OyeCompa
An AI assistant on WhatsApp for the Latino community in the US: it helps with remittances, auto insurance, health and general information. As founding engineer I build the entire platform behind the assistant: backend, frontend, integrations and infrastructure.
WHAT I BUILT
01The whole platformRuby on Rails backend and React frontend.
I build everything behind OyeCompa: the Ruby on Rails backend, the React frontend, the integrations and the infrastructure on Render. I work directly with the CPO; two other developers focus on bugs and small features, and on internal reporting tools.
02WhatsApp sign-up and conversationOTP sign-up and the assistant, the Compa.
Users reach OyeCompa on WhatsApp, create an account with an OTP code sent through Twilio and from then on chat with the Compa, the virtual assistant. The conversation runs on Meta’s WhatsApp Business API, with webhooks and background jobs on Sidekiq and Redis.
03LLM orchestrationTool calling and pre-classifiers.
The assistant interprets open-ended, unstructured Spanish, works out what the person needs and routes the request to the right flow through tool calling, using the OpenAI and Claude APIs. In sensitive flows, pre-classifiers determine intent before the model acts.
04Human-in-the-loopWhen to act, when to confirm, when to escalate.
I defined when the system acts on its own, when it asks for confirmation and when it stops and hands the conversation to a person on the team. A mistake on a money transfer does not cost the same as a mistake on a general question.
05Remittance comparisonThe best option for each user’s preferences.
When someone writes “I want to send 200 dollars to Mexico,” the assistant takes the preferences the user already shared, compares options from every partner remittance provider and presents the best one, with a referral link and often a discount code.
06Provider integrationsRemittances, health, auto insurance and payments.
Integrations with remittance, health and auto insurance providers, each with its own flow, required fields and failure modes, plus Stripe for payment processing.
07WhatsApp and email operationsTemplates, Meta Business Suite and Resend.
I set up and run the WhatsApp Business API templates and Meta Business Suite, plus transactional email with Resend. I also diagnosed PostgreSQL read-replica lag that was affecting reporting queries.