Jose
Florendo

I fell in love with technology because it lets you solve problems that matter. Not in theory — in production, where real people depend on your code working. That's still what drives me after 18+ years in this industry.

I grew up in Sydney, Australia. Studied at Macquarie University, and started my IT career at UXC Connect as a Service Desk Analyst. From there, I moved into software development at QBE Insurance, where I spent five years learning the fundamentals — not just how to write code, but how to build systems that hold up under pressure.

At DXC Technology (formerly CSC Australia), I spent four years working with enterprise clients across different industries. This is where the scope expanded — multi-country, multi-region platforms spanning Asia and South America, not just Australia. Complex integrations, distributed teams across continents, systems that had to work across different markets and regulations. I was still coding, still an engineer at heart, but now building at a scale I hadn't experienced before.

In 2017, I moved to Manila and joined Manulife's IT Delivery Center as Lead Solution Architect. The challenge: help transition Manulife from on-prem legacy applications to cloud-native digital apps across 11 Asian markets. Sales platforms, customer portals, public websites, claims systems, bancassurance integrations — every customer touchpoint needed modernization.

Two years later, I stepped into a leadership role I didn't expect to love as much as I do. Today I lead 500+ engineers across the Philippines, China, India, Singapore, and Hong Kong. We've grown the Manila centre from 5 people to 700+, with the broader team reaching 2,000+ across the region.

But here's what I'm most proud of: we've built a team that genuinely cares about the craft. A delivery centre that became a centre of engineering excellence. That's what scale should mean — not just more people, but better engineering.

Outside of work, I'm deep into AI right now. Not just the enterprise AI strategy side (though I do that too) — I mean actually building things. I've set up my own AI agent network at home, experimenting with multi-agent orchestration, automation workflows, the whole toolkit. I'm writing about it, learning new frameworks I've never touched before, and staying as hands-on as I can while leading a large team.

Life at home is full in the best way. I'm a husband and father of two young kids, and Manila has become home in every way that matters. Family keeps me grounded, technology keeps me curious, and I'm grateful to get to do work that I genuinely care about.

If you want to talk about AI, engineering culture, building platforms that scale, or what it's like working in the Asia tech landscape — reach out. I love these conversations.