William Savage profile
William Savage

Senior Software Engineer

Product-Led Builder · Startup-Trained · Systems Thinker

Lisbon, Portugal

Profile

Senior full-stack engineer with 8+ years building and scaling marketplace platforms from seed to acquisition, including work on the largest peer-to-peer rental platform in its category. Experienced in payments, trust & safety systems, and multi-market expansion. Own end-to-end product delivery across web and mobile in remote-first environments.

Experience

Hygglo

Senior Software Engineer

Stockholm, Sweden - Remote

Jan 2023 – Dec 2025
  • Led architectural integration of Fat Llama's proprietary verification systems into Hygglo post-acquisition.
  • Adapted front-end platforms to enable multi-market rollout across 5 countries and 2 separate brands to support 30,000 rentals a month processing £1.5m GMV.
  • Developed new internal tooling to facilitate fraud detection, enabling scaling of rentals without headcount.

Fat Llama (acquired by Hygglo)

April 2017 – Jan 2023
  • Founding engineer (#5) at the largest peer-to-peer rental platform, building the initial product and scaling platform and team through acquisition.
  • Attended Y Combinator with founding team on summer 2017 cohort, establishing product market fit.
  • Relocated to NYC as sole technical resource for US market launch, largely as a growth focused engineer.
  • Built B2B white-label rental solutions with partners including John Lewis, Halfords, and Sofology to diversify revenue streams.
  • Led development of new mobile apps built with Expo, contributing to growth reaching £300k GMV and leading to acquisition.

Staff Software Engineer

Remote (Lisbon)

Jan 2022 – Jan 2023

Senior Software Engineer

Remote (NYC, Barcelona)

Feb 2021 – Jan 2022

Founding Engineer

London, United Kingdom · On-site

Feb 2017 – Feb 2021

TownSpot

Co-Founder

Greater London, England, United Kingdom · Remote · Part-time

Feb 2023 – Feb 2024
  • Sole builder of full-stack platform, working with design my lead Co-founder. TownSpot is a hyperlocal events platform that brings local life to the surface.

Education

University of Bristol – MSc Chemistry (First Class)

2010 – 2014

Prizes: Faculty of Science Prize in Chemistry (2013), Royal Society of Chemistry Analytical Prize (2013), Thomas Malkin Prize (2012).

Founders & Coders — 4 month JS bootcamp

2016 – 2017

Selective, peer-led full-stack JavaScript programme emphasising production-ready engineering and TDD. Contributed to delivery of an international cohort in Nazareth, mentoring students in collaborative full-stack development.

Skills

TypeScriptJavaScriptReactState ManagementReact NativeNext.jsExpoNode.jsREST API DesignPostgreSQLStripe IntegrationsIntegration TestingAgentic EngineeringAWSDockerCI/CDMonitoringMarketplace PlatformsTrust & SafetyPayments SystemsInternationalisation

Core Competencies

  • Marketplace and trust-and-safety product development in high-change environments
  • Cross-functional delivery with Product, Design, Data, and Commercial stakeholders
  • Data-informed decision making using metrics, funnel analysis, and A/B testing
  • End-to-end feature ownership (full-stack) from discovery through production impact

Additional

  • Learning Portuguese, passionate about tech for good, keen cyclist, kitesurfer, and paraglider pilot
Last updated: Feb 2026