First Factory Development Team
Demonstrating passion and dedication every day
Jason T. Roff
Founder & CEO
Jason T. Roff
Founder & CEO
As Founder and CEO, Jason sets the example for the First Factory nearshore development team. Technically proficient, affable and with high standards, Jason remains hands on the day-to-operations. Early in his career, Jason worked as a software developer and development manager. Having authored six books sharing his experience and insight in the field, he was inspired to open First Factory in 2000. Among the initial entrepreneurs to believe in the success of building software development teams in Latin America, Jason chose Costa Rica for its proximity to the U.S., advanced education, economic stability, and beauty. This nearshore development model, now commonplace, has proven successful for over two decades.
Don Gregori
COO
Don Gregori
COO
Don is an innovative problem solver and effective leader with over 25 years of experience driving growth, cultivating talent, and shaping client experiences. Don assists clients in tailoring their product vision and defining candidates for AI proof-of-concept projects. Client collaborations help identify distinct selling points and maximizing efficiency by using data to inform feature prioritization. As part of the First Factory nearshore devleopment team, Don oversees business operations, human resources and the UX/UI design efforts.
Before joining in 2017, Don was a client for eight years. He was instantly impressed by the First Factory software development team he worked with. They were highly adept at learning new technologies (Scala, for example) and collaborating seamlessly to support all stakeholders. It quickly became evident that the unique First Factory culture offered a clear competitive advantage that could not be easily replicated.
Becca Troung
VP, Client Experience
Becca Troung
VP, Client Experience
After years of experience and career promotions in product management and business analysis from Kaplan Test Prep, Becca came to First Factory highly equipped to lead our teams to deliver quality products. She has a thorough background in leading full stack Agile Scrum teams, creating and maintaining product roadmaps and KPI management to ensure goals are met. At First Factory, Becca ensures the First Factory nearshore development team executes deliverables at the highest level of excellence and with empathy for the needs of our employees and clients.
Juan “JD” Sanchez
VP, Engineering
Juan “JD” Sanchez
VP, Engineering
Carolina Barahona
Talent Acquisition Manager
With over 7 years of experience in recruitment and talent acquisition, Carolina has developed a strong passion for connecting talented individuals with their dream careers.
Carolina possesses a comprehensive understanding of the soft skills necessary for success in the industry, allowing her to effectively assess a candidate’s cultural fit for the organization. She is adept at identifying top talent, cultivating relationships with candidates, and ensuring a seamless hiring process. Under her direction, her team takes great care in building out our nearshore software development team.
Melvin Durán
Business Operations Manager
Melvin has over 10 years of experience working in accounting and business management. He’s passionate about bridging the gap between Costa Rican regulation and business management. He’s worked with national and international clients to help them comply with Costa Rican laws and regulations. He understands the value of combining accounting and compliance tasks with good communication and people skills to promote a better comprehension of a business. Melvin is an avid music enthusiast who collects records and plays several instruments.
Natalia Rugama
Design Manager
With over 9 years of experience in diverse design areas, from art direction to accessibility, Natalia’s curious mindset is undoubtedly an essential asset for our success. Her extensive experience with multidisciplinary teams, workflow coordination, and support has brought her to seek a specialization in UX Management while learning more about Agile methodologies. Natalia is familiar with handling multiple projects simultaneously, setting priorities, and working directly with clients and stakeholders. Natalia feels it’s essential to take some time to empathize with clients’ needs, understand each project’s characteristics, and—most importantly—determine how to account for users and their needs.
Tatiana Durán
People Operations Manager
Passionate about human and organizational behavior, Tatiana started as an IT Recruiter and took every opportunity to move to a more people-centric role. Tatiana has honed a blend of skills in employee engagement, internal processes, and organizational development. Leveraging her experience and curiosity, Tatiana strives to drive initiatives that enhance the First Factory’s organizational culture. She is deeply committed to creating an environment where employees feel valued, motivated, and empowered to achieve their best work. She is convinced that a strong, positive workplace culture is the cornerstone of any successful organization. Outside of work, Tatiana is a Sommelier, a bookworm, and loves to learn new languages.
Ana Corrales
QA Manager
A highly skilled Senior Quality Assurance Engineer with 10+ years of experience, Ana has a strong technical background, including four years experience as a software developer. She has strong management skills, refined over five years of experience in Quality Assurance leadership roles and managing cross-functional teams and multidisciplinary projects. Ana is able to see the "big picture" while staying on top of all details, pointing out errors and possible risks, and making suggestions while implementing continuous improvement. She is a dedicated, analytical and organized professional that enjoys coaching, mentorship and training QA staff.
Christian Navarro
Engineering Manager
One of the originals, Christian has been a dedicated First Factory team member since 2011. Beginning as a Junior BackEnd .NET developer, he has consistently broadened his skill-set and knowledge base, working his way up to a FullStack Senior Engineer, then promoted to Technical Lead in 2020, and two years later, he joined the team of Engineering Managers. When he started at First Factory as one of only ten developers, Christian remembers the bonds of friendship and trust he formed with his colleagues. Now, he works as hard to foster a similar close-knit comradery within the teams he manages. As a teacher in First Factory's Academy program, Christian has discovered a passion for educating others and the importance of cultivating critical thinking and communication skills. He finds satisfaction in witnessing, first-hand, the incremental progress and growth of each student.
Gabriel Ulloa
Engineering Manager
Gabriel has over 10 years of experience building state of the art web applications in technologies like Angular, JavaScript, .Net and Java, Gabriel was a welcomed leadership addition to the First Factory nearshore software development team. He has been heavily involved in the leadership and management of full stack development teams, coaching every member to achieve their potential best. As a leader, Gabriel firmly believes empathy and great communication across every team member is key to achieve a highly effective team. He is always available for any team member that may require his help regardless of the day or time.
Johnn Castro
Senior Engineering Manager
Johnn is a talented software engineer and leader who loves building high-quality software and learning from other developers and peers. His extensive experience in implementing scalable solutions has helped his teams understand the importance of this practice and has created better efficiency in their work. He is highly proficient in web and mobile development technologies such as React.js, Angular, Node.js, React Native, Ionic and Cordova. Johnn is AWS certified and brings several years of experience working with different cloud computing technologies such as GCP, Azure and Digital Ocean to the team.
Pablo Rodríguez
Engineering Manager
Pablo has over seven years of experience in technical and leadership roles. He has worked on numerous engineering projects, both as a senior software engineer and development leader. His mentorship style is to encourage the experience of building up, maintaining and improving technical solutions for real-life problems by coding. His experience has allowed him to help lead his teams to achieve their full potential in the software development career field. Pablo is a firm believer that the success of a project is a direct result of clear and transparent communication between the involved parties.
Rocmer Hurtado
Engineering Manager
Rocmer, “Roc,” is an experienced software engineer who has over a dozen years of experience successfully creating innovative and tailored Java monolithic and microservices-based architecture solutions with a consultant history of expertise in the financial industries. Another part of his impressive background was transferring to another country to lead a team of backend developers for API and Services in order to reach a challenging deadline for a client. He proactively and rapidly utilizes emerging technologies as he leads teams of software developers to adapt to client needs and changes. Rocmer enjoys delivering long-term and scalable solutions as well as teaching and providing guidance to other software engineering professionals.
- All
- Technology
- People Ops
- IT
- Operations
- Project Management
- Branding & Design
Freddy
Technical Lead - Tier 2
Christian
Engineering Manager
Juan
Technical Lead - Tier 1
Erick
Technical Lead - Tier 1
Ariel
Senior Software Engineer
Guillermo
Senior Software Engineer
Yasmin
Senior Software Engineer
Gabriel
Technical Lead - Tier 1
Christofer
Engineering Manager
Steven
Software Engineer
Tatiana
People Operations Manager
Ale
Software Engineer
Greivin
Technical Lead - Tier 1
Fauricio
Senior Software Engineer
Jorge
Technical Lead - Tier 1
Mary
Senior Software Engineer
Daniel
Senior Software Engineer
Johnn
Director of Engineering
Wolfie
IT Support Specialist
Carlos
Senior Software Engineer
Peggy
HR & Benefits Coordinator
Juan
Senior Software Engineer
Joaquín
Senior Software Engineer
Carolina
Talent Acquisition Manager
Aura
Office Cleaner
Patrick
Senior Software Engineer
Chiara
Product Owner
William
Senior Software Engineer
Pablo
Senior Engineering Manager
Luis
Software Engineer
Diego
Software Engineer
Jafeth
Software Engineer
David
Senior Software Engineer
Adrián
Software Engineer
Diego
Software Engineer
Sergio
Senior Software Engineer
Keylor
Senior Software Engineer
Alvaro
Senior Software Engineer
Sean
Software Engineer
Luis
Software Engineer
Juan
Software Engineer
Marco
Software Engineer
Jorge
Software Engineer
Alvaro
Technical Lead - Tier 1
Pablo
Senior Software Engineer
Marcela
Senior Software Engineer
Carolina
Software Engineer
Alfredo
Senior Software Engineer
Carlos
Senior Software Engineer
Becca
VP, Client Experience
Johanna
Software Engineer
Ana Isabel
QA Engineering Manager
Randy
Technical Lead - Tier 1
Leo
Software Engineer
Alonso
Senior Software Engineer
Rocmer
Engineering Manager
Daniel
Software Engineer
Kevin
Senior Software Engineer
Melvin
Business Operations Manager
Isaac
Software Engineer
Luis
Software Engineer
Kenneth
QA Engineer
Roberto
Senior Software Engineer
Jose
Senior Software Engineer
Adriana
QA Automation Engineer
Josué
Software Engineer
Sofía
Senior UX/UI Designer
Nathalia
Talent Placement Coordinator
Andrea
QA Engineer
Jorge
QA Automation Engineer
Ronald
Senior Software Engineer
Rodrigo
Senior Software Engineer
Christian
Senior Software Engineer
Luis
QA Engineer
Jennifer
Senior Software Engineer
Paula
Senior Software Engineer
Oscar
Senior Software Engineer
Daniel
Software Developer
Manuel
Senior Software Engineer
Rónald
Software Engineer
Mariano
QA Engineer
Charlie
Software Developer
Humberto
Senior Software Engineer
David
Software Developer
Julian
Software Engineer
Juan
Senior Software Engineer
Laura
Senior Scrum Master
Juan Carlos
IT Security Officer
Daniela
Senior UX/UI Designer
Sebastián
Senior Software Engineer
Alejandro
Software Engineer
Arlen
Software Developer
José
Software Engineer
Pablo
QA Engineer
Daniel
Technical Lead - Tier 1
Manuel
Senior Software Engineer
Johel
Technical Lead - Tier 1
Gabriel
Senior Engineering Manager
Rachel
Software Developer
Kevin
Software Engineer
Josie
IT Recruiter
Didier
Software Engineer
Claudio
Software Engineer
Josue
Software Engineer
Joshua
Software Developer
Gerald
Software Engineer
Víctor
QA Engineer
Franklin
QA Engineer
Kevin
Software Engineer
Élder
IT Support Specialist
Pablo
Technical Lead - Tier 1
Alejandro
Senior Software Engineer
Juan
Engineering Manager
Adrián
Senior Software Engineer
Isaac
Software Engineer
Esteban
Senior Software Engineer
Guillermo
Software Developer
Jibran
Software Developer
Johandro
Software Engineer
Ronald
Business Analyst
Marco
Senior Software Engineer
Nati
Design Manager
Jorge
Software Developer
Kevin
Junior Software Developer
Verny
Product Owner
Mariana
Junior Software Developer
Jesús
QA Engineer
Gerick
Junior Software Developer
Carolina
IT Recruiter
Fer
Full Stack Designer
Mónica
QA Engineer
Erick
Senior Software Engineer
Pedro
Senior Software Engineer
Laura
Product Owner
Priscilla
QA Engineer
Jose
Product Owner
Jean
QA Engineer
Fabi
Junior Software Developer
Jake
Software Developer
Roger
Junior Software Developer
Jehosua
Junior Software Developer
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