carnegie Mellon with a Master's in Information Systems Management, with a summer as an AI engineering intern at Atria along the way.

It started at Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, where I studied Systems and Computer Engineering.

This site is mostly a look back. The work of the last few years deserves a place to live, and putting it together has shown me how much I've grown.

The rest is here because sometimes, I just want to share.

I'm from Bogotá, Colombia.

What I miss most about Colombia is my dog, Shiro, my best adventure buddy.

My dream is to sail the Pacific.

These days I'm trying to do more bouldering, yoga and pilates at First Ascent in Chicago.

Experience

  • May 2026 — now

    AI Builder

    Groupon

    I'm part of the CEO team. My work has focused on go-to-market strategy, but above all I'm helping Groupon become an AI-first company.

  • Jun – Aug 2025

    AI Engineering Intern

    Atria

    Contributed to the development and testing of modular AI agent frameworks supporting scalable automation for enterprise clients across industries.

    • Built modular context management system with 350+ reusable instructions, enabling dynamic prompt generation across 50+ client deployments
    • Developed simulation and evaluation agents to test AI performance and automate QA processes across product lifecycles
    • Created interactive analytics dashboards for monitoring conversion funnels and agent KPIs

  • Apr 2023 – Jul 2024

    Senior IT Consultant

    Bip Consulting

    Led high-impact data and technology transformation projects across banking, government, and industrial clients, combining technical execution with stakeholder alignment.

    • Led the data and technology workstream for a Caribbean banking merger, coordinating cross-team efforts to ensure accurate migration of 8,000+ accounts with zero downtime
    • Conducted hyperscale data center feasibility study for Barranquilla City Government
    • Co-authored and presented 19 commercial proposals, securing 7 approved projects (36% conversion rate)

  • Oct 2021 – Mar 2023

    IT Consultant

    Bip Consulting

    Delivered digital transformation and IT architecture initiatives for financial, insurance, and public sector clients, focusing on cloud modernization and analytics readiness.

    • Defined IT and data strategy for the stock market regulator AMV with an Azure-based architecture for market surveillance and fraud detection
    • Performed technical due diligence for InsurTech Monokera on behalf of investor Krealo
    • Developed Power BI dashboards to track loan portfolio performance and inform executive decision-making

  • Jan – Jul 2021

    IT Consultant Intern

    Bip Consulting

    Supported IT and process optimization projects across industrial and financial clients, focusing on ERP selection, process analysis, and Lean interventions.

    • Collected ERP requirements and evaluated Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, and Oracle solutions for an industrial client
    • Applied Lean methodology to streamline procurement and payment processes, identifying measurable cost savings

Education

  • Aug 2024 – Dec 2025

    M.S. Information Systems Management

    Carnegie Mellon University

    Heinz College, with focus on AI engineering, distributed systems, and production ML pipelines.

  • Aug 2017 – Dec 2021

    B.Sc. Systems and Computer Engineering

    Universidad de Los Andes

    A strong foundation in software architecture, web systems, and process optimization.

View full résumé

Projects

  • 2025

    AI Agents Context Management Feature

    Atria

    A shared library of versioned instructions that every client agent draws from, so a change is made once and reaches every assistant using it.

    • JavaScript
    • React
    • Node.js
    • Express
    • MongoDB

  • 2025

    Testing Framework with Simulation & Evaluation Agents

    Atria

    A harness that replays real conversations against an agent and has a second model score each transcript against the client's own criteria.

    • OpenRouter
    • OpenAI
    • JavaScript
    • AWS Lambda
    • MongoDB

  • 2024

    Data Migration for Banking Acquisition

    Bip Consulting

    Directed the data and technology workstream for a banking merger; led end-to-end migration with full validation, inter-team coordination, and zero client disruption.

    • SQL
    • Python
    • APIs

  • 2021

    Digital Transformation Roadmap

    Bip Consulting

    Developed a digital transformation roadmap integrating governance, innovation, and user engagement to strengthen Banco W’s market position.

Chicago, IL