FZS.
Senior Operations Research Consultant — American Airlines

Optimization, engineered like production software.

I'm Francisco Zenteno Smith. I transform legacy systems into production-grade decision-support software — bridging operations research rigor with software engineering discipline.

Explore SEFOP → Connect on LinkedIn Get in touch
Capability

Legacy systems → production-grade software

Recognition

Silva Award — American Airlines, 2026

Artifact

SEFOP — open-source framework

github.com/sefop →
About

A decade bridging operations research and software engineering

Francisco Zenteno Smith

With a decade of experience applying operations research across retail, manufacturing, healthcare, and aviation, I bridge two disciplines that are too often kept separate: mathematical optimization and software engineering.

At American Airlines, I build large-scale optimization systems that power flight operations — designed and shipped with the same engineering rigor as any production software, not treated as one-off research code.

I hold dual master's degrees in Computer Science (UC San Diego) and Industrial Engineering (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile), and created SEFOP, an open-source framework for bringing software-engineering discipline to optimization programs. In 2026, I spoke at the Agentic Quality Summit in Atlanta on bridging operations research and production-grade engineering.

Operations Research Clean Architecture Optimization MIP / Metaheuristics Python · Java · C#
Open Source

SEFOP — Software Engineering Framework for Optimization

A framework for building optimization systems the way you'd build any production software: Clean Architecture, dependency injection, full test coverage, and CI/CD — not throwaway research scripts. Includes reference implementations across languages and a live, deployed demo.

See the full breakdown →
$ python -m cli solve 1 # budget $10.00 · weight limit 2.00kg Products selected: apple x4 Total calories : 400 Total cost : $4.00 Total weight : 2.00 kg
Experience

Where the work has happened

2023 — Present [confirm start date]
Senior Operations Research Consultant
American Airlines
  • Build large-scale optimization systems that power flight operations
  • Reduced technical debt by 67%, measured via static code analysis tools
  • Recognized with the Silva Award (Q1 2026)
  • Speaker, Agentic Quality Summit — Atlanta (May 2026)
— [role between education and American Airlines TBD]
Prior experience
Let me know what belongs here and I'll fill it in.
Skills

Two disciplines, one practice

Operations Research
  • Optimization — linear & mixed-integer programming, metaheuristics
  • Discrete-event simulation
  • Solvers — CPLEX, Gurobi, HiGHS, AMPL
  • Applied ML — regression & classification
Software Engineering
  • Languages — Python, Java, C#, SQL
  • Architecture — Clean Architecture, dependency injection
  • Delivery — CI/CD, Docker, FastAPI, Git
  • Practice — testing discipline, static analysis

Awards

  • Silva Award (2026)
    American Airlines
  • Full Scholarship (2022)
    Government of Chile — UCSD Master's program
  • Top 4%, Kaggle 'Santa Stolen Sleigh' (2016)
    Simulated-annealing metaheuristic for a capacitated VRP
  • Operations Research Cup — 3rd place (2016, 2014)
    Complex Engineering Systems Institute, Chile
  • Best Teaching Assistant (2013)
    Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Education

  • M.S. Computer Science
    UC San Diego
  • M.S. Industrial Engineering
    Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Let's talk

The fastest way to reach me is LinkedIn.

Connect on LinkedIn →