Hi! My name is Nuno, I am an enthusiast software developer with a passion for startups and design. I’m a polyglot programmer with a fondness for the functional paradigm. Beautiful code, cool programming technology, and excellent team spirit are my bread & butter.
Builder of Software
There are a handful of principles that guide the way I build, maintain, and deliver software.
Robustness
Controlled side-effects, type-safety, immutable data, proper error handling, small functions, simplicity, seamless refactoring, thorough testing, excellent readability, well-written documentation, attent code reviews, clean git history, clear specs and roadmaps, continuous integration and delivery, reproducible builds, fast iterations. That's what I'm all in for.
Diversity
Moved by the joy of learning new ways of thinking, Haskell, Rust, Elixir, Swift, Python, C, and Objective-C are some of the techs I loved learning and using in production. However flexible, I'm particularly fond of the functional paradigm and backend engineering, specially the design of apis, domain-specific languages, and distributed and decentralized systems, where the most interesting computing problems are.
Pragmatism
Software is all about trade-offs, so I appreciate and work the skill of pragmatism as the quality of dealing with a problem in a sensible way that suits the conditions that really exist, rather than following dogmas or bare ideals. "First make it work, then make it beautiful, and if really necessary make it fast" by Joe Amstrong is, therefore, the process guiding my way of solving problems.
Team effort
Wolfs hunt together. I believe that our best potential is leveraged when working in solid, trust-based, safe, transparent, and dynamic teams where the standards are high and where everyone has the improvement and support of each other in their best interest. Raised playing team sports, excellent team spirit are my bread & butter and a key factor for enjoyable work.
Open source
When I received my first free Linux distribution as a late teenager, I was astonished that
a free operating system - that anyone in the world could contribute to - had just
brought my old pc back to life and outperform a mainstream, closed, and corporate alternative
costing $300 a license. I felt moved by that experience and have always worked in environments
where open source is at the core of the culture. Now proudly working on
Product Focused
Beautiful tech to build beautiful products.
Products over Projects
During a few years of consultancy, working in different projects every other month, it became clear that my heart was in products. Moved to product companies by Joel Spolsky, I see in products the opportunity to witness the long-term consequences of design and implementation decisions and to keep bringing value week after week to end-users.
Small environments
With an aquired passion for startups, my preference lays in small environments moved by great taste and vision focused around a product, where there are clear OKRs guiding and contextualizing the much work to do, where everyone is accountable and able to make a real impact in the course of the product and company.
Tech as a means to an end
I sure enjoy learning and getting lost in the internals of programming languages. However, seeing the meaning and purpose of the work I do is fundamental to me. Working on products that truly mean to make a difference in the world is, therefore, my deepest aim.
Designer wannabe
Fine designers and artists have my deepest respect and whenever possible I get in touch with their craft and learn from them.
Typography
For some reason, I have always paid some caring attention to typography. Be it in school reports, presentations, art, posters, street signs, books, you name it. The Introduction to Typography course by the California Institute of the Arts brought shape and formal thinking to this passion of mine.
UI & UX
Having started off as a web designer, my UI designer side is still around. I have redesigned the Haskell docs, designed the new Kidiyo app menu, A Rocha Life's website, the Channable API documentation, this very blog, and more. The UI & UX courses I followed during my bachelor taught me a good deal around what makes a great experience, something I am always on the lookout for.
Visuals
No more efficient designing visuals than elephants riding bikes, somehow I pulled a logo for the Icepeak - Fast JSON document store written in Haskell, an open-source project I contributed to. Definitly something I'd like to get better at.