Software Engineer
Last updated April 2026
Blind software engineer based in Portugal. Functional programming enthusiast, interested in data streaming, distributed systems and cloud-native architectures. Full-stack background with a focus on backend and infrastructure. Long-time contributor to open source, particularly in the accessibility space. Public speaking experience at conferences and meetups.
Leading a backend engineering team at Tiko, a non-profit using technology to transform sexual and reproductive health for underserved young people across sub-Saharan Africa. Scala with Typelevel stack (Cats, cats-effect, FS2), PostgreSQL, AWS, Kubernetes.
NVDA, Orca, Speech-Dispatcher, Scala ecosystem
Long-term contributor to the NVDA screen reader for Windows: designed and built the add-ons system, improved the braille subsystem and hardware terminal support, translated the interface and documentation to Portuguese (Python, C, C++). Contributed to GNU/Linux accessibility via Orca and Speech-Dispatcher (Python, C, Java). Various fixes and improvements to Scala ecosystem libraries.
TB.LX (Daimler Trucks and Buses)
Built streaming-based solutions for real-time processing of signals from trucks and buses worldwide. Microservices architecture, heavily Kafka-based. Worked primarily in Scala: Kafka Streams, Apache Flink, ZIO, Cats, Doobie, Http4s, gRPC. Infrastructure and operations with Azure DevOps, Terraform, Kubernetes, Grafana, Linkerd. Strong focus on observability: metrics, logging, tracing, SLOs.
e.Near
Worked on projects in financial services, gambling, and KYC domains. Scala ecosystem: Akka, Akka Streams, Shapeless, Cats, cats-effect, Circe, Slick, Play Framework, ScalaCheck. Databases included PostgreSQL, Cassandra, Elasticsearch, MongoDB, Neo4J. Deployed on AWS, Google Cloud, and Heroku using Docker and Ansible. Managed a team of four developers. Pushed adoption of functional programming, infrastructure as code, and agile practices.
Altran Portugal
Projects in the public sector and life sciences, including integration at INFARMED (Portuguese National Authority of Medicines and Health Products). Java EE, Oracle databases, Eclipse IDE. UI programming, business logic, database access, and build infrastructure improvements.
Tiflotecnia, Consultoria e Acessibilidade
Developed iOS apps for PDF reading, image capture and OCR, designed for visually impaired users (Objective-C, C, C++). Integrated the Nuance Vocalizer speech synthesiser with the NVDA screen reader and built the supporting license validation, user management and online store (Python, Scala, Java, PostgreSQL, RabbitMQ, JavaScript). Administered the company's Linux infrastructure.
Técnico Lisboa (University of Lisbon)
Average 15.4/20. Thesis not submitted. Specialisation in Distributed Systems (major) and Software Engineering (minor). Grades of 18/20 in Advanced Programming and Multimedia Computer Systems Architecture.
Técnico Lisboa (University of Lisbon)
Average 13.4/20. Grade of 18/20 in Operating Systems.
Non-profit advocating for the autonomy and rights of blind people in Portugal.
Instituto Nacional para a Reabilitação (INR)
Advisory body on Braille standards, teaching, and complementary reading methods for blind and visually impaired people in Portugal.
Member of the national board of directors of the Portuguese association for the blind and partially sighted.
Consulting on technology matters for the Portuguese association for the blind and partially sighted.
Técnico Lisboa
Co-organised the XIII and XIX editions. Handled company and sponsor relations, sysadmin, and organised Richard Stallman's visit and talk (March 2012).
Conference talks at Kafka Summit, LXScala, and others. See the full list at publications.