ABOUT

Games, servers, Photoshop

I got my first computer at home when I was three. Games were what got me into technology. Around twelve I started writing code for GTA San Andreas multiplayer servers, game modes for the SA-MP mod. Pawn was my first programming language. I started programming without understanding how code was structured. I read other people's scripts, changed one thing, ran the server, and put it back when it broke. It was trial and error. I did that for years.

I started with Photoshop on CS1 and CS2. I made a lot of forum signatures, with lens flares and bevels. I used Dreamweaver and sliced layouts into table cells. Responsive layouts were not common on the web yet.

Back then, owning a server meant renting a US VPS and learning SSH, with no graphical interface. For the things that needed automating, shell scripts came next. I still run a home server today. It runs Debian, Plex for my own movies, and about two dozen Docker Compose containers.

College, thesis, aviation

I started Computer Science in Salvador. My main focus was to learn game development, and I spent the early semesters on OpenGL and building small engines. I dropped that plan in 2016. Nobody I knew in Salvador at that time had a job in games, so I looked for an area where I could actually find work. That was front-end.

My thesis was in computer vision and machine learning, with PyTorch and OpenCV. I never became a Python specialist, but it is one of the languages I still use today, for agent orchestration and automation.

From 2017 to 2019 I studied aviation. Most of it was theory and I had some practice. I got close to changing careers to it. There was no moment where I decided to stop. I just did less of it each year.

WordPress, logos, React

I started freelancing around 2016 and did it until 2021. Most of the work was WordPress sites, with some Shopify and WooCommerce. I also made logos and social media design, because clients who needed a site usually needed those too. For internal tools I used Python with Django, and Bootstrap on the front-end.

My longest client was a clinical lab, and they stayed with me for years. I was the only developer on their website and their internal systems. I also did their design and their social media, and for a while I was the photographer at their events. That job gave me room to use all of those skills in one place.

In 2020 I was still working with that lab, and I used the time during the pandemic to study modern front-end, mostly React.

Vasta, Shopify, EcomNinjas

Vasta was an e-commerce agency, where I learned Shopify and how an agency actually works. I built stores from scratch and spent a lot of time on visual tuning. I also wrote Python automation and Selenium tests for parts of the work. It was busy work, but someone had to do it. Later, I did UX and UI design for Shopify apps.

An agency sells hours, so part of the job was managing my timesheet. I estimated work, split my hours across different projects, and tracked when they used more hours than planned.

In 2021 I co-founded EcomNinjas with a partner from Vasta and ran it for about a year. We took national and international clients. Some wanted a new store. Others already had one and wanted us to improve it. Neither of us had run a business before, so I learned scoping, pricing and client conversations on real projects with real money. It ended because we could not hire fast enough for the demand, and we both got offers abroad.

Biossance, leading, agents

I joined ilegra to work on client projects. The first one was Biossance, whose parent company is Amyris. I was the architect and developer on their store, and I became the Shopify reference for the team. The team had e-commerce experience but nobody who specialized in Shopify, so I had more responsibility than my level at the time. I built the store from scratch and integrated their internal systems into both the Shopify backend and frontend. I had taken Google's UX Design course on my own to become more of a generalist. I built the high- and low-fidelity prototypes myself, then aligned them with the design team.

After Biossance I became a team leader at ilegra. The company put me through leadership training, and I had mentorship from other leads after that. I led up to thirty people at some points. I also project-managed two other accounts: Dexco, an infrastructure and DevOps team, and Gerdau US, large-scale data analysis with complex business rules. I received positive feedback from both.

At the same time I was part of ilegra's innovation team. We built several internal systems there. I managed those projects and led the people on the team. On some of them I also did the architecture and worked as the technical reference. One of those systems was an internal AI knowledge assistant, built with LlamaIndex, FastAPI and React.

Then I left and took a break. I helped people build e-commerce informally, and I finally had time to study Three.js and WebGL. I realized that 3D and creative interfaces could be an opening in e-commerce, especially for premium and niche products. Those stores need the presentation itself to show the value of the product, and a standard layout does not do that.

I worked at Brainstorm next. It was my first full-time tech lead role, focused on operations. I restructured an existing team and redesigned how their Shopify themes were built, because unplanned Shopify theme work can easily turn into a snowball. I worked closely with clients, reported directly to the CTO and CEO, and worked on code and technical SEO.

Now I am back at ilegra, overseeing three different tracks: teams building AI products, teams building sites on Webflow, and e-commerce teams on Shopify. Since 2025 I have been studying agentic programming daily, mostly safe AI coding practices and spec-driven development. I work with LangChain and Amazon Bedrock, including Agent Core, on architecture and prototypes I build myself.