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Alexandre Portela dos Santos

Alexandre Portela dos Santos

Head of Engineering / Engineering lead / Advisor


Background


About

About

I'm a passionate engineer with interest in products and startups.

For the last 10+ years, I've been working with multiple companies across different roles, from developer to head of engineering, always using technology as an enabler for ideas and businesses. I've integrated and lead engineering organisations from the idea stage to the MVP, and growth stage.

Even though I've worked with different types of companies, startups is where I see myself thriving, the nature of the dynamic and rapidly evolving environments deeply matches my character and skillset.

Work Experience

Work Experience

  • Head of Engineering

    Sep, 2021 - Present

    WTX is the global marketplace for heavy-duty used vehicles. WTX takes care of the full process, from finding the vehicles to payment and fullfilment. Using technology and data to make used-vehicle dealing easier.

    • Actively worked with business, marketing, and product as part of the business feasibility validation.

    • Design and grow the engineering team from 0 to 20 people, integrating the team and implementing practices to allow the team to scale.

    • Foster a customer-centric engineering organisation, creating means for constant communication with business, marketing and sales.

    • Evangelize architecture best practices within the engineering organisation.

    • Closely monitor engineering team members

    • Launched a customer-facing marketplace and back-office that supported the company operations

    • Build a multi component architecture that supported the web platforms, supplier integrations and CRM integrations.

    • Define test, code quality, and quality assurance practices on the organisation

    • Architect initial TypeScript (Nest.js and Next.js) applications. Regular contributor to architecture guilds.

    • Implement and evangelize Domain Driven Design (DDD) practices on the core API behind the product

    • Work alongside product and design to develop and iterate requirements that could be validated and implemented.

  • Engineering lead - namespaces as a service product

    Mar, 2019 - May, 20212 years 2 months

    cloudmobility provides a single-purpose-cloud that enables mobility & transportation products. It is a platform that offers specialized tools for customers building and maitaining mobility applications and businesses

    • Designed and implemented full-refactor of a React + Redux application which was the point of entry to everyone using the platform

    • Evangelized testing practices

    • Researched, developed PoCs, and scoped engineering roadmaps

    • Constantly monitor and improved team dynamics, enginering practices, and lead ceremonies

    • Lead a 5 person cross-functional team

    • Presented multiple company-wide demonstrations of the product

    • Mentoring and pair-programming with other developers

    • React, Redux, CSS-in-JS, Cypress, react-testing-library, Jest, golang, Jenkins, Kubernetes, Docker

  • Engineering Advisor

    May, 2020 - Present

    Agroop provides solutions that enable farmers and consultants to get the best out of their crops. Their products help customers by providing detailed data and insights about the crops, enabling up to 32% of water and energy savings

    • Help the company on product/engineering topics

    • Regularly meeting the engineering team, discussing practices and strategies to help growing the team and product

  • Senior full-stack developer

    Aug, 2018 - Mar, 20197 months

    Chemondis is the leading European B2B marketplace for chemicals. The company aims to make it easy for chemical companies to buy and sell products online, facilitating deals, quotations, and all the negotiation and discovery process.

    • Architected the React front-end application and lead the efforts to migrate from the jQuery + SSR pages.

    • Defined standards for testing, engineering practices and coding guidelines for the front-end stack

    • Python, Django, React, Redux, Jest, Jenkins

  • Full-stack developer

    Oct, 2016 - Jul, 20181 year 9 months

    Uniplaces is the marketplace for student accommodation. It provides service for landlords to list, interact and manage tenants and their stay. It's the go-to place for students to find accommodation abroad in many Europe cities

    • Develop and maintain Ember.js applications. Owner of the checkout front-end application

    • Architect and develop the Search project's frontend from scratch. Defining testing, coding and engineering guidelines

    • Strong part of JavaScript tribe that discussed company-wide JavaScript topics

    • Development of golang search API connected to ElasticSearch database

    • Maintenance of a core Symfony API

    • Ember.js, GraphQL, Node, Symfony PHP, golang

  • Instructor - Web development

    Nov, 2015 - Feb, 20163 months

    Flag is a learning center focused on technology topics. It teaches topics from Web development to design, and mobile development

    • Create and develop web development curriculum

    • Develop, grade and evaluate tests

    • Lecture a class of 20 students of all ages and experiences

    • Introduce lecturers to fundamental web development topics. From DNS and how a page is served, to JavaScript and interacting with a backend

  • Lead front-end developer

    May, 2015 - Oct, 20161 year 5 months

    Agroop provides solutions that enable farmers and consultants to get the best out of their crops. Their products help customers by providing detailed data and insights about the crops, enabling up to 32% of water and energy savings

    • Maintain a Backbone.js application. Implementing practices to improve code discovery and reliability

    • Architect and develop two complete PhoneGap applications, sharing code between mobile and web applications

    • Defined standards and guidelines to develop React + Redux applications inside the company

    • Mentor developers and evangelize testing and software architecture practices

    • React, Backbone, SCSS, Jest, Enzyme, Jenkins

  • Junior full-stack developer / designer

    Jul, 2013 - Apr, 20151 year 10 months

    iSimplex develops web based home automation products. It aims to be the hub for home automation, from basics like lighting control, to ambient sound, home cinema, and security concerns of the customers home

    • Create and develop the company website

    • Develop multiple web applications to demonstrate the product capacities

    • Develop and maintain a platform to manage products, customers, and customer hardware status using Laravel + Angular.jS

    • Research and design product screens' UI and UX experience

    • Laravel, Angular.JS, jQuery, Material-UI

Skills

Skills

  • Front-end

    JavaScript

    TypeScript

    SCSS / CSS / CSS in JS

    React

    Next.js

    Redux

    Mobx

  • Back-end

    Node.js

    Deno

    TypeScript

    Python

    Golang

    Nest.js

    Domain-driven design (DDD)

  • Infrastructure

    Azure

    IaaC

    PostgreSQL

    Kubernetes

    Docker

    CircleCI

    GithubActions

Education

Education

  • IT, Technical, Escola Técnica e Profissional de Mafra

    Sep, 2009 - Jun, 2012

Publications

Publications

  • Deno Web Development, PacktPub

    Published on: Apr 01, 2020

    More than Write, test, maintain and deploy JavaScript and TypeScript web applications using Deno. A complete book with step-by-step explanations of Deno’s primitives, using them to build real-word applications.

    600+ books sold on Amazon.com

Interests

Interests

  • Startups

  • Blogging

  • Teaching / authoring

  • Reading

  • Open Source

  • Entrepreneurship

  • Football

References

References

  • Bruno Fonseca, CEO @ Agroop

    From time to time, and not so often we are toasted with professionals that can blow our mind. They surprise you, not only for their hard skills, but mainly for the soft skills and for the people they really are.
    Well, Alexandre is simply, one of the most incredible people I had the pleasure to work with and I am lucky enough to keep talking and be with him often. I have always something to learn with him and it's a real pleasure to feel his amazing energy. It's contagious...much more than Covid19.
    Alexandre is not only a fast learner and a fantastic coder with a natural talent to communicate, but he is, mainly, a strategical thinker, an innate curious mind and a super intelligent and driven person.
    Apart from that, he has a great humor, is a huge team player and the kind of person everyone wants to be around with.
    It was and it is an honor to call him friend and to have him as one of our advisors at Agroop. Keep sharing and showing your magic. I will be always paying attention ;)