Julien Simon
AI EngineerAI is analyzing your overall score…
Identifying your key strengths…
Evaluating your skill match against the job requirements…
Assessing your cultural and operational fit
AI is analyzing your overall score…
Identifying your key strengths…
Evaluating your skill match against the job requirements…
Assessing your cultural and operational fit
AI Operating Partner, Fortino · Technical Author · OSS Developer
I'm the AI Operating Partner at Fortino Capital, a European PE firm investing in B2B SaaS. I also run our AI Studio, working hands-on with portfolio companies to make the shift to AI-native software development real, not theoretical. That means pre-investment technical due diligence, engineering org restructuring, AI coding tool rollouts, compliance (GDPR, DORA, EU AI Act), cloud infrastructure economics, and preparing companies for exit. I attend board meetings and dive deep into technical designs. Most people in PE do one or the other. Before Fortino, I spent 30+ years in the industry as an engineer, developer advocate, and technical leader — including time at AWS, Hugging Face, and Arcee AI. I still write code, contribute to open source, and build with the tools I recommend. I write about what I'm seeing on my Substack "The AI Realist", and talk and demo it on YouTube. If you're a CTO or engineering leader trying to figure out what AI-native actually means for your team, your codebase, and your org chart, that's what I cover. https://www.julien.org https://www.youtube.com/@juliensimonfr https://www.airealist.ai https://github.com/juliensimon
Pierre and Marie Curie University
Master (D.E.A.), Computer Systems
January 1, 1993 – January 1, 1994
Isep - École d'ingénieurs du numérique
Engineer, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
January 1, 1989 – January 1, 1994
Fortino
Operating Partner & Head of the AI Studio
November 1, 2025 – Present
Paris, Île-de-France, France · Hybrid
Arcee.ai
VP & Chief Evangelist
July 1, 2024 – November 1, 2025
Paris, Île-de-France, France · Remote
Hugging Face
Chief Evangelist
October 1, 2021 – July 1, 2024
Paris, Île-de-France, France · On-site
Amazon Web Services
Global Technical Evangelist, AI & ML
October 1, 2015 – September 1, 2021
Greater Paris Metropolitan Region
Viadeo
Chief Technology Officer
October 1, 2014 – October 1, 2015
Paris · On-site
ALDEBARAN
Chief Technology Officer, Software
February 1, 2014 – October 1, 2014
Paris
Criteo
Vice President, Engineering
October 1, 2010 – January 1, 2014
Paris
Pixmania
Chief Technology Officer
May 1, 2009 – September 1, 2010
Paris
Digiplug
Vice President, Engineering
March 1, 2007 – April 1, 2009
Paris
BlueSky Positioning
Chief Technical Officer
September 1, 2006 – February 1, 2007
Oberthur Card Systems
Director, R&D Mobile Communications
January 1, 2002 – September 1, 2006
Greater Paris Metropolitan Region
Netattitude
Co-founder and technical manager
June 1, 2000 – December 1, 2001
Paris
Sun Microsystems
Embedded Software Engineer (subcontractor)
June 1, 1998 – May 1, 2000
Paris
Bosch Telecom
Embedded Software Engineer (subcontractor)
May 1, 1997 – May 1, 1998
Paris
British Telecom
Pre-sales Engineer (subcontractor)
February 1, 1997 – May 1, 1997
Paris
ISEP
Research Engineer
January 1, 1994 – December 1, 1996
Paris
AWS Certified SysOps Administrator - Associate
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
June 24, 2026 – Present
AWS Certified Machine Learning - Specialty
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
June 24, 2026 – Present
AWS Certified Security - Specialty
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
June 24, 2026 – Present
AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
June 24, 2026 – Present
AWS Certified Big Data - Specialty
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
June 24, 2026 – Present
AWS Certified Advanced Networking - Specialty
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
June 24, 2026 – Present
Deep Learning Specialization
Coursera
June 24, 2026 – Present
AWS Certified Solution Architect - Professional
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
June 24, 2026 – Present
AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
June 24, 2026 – Present
AWS Certified Developer - Associate
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
June 24, 2026 – Present
Cultural Fit Analysis
The candidate's diverse experience across startups, large enterprises (AWS, Hugging Face), and venture capital firms (Fortino) demonstrates adaptability and a broad understanding of different organizational cultures. Their involvement in open-source AI frameworks, public speaking, and content creation aligns well with a culture that values knowledge sharing, innovation, and community engagement. The consistent focus on AI/ML and cloud technologies across recent roles strongly aligns with an AI Engineer target role, indicating a strong cultural and technical fit.
Soft Skills & Operational Fit
The candidate demonstrates exceptional leadership, strategic thinking, and communication skills through their Chief Evangelist and CTO roles. Their ability to build and maintain strategic partnerships, deliver technical presentations globally, and create deep technical content highlights strong interpersonal and influence capabilities. Operationally, their experience in reorganizing teams, deploying Agile methods, and managing large-scale infrastructure projects indicates a robust fit for driving complex AI initiatives and managing technical operations.