CTO at an ILS fund. Cat bonds are essentially securitised versions of fully collateralised reinsurance contracts where the premium is the coupon plus the return on collateral. A benefit being that you can trade them. They're not usually used for speculation as stated in the article - investors are typically pension funds looking for investments that are uncorrelated to traditional financial market risk. e.g. on a US hurricane exposed cat bond you may only lose money if a huge hurricane blows through Florida, no matter what credit and equities are doing.
It's true that a lot of the deal sourcing is relationship-driven, but there is a good amount of data-driven tech involved in overlaying the insured's past claims and underwriting data on top of simulated catastrophe model output, applying your own view of climate, vendor model adjustments, hurricane activity etc.