Tech leader · Architect · Writer · Game dev

Sandor Nagy Hands on. Heart in.

More than 20 projects across 8+ countries. 15 years and 6+ industries. A hands-on-keyboard technological leader with spikes in communication, architecture, and deep expertise — an experienced team builder and compassionate manager in highly competitive environments.

Experience
15+ years
Projects
20+
Countries
8+
Industries
6+
Now
CTO @ Gridd

Who I am

Doing is the work. Talking about how is a distraction.

  • Hands-on architect and CTO. Today I build software products that remove the boring, low-value-added work professional slide decks require.
  • I work for the people in PowerPoint. Consultants and middle-managers across industries live in slides — they need evolving tools to keep up with rising expectations and fast-paced competition.
  • Delegation and empowerment over heroics. I aim to bring out the best in anyone building a solution, then get out of the way.
  • Writing is my default channel. Structure and clarity beat charisma every time, especially when the stakes are high.
  • Off-hours: coaching, games, fiction. Tech-leadership coaching, game design docs and prototypes for AerelonTech, and science-fiction writing.
  • Build small and well. I’d rather ship a small thing well than describe a big thing forever.

Personal values

Five Es. They show up in every decision.

  • Embrace

    Family and friends first. Strangers and acquaintances always treated with kindness and respect. Lives and health over any other priority.

  • Entertain

    Make others feel, think, laugh, or be amazed — to disconnect from their problems for a short while.

  • Engage

    Teach. Inspire thinking about new ideas — in tech, in principle, or in art.

  • Empower

    Enable others to follow and build upon, so they can achieve more in peace than was possible before.

  • Enjoy

    Life is too short not to.

Experience

Fifteen years on the keyboard. Five at the helm.

From Silverlight line-of-business tools to greenfield banking, from Tech Lead at IncepTech to Principal Engineer at McKinsey, to founding roles today. Same posture throughout: ship the thing, raise the team.

  • 2025 — now

    Co-Founder & CTO — Gridd / DeckAI

    Building software that removes the boring, low-value work professional slide decks require. C-level leadership, technology strategy, hands-on architecture.

  • 2025 — now

    Founder — AerelonTech

    Solo founder. Game development, fiction writing, and tech-leadership coaching. Two game prototypes in flight: Perseus Patrol and Soul-Dash: Eternal Light.

  • 2022 — 2025

    Principal Engineer — McKinsey & Company

    Solution architecture and microservices across multi-country digital transformations. Three and a half years; six countries on the project list.

  • 2020 — 2022

    Tech Lead / Agile Architect — IncepTech

    Architecting and leading engineering delivery across European banking, telco and construction. Tribe-level tech leadership through to MVP and launch.

  • 2018 — 2020

    Senior Software Engineer — IncepTech

    Microservices, hands-on technical leadership, and the engineering chops behind everything that came after.

  • 2015 — 2018

    IT Consultant — Independent

    Disaster recovery and availability for IT infrastructures. Webshop integrations, automation, and dependable hybrid cloud at low cost.

  • 2010 — 2015

    Software Developer — Webmine Kft.

    Silverlight line-of-business apps, legacy WinForms invoicing, second-generation webshop integrations. Where the craft started.

Project highlights

Where the work happened.

Twenty-plus projects, eight-plus countries. Tech lead, architect or principal engineer on each. The dots below are the cities where I spent meaningful time on a delivery — not just changed planes.

Budapest Warsaw London Berlin Bucharest Zagreb Cairo Baku Almaty
Eight cities, one home base. Dashed lines mark journeys between Budapest and each delivery.
  • 25

    Warsaw, Poland

    Feb 2025 – Aug 2025 · McKinsey

    Co-leading a 10+ engineering team delivering logistics control system functionality. Led the next-level technical north star aimed at lowering time-to-market for new features.

    Java SpringBoot · Microservices

  • 23

    Cairo, Egypt

    2023 – 2024 · McKinsey

    Core banking — built a double-entry, bookkeeping-ready product management system for unsecured loans, leading a team of five.

    Go · Systems design

  • 22

    London, United Kingdom

    2022 – 2023 · McKinsey

    Re-architected an automotive consumer application. Established an end-to-end responsible squad and bridged enterprise architecture with day-to-day delivery for a high-scale launch.

    Software architecture · Agile

  • 21

    EMEA

    2021 – 2022 · McKinsey

    Kicked off and rose to Tribe Tech Lead for a greenfield banking solution. Led current account, transactions and credit card squads to MVP. Shaped product, engineering culture and the choreography-based microservice architecture.

    Evolutionary architecture · Systems design

  • 21

    Berlin, Germany

    2021 · IncepTech

    Tech lead on a construction-industry plugin. Implemented and launched the MVP in under three months.

    C++ · C#

  • 20

    Almaty, Kazakhstan

    2020 · IncepTech

    Tech Lead from an engineering perspective, building the MVP for a bank in the first phase of a transformation.

    Microservices · Spring Boot

  • 20

    Baku, Azerbaijan

    2020 · IncepTech

    Architect and Tech Lead leading a joint client team — re-architecting mobile and back-end solutions in a bank during a transformation project.

    Microservices · Apache JMeter

  • 20

    Warsaw, Poland

    2020 · IncepTech

    Tech Lead a two-squad team at a telco — foundations for a greenfield project plus a digital end-to-end retention journey. Led DevOps efficiency exploration and time-to-market streamlining.

    Microservices · ASP.NET

  • 19

    Bucharest, Romania

    2019 · IncepTech

    Tech lead aiding the digital transformation of a Central European Banking Group. Implemented data pipelines for product and sales analytics, oversaw and integrated ML modelling for a next-product-offer engine.

    Microservices · CQRS

  • 18

    Zagreb, Croatia

    2018 – 2019 · IncepTech

    Aiding the digital transformation of a Central European commercial bank — digitizing the credit card application journey as part of a 6-person team. Integrated scattered data sources and built high-performance interfaces for third parties.

    React · ASP.NET

Endeavours

Off the clock

Game design docs, early prototypes, and stories. The roots — kept alive on weekends and evenings, because a well-rounded engineer is also a maker.

  • Perseus Patrol

    Game · AerelonTech

    A major in-flight project. A playable demo is live for early feedback.

    demo.perseuspatrol.com →

  • Soul-Dash: Eternal Light

    Game · AerelonTech

    2.5D adventure-action prototype — started in Godot, moved to Unreal early to harness a much better toolkit.

    In pre-production

  • Giant of the Stars

    Sci-fi · Long form

    A novel-length project in progress, part of a wider universe being slowly mapped over years of writing.

    aerelontech.hu →

  • Short fiction

    Various · Published

    A growing handful of short stories, published across personal and platform channels.

    medium.com/@sandorn →

Said about me

Words from people I’ve worked with.

The clearest signal of how I work is what colleagues say after shipping with me. Names altered or hidden where NDAs apply.

  • “I would point out that you can connect engineering and business worlds. You have huge experience and great people skills. Best experience that you entered our project and calmly got it back on track. At the time I could not imagine myself doing that.”
    Roland Sz. — senior data engineer
  • “Liked working with you. You took the lead, actively pushed and made it happen. Always supported your team, we could always count on you and your wide experience.”
    Gergo V. — senior software engineer
  • “You always had sharper insights than most. You could always go one step deeper for pros and cons that others missed. I liked that you gave us space to earn experience.”
    Akos Sz. — senior engineer
  • “Always kind, empathic, calm, very caring and professional. This combo is rare, especially in engineers.”
    Richard T. — coach and people leader
  • “His technical expertise is top-notch, and he quickly became a reliable pillar of the team. Over time, he grew into a conscientious and supportive leader. Someone you can always count on — both professionally and in people management. If anything, his high standards sometimes lead him to take on more than necessary, but that also reflects his strong sense of ownership and commitment.”
    Andras M. — technical leader, senior software engineer
  • “Direct, operative leader who earns respect with his technical and process knowledge. Quick, decisive and experimental while being thorough enough — these are great traits.”
    Gabor B. — mobile dev chapter lead

Reach me

Let’s make something.

I’m happy to hear from peers, future colleagues, founders, writers and gamedevs. Slide-deck pain, leadership questions, sci-fi ideas, or playtest requests — all welcome.

  • For DeckAI / Gridd: sandor [at] deckai.co
  • For game dev & consulting: sandor [at] aerelontech.hu
  • For everything else: a LinkedIn message