Marc Santiago in a white shirt and light gray vest smiling at the camera against a plain background.

Hello There!

I’m a CTO, cofounder, and backend engineer focused on distributed systems, Adtech, and performance-critical infrastructure. Over the past decade, I’ve built and scaled real-time systems with an emphasis on programmatic advertising, high-throughput data pipelines, and low-latency backend architecture. I’m a cofounder and currently serve as CTO of Ads By Nimbus, a mobile ad platform centered around programmatic infrastructure, real-time bidding, and auction design. Earlier, I led engineering as Vice President of Programmatic Engineering, where I designed and built the Nimbus Ad Exchange—working across auction mechanics, server-to-server communication, and systems that operate under strict latency and scale constraints.

My path into engineering wasn’t traditional. I graduated from Susquehanna University with a background in Biology and Philosophy, earning honors in biological research. My work focused on aquatic ecosystems in the Susquehanna River, where I studied algal communities—specifically phytoplankton and diatom-periphyton—as indicators of water quality, using both light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. I later worked in bioinformatics and molecular systematics at the American Museum of Natural History, contributing to published research (PubMed, ScienceDirect) in evolutionary biology alongside Dr. Ward C. Wheeler and Dr. Prashant Sharma.

Before moving fully into industry, I taught programming and robotics in New York City, developing curricula across Python, Java, and Arduino. I entered the Adtech space in 2015 at PubGears, where I gained early exposure to supply-side platforms and the broader programmatic ecosystem. I later joined Timehop as a backend engineer, working on core systems for a high-scale mobile application and contributing to early monetization efforts—work that ultimately led to the creation of Nimbus.

Across all of this, my focus has remained consistent: building systems that operate under real-world constraints—high concurrency, low latency, and production scale. My background in science continues to shape how I approach engineering: thinking in systems, understanding complexity, and designing infrastructure that is efficient, resilient, and built to scale.

Areas of Expertise

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    AdTech

    Real‑Time Bidding (RTB) ecosystem: SSPs, DSPs, and Exchanges

    In‑depth working knowledge of IAB standards and digital advertising protocols

    Experience with bidstream optimization, auction dynamics, and integration pipelines

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    Software Engineering

    Core Languages: Go • Rust • Python • C#

    Strong emphasis on writing idiomatic, performant, and maintainable code

    Familiar with modern tooling, testing practices, and version control workflows

  • A laptop with a colorful, vibrant display against a dark background. The screen shows a digital, artistic depiction of a brick wall with bright, abstract colors.

    Systems Architecture

    Architectural design and implementation of scalable, cloud‑native systems (AWS)

    Building and maintaining reliable pipelines, distributed databases (SQL & NoSQL), and caching layers

    Microservices & service abstractions with a focus on simplicity, performance, and operational excellence

    Designing systems that scale horizontally with clear observability and maintainability

    Strong orientation toward reducing complexity while maximizing reliability and throughput