PreVetted Podcast

Federico Ramallo
  • 5.0 (2)
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • UPDATED MONTHLY

Federico Ramallo spotlights extraordinary people, their great stories and remarkable talent that's reshaping our world! Powered by Density Labs - https://densitylabs.io

  1. #103 Dan Perera: Human-Centered AI Automation That Makes Tech Simple, Scalable, Profitable

    11H AGO

    #103 Dan Perera: Human-Centered AI Automation That Makes Tech Simple, Scalable, Profitable

    Dan Perera explains what JX does in simple terms: they help organizations—from small businesses to large enterprises—solve real operational problems using technology, including workflow automation, dashboards, custom software (ERP/CRM/SaaS), AI integrations, and even blockchain solutions when it fits. Dan emphasizes that every system and process ultimately comes back to people, so JX starts by understanding the human side of the problem before building anything. Dan shares what pushed him to start JX after two decades across corporate, startups, and consulting in multiple regions (Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, the Middle East, the UK, and North America). He saw too many teams “patch” problems instead of solving them, and he built his company around asking the hard questions and addressing the “elephant in the room.” A key discussion is trust in AI automation when AI can be non-deterministic. Dan explains a practical approach: AI shouldn’t run everything end-to-end. Companies can use existing models (like OpenAI) for specific tasks while keeping sensitive data inside their own systems, using a middleware layer and clear boundaries around what information gets shared. He also compares local models vs large general models, explaining why local models can deliver more accurate, consistent results in a business context because they learn a narrower, highly relevant dataset and reduce hallucinations. Federico and Dan explore how “simple, scalable, and profitable” connects: consistency and accuracy drive better decisions, scalability, and ultimately profit. Dan also explains JX’s discovery process: mapping the full workflow, identifying pain points, prioritizing low-hanging wins vs longer-term improvements, and defining a clear future state before recommending automation or AI. They close with lessons learned. Dan highlights a common early founder mistake: ignoring finance and cash flow, and advises entrepreneurs to learn accounting, regulations, and legal basics early. For career growth, he encourages people to think bigger, avoid being boxed in, and invest in communication skills—because great ideas only matter if people can understand and trust you. Final takeaway: AI is here to stay, but adopt it with intention—humanize the solution, put customers and employees at the center, and use AI where it truly improves outcomes. About Dan perera: - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-perera-jxdesign/ About Federico Ramallo ✨👨‍💻🌎 🚀 Software Engineering Manager | 🛠 Founder of DensityLabs.io & PreVetted.ai | 🤝 Connecting 🇺🇸 U.S. teams with top nearshore 🌎 LATAM engineers - 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/framallo/ - 🌐 https://densitylabs.io - ✅ https://prevetted.ai 🎙 PreVetted Podcast 🎧📡 - 🎯 https://prevetted.ai/podcast - 🐦 https://x.com/PrevettedPod - 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/prevetted-podcast 00:00 Introduction to AI and Automation 04:00 The Journey of Building a Tech Company 09:54 Trusting AI in Automation 24:58 Making Technology Simple, Scalable, and Profitable 26:54 Identifying Workflows for Automation 31:19 The Role of AI in Business 39:07 Lessons Learned from Early Career Mistakes

    51 min
  2. #102 Ninh Tran: Using AI to Help Nonprofits and Impact Founders Win Grant Funding Faster

    3D AGO

    #102 Ninh Tran: Using AI to Help Nonprofits and Impact Founders Win Grant Funding Faster

    Ninh Tran joins the PreVetted Podcast to share his journey from Vietnam to the Czech Republic, and later to the United States—each move opening new doors and reshaping how he thinks about opportunity, work, and impact. He talks honestly about growing up as one of the only Asian kids in his class, facing discrimination, and eventually building deep friendships that still last today. Ninh explains how studying economics and working in tech shifted his worldview: he wanted to solve poverty, but became disheartened by how often corruption—not policy—blocks real progress. That realization pushed him back toward entrepreneurship and building tools that create practical, local opportunity. He shares early lessons from building products for food truck owners and then co-founding hireEZ (formerly Hiretual), where the team helped hundreds of thousands of people find jobs during COVID. After hireEZ, Ninh focused on “helping the helpers.” He saw nonprofits doing the hardest work on the ground—yet struggling to afford software and facing widening funding gaps. That led to Grav.id (Gravity/Grav.ID), an AI-powered platform that helps nonprofits and impact founders find matching grants and generate higher-quality proposals in just a few clicks. Ninh shares how his team achieved a 100% grant win rate for their own applications, then watched early nonprofit users win major grants with the tool—proof that the approach worked. He breaks down what makes grant funding hard today: low win rates, poor matching, low-quality AI-generated proposals flooding funders, and the rising importance of trust and relationships. Ninh also explains why “not applying enough” is often the biggest mistake, and why having paperwork, reporting, and a strong data room ready matters as much as the application itself. Finally, Ninh offers founder advice: start now, execute, pivot when you’re dragging users to your product, and build something people truly need—and are already paying for. He closes with thoughts on sustainability, including how nonprofits can responsibly generate revenue without losing the integrity of their mission, and invites mission-driven founders and leaders to connect. About Ninh Tran: - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ninhtran08/ - https://www.grav.id/ About Federico Ramallo ✨👨‍💻🌎 🚀 Software Engineering Manager | 🛠 Founder of DensityLabs.io & PreVetted.ai | 🤝 Connecting 🇺🇸 U.S. teams with top nearshore 🌎 LATAM engineers - 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/framallo/ - 🌐 https://densitylabs.io - ✅ https://prevetted.ai 🎙 PreVetted Podcast 🎧📡 - 🎯 https://prevetted.ai/podcast - 🐦 https://x.com/PrevettedPod - 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/prevetted-podcast 00:00 Nin Tran's Journey: From Vietnam to the Czech Republic 04:03 Transformative Moments: Shifting Perspectives on Work and Life 07:03 The Birth of Gravity: Addressing Nonprofit Funding Challenges 10:03 Understanding Nonprofits: Who Can Benefit from Grav.ID? 14:11 Navigating the Grant Funding Landscape: Challenges and Solutions 17:49 Common Mistakes in Grant Applications: What to Avoid 22:20 The Art of Pivoting: Knowing When to Change Direction 27:37 Advice for Aspiring Founders: Just Start! 32:25 Innovative Solutions: Merging Nonprofit and For-Profit Models

    39 min
  3. #101 Manisha Sahni: Leading Global Engineering Teams with Trust, Clarity, and Intention

    FEB 20

    #101 Manisha Sahni: Leading Global Engineering Teams with Trust, Clarity, and Intention

    Manisha Sahni joins to unpack the real challenges of managing global engineering teams—beyond time zones and into the “hidden work” of leadership. Manisha explains why distributed teams don’t run on autopilot: leaders must intentionally build unity, ownership, and belonging across cultures. She shares how trust is created through consistent connection—not only through work meetings, but also through lightweight social moments that turn “avatars into friends” and reduce friction in daily collaboration. The conversation dives into practical operating rhythms for multi-time-zone teams: choosing which meetings truly need to be live, leaning heavily on asynchronous communication, and raising the bar for documentation and handoffs. Manisha highlights how explicit written context—assumptions, decisions, and expectations—becomes essential when teams are distributed, and how rotating meeting times can spread the load fairly across regions. They also explore common cultural mismatches: some engineers may avoid challenging senior leaders in group settings, while others thrive with ambiguity and research-driven ownership. Manisha shares coaching stories showing how leaders can adjust their style to unlock performance—by clarifying expectations, involving engineers in decision-making, and practicing “assume positive intent” with curiosity instead of judgment. Federico adds examples from Latin America about why people sometimes say “yes” to be polite, creating alignment issues unless expectations are validated early. Finally, Manisha shares what led her to become a fractional engineering leader: she loves learning new domains, helping startups and scale-ups through transitions, and delivering focused outcomes when companies need senior leadership but aren’t ready for a full-time hire. She remains open to both fractional and full-time roles—depending on where she can create the most meaningful impact. If you lead global teams (or plan to), this episode is a practical reminder: intentional relationships + clear expectations are what make distributed execution actually work. About Manisha Sahni: - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manishasahni/ - https://www.manishasahni.com/ - https://www.manishasahni.com/mentorship About Federico Ramallo ✨👨‍💻🌎 🚀 Software Engineering Manager | 🛠 Founder of DensityLabs.io & PreVetted.ai | 🤝 Connecting 🇺🇸 U.S. teams with top nearshore 🌎 LATAM engineers - 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/framallo/ - 🌐 https://densitylabs.io - ✅ https://prevetted.ai 🎙 PreVetted Podcast 🎧📡 - 🎯 https://prevetted.ai/podcast - 🐦 https://x.com/PrevettedPod - 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/prevetted-podcast 00:00 Introduction to Manisha Sahni 01:23 Challenges of Managing Remote Teams 05:46 Effective Operating Rhythms for Distributed Teams 09:03 Building Personal Relationships in Remote Work 10:47 The Importance of Intentional Connections 16:30 Cultural Differences in Engineering Teams 22:47 Understanding Team Dynamics and Cultural Differences 26:06 The Importance of Setting Expectations 28:37 Navigating Change Management in Organizations 32:09 The Role of One-on-Ones in Team Communication 39:19 Transitioning to Fractional Leadership

    43 min
  4. #100 Charlene Li: Winning with AI, Speed as the Moat and the 90-Day Blueprint

    FEB 17

    #100 Charlene Li: Winning with AI, Speed as the Moat and the 90-Day Blueprint

    Charlene Li joins Federico Ramallo for a special 100th-episode conversation on disruptive leadership, business transformation, and her upcoming book Winning with AI. Charlene shares how she “fell into” being an analyst and author—starting at Forrester in 1999 after stepping back from running businesses to focus on family—then building a career at the front edge of major tech disruptions: the internet, search, social media, and now generative AI. They unpack why ChatGPT’s interface was a breakthrough that made AI accessible to anyone with a browser, and why adoption often comes down to how people interact with AI—whether through chat, voice, apps, dashboards, or embedded tools like CRMs. Charlene explains that “winning” with AI is not about using shiny tools or chasing ROI in the abstract; it’s about creating or extending competitive advantage based on each organization’s definition of success. Her key message: AI must serve the business strategy, not run alongside it. Charlene outlines why she chose a 90-day plan: leaders need a clear starting point. The 90-day blueprint helps teams align AI to strategy, build momentum, and create a rolling 18-month roadmap—where strategy is “written in ink,” but plans are “written in pencil” and updated quarterly. She argues that when everyone has access to similar models and tools, speed becomes the moat—not just adopting AI quickly, but adapting the organization quickly. A major theme is that digital transformation is never about the technology—it’s about people. Charlene compares building trust in AI to onboarding a new hire: train, evaluate, delegate, and add QA (including “AI checking AI”) based on your organization’s tolerance for risk. They also explore AI fluency, identity disruption as roles change, and how leaders can support teams through ongoing transformation without burning people out. Charlene closes with practical advice: ignore hype by anchoring AI to your biggest goals and problems, learn by doing (and learning publicly), and lean into new ways of working—like “vibe coding”—that may democratize building tools while requiring “Goldilocks governance” to stay safe and fast. About Charlene Li: - https://winningwithaibook.com - https://charleneli.com About Federico Ramallo ✨👨‍💻🌎 🚀 Software Engineering Manager | 🛠 Founder of DensityLabs.io & PreVetted.ai | 🤝 Connecting 🇺🇸 U.S. teams with top nearshore 🌎 LATAM engineers - 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/framallo/ - 🌐 https://densitylabs.io - ✅ https://prevetted.ai 🎙 PreVetted Podcast 🎧📡 - 🎯 https://prevetted.ai/podcast - 🐦 https://x.com/PrevettedPod - 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/prevetted-podcast 00:00 Introduction to Charlene Li and Her Work 01:30 Journey into Business Transformation and AI 02:54 The Impact of AI on Business Strategy 06:26 Defining Success with AI 10:53 Creating a 90-Day AI Roadmap 13:47 Speed as a Competitive Advantage 15:19 Transforming Organizations with AI 18:04 Connecting AI to Business Strategy 20:05 The Role of CEOs in AI Adoption 22:51 AI as a Collaborative Assistant 25:56 Building Trust in AI Decision-Making 29:36 The Future of Jobs in an AI World 30:52 Fostering AI Fluency in Teams 32:47 Navigating Identity Changes with AI 36:26 The Importance of Continuous Learning 38:05 Avoiding AI Hype and Focusing on Value 41:48 The Future of No-Code and Low-Code Solutions 44:54 Differentiation in an AI-Driven World

    52 min
  5. #99 Three lessons from Open the valve. Because creativity loves a triangle.

    FEB 5

    #99 Three lessons from Open the valve. Because creativity loves a triangle.

    John Klymshyn & Isaac Naor join Federico Ramallo for a special episode: three voices, three lessons, and three stories inspired by Open the Valve, the third installment in the “Intersections That Illuminate” series. They unpack how creativity shows up at key intersections—like rest and risk, language and music, and brain and mind—and why this book is meant as encouragement for creative practitioners, not a step-by-step “how-to.” The conversation moves from big themes to real moments: gratitude as a daily posture, a shooting star as a reminder to grab what’s fleeting, and how collaboration can sharpen (and lovingly challenge) the work. Federico shares how co-authoring the Spanish adaptation, Abre la Válvula, became more than translation—bringing cultural context, humor, and meaning so the ideas truly land across Latin America, Spain, and beyond. They also explore a core idea: creativity can be solitary, but it doesn’t have to be lonely—solitude can mean focus, purpose, and momentum. The episode closes with a simple invitation: start anywhere, take notes, and then go make something—because the point is to open the valve and let the work flow through you. About Open the valve: - https://openthevalve.com/ About Federico Ramallo ✨👨‍💻🌎 🚀 Software Engineering Manager | 🛠 Founder of DensityLabs.io & PreVetted.ai | 🤝 Connecting 🇺🇸 U.S. teams with top nearshore 🌎 LATAM engineers - 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/framallo/ - 🌐 https://densitylabs.io - ✅ https://prevetted.ai 🎙 PreVetted Podcast 🎧📡 - 🎯 https://prevetted.ai/podcast - 🐦 https://x.com/PrevettedPod - 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/prevetted-podcast

    42 min
  6. #98 John Karsant: SDRs in the Age of AI, Cold Calling, and Building Pipeline Without Hiring

    FEB 2

    #98 John Karsant: SDRs in the Age of AI, Cold Calling, and Building Pipeline Without Hiring

    John Karsant shares the unexpected path that took him from college tennis and coaching to sales, remote work, and ultimately founding LevelUp Leads in 2021. John explains how a bold life move—quitting coaching and moving to Argentina to learn Spanish—pushed him to find one of the rare remote roles available in 2015, where he became the first SDR at a small startup and learned sales by wearing multiple hats. In this conversation, John breaks down what appointment setting really looks like today and why many companies choose outsourced SDR support instead of building an internal team. He explains the real costs and risks of hiring in-house (tools, management, ramp time, churn) and why SDR turnover makes consistency hard to maintain. John also walks through the different ways teams use outsourced outbound: testing new markets, launching new products, expanding internationally with native English speakers, or covering peak demand around conferences and events. Federico and John dive into what’s working now across outbound channels. John shares why cold calling is the strongest single channel today, and why a multi-channel approach (calls + email + LinkedIn) can improve conversion by adding touchpoints and awareness. They also talk about common mistakes companies make—especially setting unrealistic meeting goals without prior outbound data—and why outbound should often start as a testing and learning process, not an immediate ROI play. John offers a practical view on when to adjust campaigns and how to avoid overreacting too early. Finally, John tackles the big question: SDRs in the age of AI. He shares why most buyers assume messages are AI-written, how to keep personalization human, and why real relationships—podcasts, events, in-person connections—matter more than ever. He closes with his outlook on the future of SDR work: outbound is getting harder and more crowded, but the need for human-to-human selling isn’t going away. About John Karsant: - https://levelupleads.io - https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnkarsant/ - https://x.com/Jkarsant About Federico Ramallo ✨👨‍💻🌎 🚀 Software Engineering Manager | 🛠 Founder of DensityLabs.io & PreVetted.ai | 🤝 Connecting 🇺🇸 U.S. teams with top nearshore 🌎 LATAM engineers - 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/framallo/ - 🌐 https://densitylabs.io - ✅ https://prevetted.ai 🎙 PreVetted Podcast 🎧📡 - 🎯 https://prevetted.ai/podcast - 🐦 https://x.com/PrevettedPod - 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/prevetted-podcast

    26 min
  7. #97 Michael Green: Building “Tunnels of Truth” to Detect Weapons and Prevent Targeted Violence

    FEB 2

    #97 Michael Green: Building “Tunnels of Truth” to Detect Weapons and Prevent Targeted Violence

    Michael Green explains why he co-founded Athena Security and how a real, heartbreaking incident in 2023 reinforced the urgency of their mission: saving lives by detecting and denying weapons—and sometimes dangerous people—before they enter facilities. He shares how targeted violence can slip through gaps in coverage and how that reality pushed his team to deploy faster and more widely. Federico and Michael unpack what it takes for security programs to work in the real world. Michael explains that detection is only part of the system: outcomes depend on disciplined processes, well-designed secondary screening, and consistent officer performance over time. They discuss the core tradeoff every organization faces—accuracy, speed, and convenience—and the “necessary friction” required to keep environments safe without overwhelming staff with alarms or fatigue. Michael breaks down Athena’s approach to weapons screening using multi-frequency electromagnetic detection to identify metallic contraband, with customers setting the “threat target” based on what they want to keep out. He describes how most teams handle alerts through secondary screening (often with hand wands), and why higher sensitivity (like detecting small blades) inevitably increases alarms and workload. They also cover the challenges of 24/7 operations versus event venues, where staffing is concentrated for a short window. The conversation goes beyond weapons: Michael highlights rising concerns like phones and smart devices as new forms of contraband and data risk, and explains why schools face unique challenges due to large perimeters and the creativity of students. He also outlines how Athena uses AI to increase accountability—confirming officers are present, resolving alarms with documented reasons, and providing audit trails and system health monitoring. Finally, Michael shares his vision for the next 3–5 years: a convergence of systems—weapon screening, X-ray, visitor management, access control, and video—into a unified security operations view, moving toward a more seamless, less manual “tunnel of truth” experience. About Michael Green: - https://www.athena-security.com/ - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelleonardgreen/ About Federico Ramallo ✨👨‍💻🌎 🚀 Software Engineering Manager | 🛠 Founder of DensityLabs.io & PreVetted.ai | 🤝 Connecting 🇺🇸 U.S. teams with top nearshore 🌎 LATAM engineers - 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/framallo/ - 🌐 https://densitylabs.io - ✅ https://prevetted.ai 🎙 PreVetted Podcast 🎧📡 - 🎯 https://prevetted.ai/podcast - 🐦 https://x.com/PrevettedPod - 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/prevetted-podcast 00:00 Introduction to Athena Security and Its Mission 00:58 The Importance of Threat Detection Technology 05:25 Innovative Screening Solutions for Public Safety 07:23 Challenges in Different Environments 11:45 Balancing Accuracy, Speed, and Convenience 14:12 Common Failures in Security Technology 16:37 Choosing the Right Detection Setup 19:47 The Future of Threat Detection Technology

    22 min
  8. #96 Swati Swoboda: Metaprogramming Shopify, Rails Love, and the AI-Accelerated Engineer

    JAN 29

    #96 Swati Swoboda: Metaprogramming Shopify, Rails Love, and the AI-Accelerated Engineer

    Swati Swoboda traces her path from an eighth-grade research project on a library computer to leading development for Vault in Shopify’s Office of the CEO—work she calls “metaprogramming the company.” In this conversation, Swati and Federico dive into the arc of modern engineering: from Classic ASP and hand-editing production files to Rails’ elegant conventions, from code reviews to reading far more code than you write, and from individual craftsmanship to orchestrating AI agents at scale. Swati’s origin story begins pre-Google, when Yahoo directories and Ask Jeeves sparked a fascination with how the web worked. A 37signals (Basecamp) redesign demo later revealed the power of product and UX to remove friction from everyday tasks—an ethos that still guides her. She reminisces about Classic ASP (“Response.write everywhere”), the security lessons of SQL injection, and why C# plus Visual Studio felt magical—before discovering how Rails’ readability and conventions make both writing and reading code feel like prose. Inside Shopify, Swati explains Vault, the internal system that houses projects, reviews, and company knowledge. Through the GSD cadence, leaders (including founder/CEO Tobi) review thousands of projects on a regular rhythm, creating alignment, shared context, and accountability. Is that bureaucracy? Swati’s view: every company has bureaucracy; the question is whether it creates clarity and reduces waste—duplicate work, abandoned efforts, and misaligned launches that erode trust with merchants. Vault acts like GPS for work: it surfaces direction, status, risks, and trade-offs so teams can move faster in the same direction. On autonomy vs. micromanagement, Swati draws a line between intrusive time-tracking and principled, opinionated leadership. Engineers “earn agency” by aligning frequently, exposing assumptions, and inviting context. AI is everywhere in her workflow. Shopify teams use Claude and agents heavily, which means 100+ PRs in a day isn’t unusual. The skill that shines now is less about hand-optimizing algorithms and more about communication, problem framing, and system design: expressing outcomes, sharing context, and rigorously steering agents. PMs can “vibe-code” prototypes to validate ideas; engineers elevate to higher-leverage problems and faster learning loops. Far from shrinking the field, Swati expects AI to create more engineers overall (though fewer per company), with roles blending product sense, architectural judgment, security awareness, and foundational CS literacy. Themes you’ll hear throughout: build tools that reduce pain; prefer clarity to speed when it protects trust; ship to learn, then iterate; and treat culture as a product you can shape with systems. It’s a candid tour through how a founder-led company scales alignment, why Rails still “fits the brain,” and how the next generation of engineers will manage fleets of intelligent collaborators to deliver real-world impact. About Swati Swoboda: - https://x.com/swatiswoboda About Federico Ramallo ✨👨‍💻🌎 🚀 Software Engineering Manager | 🛠 Founder of DensityLabs.io & PreVetted.ai | 🤝 Connecting 🇺🇸 U.S. teams with top nearshore 🌎 LATAM engineers - 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/framallo/ - 🌐 https://densitylabs.io - ✅ https://prevetted.ai 🎙 PreVetted Podcast 🎧📡 - 🎯 https://prevetted.ai/podcast - 🐦 https://x.com/PrevettedPod - 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/prevetted-podcast 00:00 Introduction to Swati Swoboda 01:40 Swati's Origin Story in Software Development 04:41 The Impact of Engineering on User Experience 06:38 Rails vs. Other Programming Languages 09:35 The Beauty of Code and Readability 11:15 The Evolution of Programming Languages 15:42 Metaprogramming at Shopify 20:23 Company Culture and Project Alignment 22:44 Avoiding Wasted Efforts in Engineering 25:04 Balancing Bureaucracy and Innovation 27:07 Learning from Mistakes and Iteration 35:28 AI's Role in Software Development 46:31 The Future of Engineering with AI

    48 min
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About

Federico Ramallo spotlights extraordinary people, their great stories and remarkable talent that's reshaping our world! Powered by Density Labs - https://densitylabs.io

Information

  • Creator
    Federico Ramallo
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    105
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Federico Ramallo
  • Show Website
    PreVetted Podcast