Alessandro Bahgat

Alessandro Bahgat

Software Engineering Leader
I am the VP of Software Engineering at Quilt, a climate-tech company building intelligent heat pumps to decarbonize homes. I lead the software organization across embedded systems, cloud, mobile and web.
Previously, I spent over a decade at Google working on Travel products, where I founded and scaled engineering teams working on greenfield products, launched features reaching hundreds of millions of users, and bridged research and product to drive industry-level impact.
You can find out about my professional activity in the Experience section below.
Before starting my career in the industry, I spent some time at the Artificial Intelligence laboratory of the University of Milano–Bicocca and published articles on Genetic Algorithms, Neural Networks, Cellular Automata and Natural Language Processing.
On this site, you can find my technical projects and writing on software engineering and leadership. Any opinions expressed here are my own and do not represent those of my employer.
If you would like to get in touch, the best way to do so is to email me.

Recent Posts

View all posts »

Articles on software engineering, leadership, and technical exploration.

· 6 min read

Delivering feedback is a critical part of my day job as a manager at Google. However, it took me a while to realize that receiving feedback is one of the skills that helped me grow the most in my career. Here a few things I learned in the process.

Programming Machine Learning

Programming Machine Learning

· 2 min read

A book written with developers in mind, covering Machine Learning with a hands-on approach. Each new topic is introduced by laying out a real world problem, guiding readers through implementing a working solution based on ML algorithms and then explaining the theoretical foundations in a very accessible way.

· 8 min read

A while ago, I found myself in the enviable position of having to rapidly grow my team. Here a list of the most important characteristics I learned to value in anyone I work with, regardless of job function.

Visual and HTML Testing for Static Sites

Visual and HTML Testing for Static Sites

· 14 min read

I set up a CI/CD pipeline to test my website for markup and rendering issues. It proved to be so useful that I can not imagine going back.

Zing LED Smart Night Light

Zing LED Smart Night Light

· 4 min read

I liked these WiFi enabled, motion-sensing night lights so far, I only wish they had 3 more features.

Projects

Technical Exploration & Open Source

I believe that effective engineering leadership requires staying close to the technology. In my spare time, I explore new tools and contribute to open-source projects, focusing on systems design and AI-native workflows.
Below are some of the projects I've built or contributed to over the years. You can find more of my work and experiments on GitHub.
Safish

Safish

An App for Android to get advice on which types of seafood are safe to eat while pregnant or breastfeeding, based on mercury levels.

Java Generalized Suffix Tree

Java Generalized Suffix Tree

A Java implementation of a Generalized Suffix Tree using Ukkonen's algorithm supporting fast (<0.1 ms) lookups over a large set of strings.

Novlet

Novlet

Platform for collaborative non-linear story writing.

Experience

More on LinkedIn

VP of Software Engineering
Quilt
2024 - Present

Leading the software organization across embedded systems, cloud, and mobile at a climate-tech company building intelligent heat pumps.

Senior Engineering Lead & Manager
Google
2012 - 2024

Over 12 years at Google, held roles from Technical Solutions Engineer to Engineering Lead across the Travel organization. Founded and scaled the Travel Sustainability engineering org, established the Travel Impact Model adopted by Skyscanner and Expedia, launched emission labels in Google Flights, and co-founded the Travel Packages vertical.

Project Lead
NTT Data Italia
2007 - 2012

Technical lead responsible for the design and development of several enterprise applications based on a diverse set of technologies, ranging from pure backend to full stack.

Contact Me

Location

Redwood City, CA

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@abahgat