Hello World!

I write this from Guimarães, a picturesque old town in ☀️ sunny Portugal, where I live with my loving partner and our 6-year-old daughter.

I'm a software development consultant with deep technical roots and a strong product sense, helping high-tech companies build and ship innovative software.

That's the LinkedIn version.

Truthfully? I’m a programmer who can't stand unnecessary complexity, holds high standards, and brings a sort of contagious urgency to delivering things that matter. I design systems, lead teams, mentor engineers, or get into the weeds as an individual contributor - one that tends to leave no tables unturned. A client once wrote “Rui is my Jesus” in a feedback form—so I must be doing something right!

I was born in the ’80s and got my start with a ZX Spectrum, thanks to my older brother. He and a neighbor would code together and eventually released commercial software, distributed on floppy disks at kiosks across Portugal. At the time, I was more into Prince of Persia than Turbo Pascal. Still, something must've stuck.

By my teens, I was enrolled in a technical school, pulling apart PCs, writing database apps in MS Access, and learning C and Pascal. I've been coding ever since—though I do sometimes miss the sense of wonder those early days had.

That I made a career out of typing things into existence still feels a bit surreal. That it’s taken me to new cities, countries, and introduced me to brilliant, driven, and deeply kind people? This could have been a dream.

If you found me here, odds are you'll find me elsewhere too—but unless I’ve linked to it from this site, it’s probably not actively maintained (at least not by me!).

Thanks for visiting this corner of the web I've carved out for myself. If anything here sparked something—or you just want to say hi—drop me a line. I'd love to hear from you.