Senior Software Engineer & Technical Lead
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Nine years of building things other people depend on: five at NTUA, one in uniform, half a year at IBM inside a bank, and two and a half leading platform work at an AI healthcare startup whose software now runs in four U.S. hospitals. One published paper along the way.
Hard problems with real users attached, a team that reviews each other honestly, and enough ownership to fix the root cause instead of the symptom. Remote, hybrid or Athens-based.
If the island convinced you, the Radio Center is a two-minute walk south.
Joined an AI healthcare startup founded by MIT Professor Dimitris Bertsimas as one of its first engineers, and grew into Technical Lead of the flagship Nurse Scheduling platform, concept to production, with teams across Greece, Boston and Morocco.
Technical lead on every one of these: the architecture, the decisions, the reviews and the delivery into the hospital.
Secure and scalable, or it does not ship.
Applicable to remote physiotherapy supervision: the patient’s own phone does the assessment, so nothing leaves the device.
Compliance analysis of movement exercises using machine learning: a system that watches how a movement is performed and judges it against how it should be performed. Supervised by Prof. Panagiotis Tsanakas, Dean of the School of ECE, who called it "marked by scientific soundness and technological originality" and graded it with distinction. Three years later it became a published paper.
In his third year the faculty assemblies were being run by party-political groups with their own interests, and the students’ own problems were not getting a hearing. He and a few others founded an independent movement of ECE students, to get real representation by democratic means and to solve students’ issues rather than political ones.
Same discipline, different terrain: stand-ups instead of formations, on-call instead of watch.
Christos (Kitsos) Orfanopoulos was my student in the following undergraduate courses: Operating Systems, and Software Service Technologies. He was a diligent student with a strong interest in the subjects, as his performance in the assignments and examinations of those courses shows. I also had the opportunity to supervise his diploma thesis, on "Compliance analysis of movement exercises using machine learning techniques". That thesis was marked by scientific soundness and technological originality, and was deservedly graded with distinction.
At the same time, Kitsos was active within the Polytechnic, helping younger students through their first academic steps. He contributed as an assistant in the first-year programming labs, answered their questions and shared his notes online. He also wrote a many-page "survival guide" setting down useful advice and observations for every compulsory course in the School.
It is also worth noting that he took a particular interest in confronting a chronic affliction which unfortunately prevails in the Greek university, caused by extreme minorities who created dysfunction and obstructed the normal democratic processes. He led a movement of "Independent Students" with the aim of establishing a system of electronic voting, and met considerable hostility from groups with no connection to the student community. In that context he represented his fellow students with great responsibility in the faculty assemblies, listened to the requests of all sides, and kept everyone continuously informed.
As a character he stands out for his organisation, his courage and his persistence. He is sincere, cooperative and good-humoured. Judging by his academic course, I am certain that he will excel in his professional career as an electrical and computer engineer.
Christos V. Orfanopoulos reported to the Unit as an Officer Designate on February 11, 2023 and was released as a Special Forces Second Lieutenant on November 22, 2023 after completing his military service in the Hellenic Armed Forces. During that period, he was assigned as a Platoon Leader and Weapons Officer for a Marine Company.
While active, he demonstrated exemplary behavior to everyone, accomplished his tasks successfully without the need of supervision and participated with enthusiasm in every activity of the Unit. He was distinguished for his team spirit, his critical thinking, as well as his attention to formality and detail.
Moreover, he demonstrated interest in proposing ideas and implementing best practices for the improvement of the functions of the Unit, and took initiatives for that purpose, following the Command’s guidelines.
Undoubtedly, Christos V. Orfanopoulos possesses high professional, leadership and ethical qualifications. I am proud that he has been an Officer in my Unit; he honored the green beret and his tenet, and with the utmost confidence I recommend him as a valuable and trusted partner in every occupational field he will choose.
Christos (Kitsos) Orfanopoulos has for a number of years been a volunteer at the Christian Youth Foundation "Pantokrator" of Paleo Faliro, of which I happen to be Vice-President since 2020. During 2021 and 2022 he served as Director of the Foundation, a post he filled in exemplary fashion, leaving behind him significant work and a valuable legacy for those who followed, through the steps he took towards the renovation, upgrading and modernisation of the building infrastructure and of the Foundation’s operations in general.
Specifically, when a vacancy arose in the Foundation’s Directorship in 2021, I turned to young Christos, then a student at the National Technical University of Athens, and proposed that he take on the Director’s post, because we considered that his bearing, the traits of his character, the particular quality of his personality, his abilities and above all his warm love for the Foundation made him right for the role. Indeed, when after a year and a half he had to end his work with us, because he had completed his studies and had to fulfil his military obligations, his overall contribution had far exceeded our expectations. The field of his activities was broad, running from the maintenance and management of the premises through to the organisation of events, making the most of the volunteers, and the management of digital media.
He was highly organised, focused on his duties, hard-working and conscientious, and kept us regularly informed of everything he did. He continually took on new initiatives and always tried to address the cause of whatever problems he found in the Foundation’s running. He kept good relations with the children of the Foundation, whom he had been called to educate and look after during their time on the premises. He talked with them and took an interest in their problems, and moreover guided them with useful advice, and had succeeded in being trusted and heeded by them. By character he was approachable, welcoming, friendly and particularly likeable.
Christos is distinguished by his sincerity, his discipline and his dedication to every task he undertakes to see through. He is modest, serious, dignified, and a person who inspires trust. I consider Christos Orfanopoulos to be a worthy scientist and a capable professional, and I judge that he will prove useful, effective and indispensable, bringing significant benefit to any business working environment.
I highly recommend Christos, with whom I collaborated on numerous university projects and coding competitions while we were both studying at ECE NTUA. He has very strong coding skills, a solution-oriented mindset, and is a person of integrity. Christos always showed strong leadership, making him a valuable asset to any team or organization.
Senior Software Engineer and Technical Lead based in Athens, Greece. I build cloud-native healthcare products end to end, Java and Spring Boot on the backend, React on the front, AWS underneath, and I lead the teams that ship them into hospitals.
Leading volunteer at the Christian Youth Foundation "Pantokrator" in Paleo Faliro, and a blood donor since 2017.