João Alves

Experience

Engineering in organizational context

The systems, responsibilities, and technical contexts behind my professional roles and international programs. The CV remains the concise chronological record.

  1. employment

    MaisPraia

    Founder

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    • Own the product and technical development across architecture, backend, web, mobile, data modeling, and deployment.
    • Translate fragmented operational processes into explicit workflows, permissions, and system state.

    I am responsible for the product and technical development of MaisPraia, from architecture and data modeling to backend services, web and mobile applications, authentication, operational workflows, and deployment.

    Operational scope

    The platform brings staff scheduling, availability, attendance, beach and pool operations, incident reporting, equipment management, documentation, notifications, and internal communication into one system.

    It replaces workflows previously fragmented across WhatsApp, Excel, Google Forms, paper, and email. The known operational context is approximately 60 lifeguards across approximately 20 beaches.

    Engineering contribution

    The work centers on turning informal organizational processes into explicit entities, permissions, validations, state transitions, and reliable operational records. The linked project case study documents the architecture and engineering decisions without duplicating them here.

    Technologies and areas

    • Spring Boot
    • Angular
    • Ionic
    • PostgreSQL
    • Docker
    • JWT
    • RBAC
    • Flyway
    • PWA / Web Push
    View project case study

  2. employment

    KPMG Portugal

    Junior Software Engineer

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    • Contributed to backend services, APIs, authentication, and workflow automation.
    • Worked with internal agent-based systems and containerized, production-oriented infrastructure.

    Worked within Technology Consulting - Platforms & Innovation on internal software and automation systems.

    Contribution

    The work included backend services, API development, workflow automation, authentication, and internal agent-based systems. It also involved containerized environments, monitoring, and infrastructure intended for production-oriented operation.

    The public description deliberately excludes client identities, confidential metrics, proprietary architectures, and unverified business outcomes. No public case study is linked because there is currently no suitable supporting artifact.

    Technologies and areas

    • Python
    • FastAPI
    • Spring Boot
    • RAG
    • AI Agents
    • Docker
    • Kubernetes / OpenShift
    • Prometheus
    • Grafana
    • Keycloak

  3. employment

    Celfocus

    Quality Assurance Analytics Testing Intern

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    • Designed and implemented an accelerator for creating test cases.
    • Automated parts of data-validation workflows across datasets and pipelines.

    Supported QA and analytics testing activities by designing and implementing an accelerator tool that streamlined test-case creation.

    Contribution

    The tool automated parts of data-validation workflows, enabling faster test execution and broader coverage across datasets and data pipelines. The work combined Python and SQL with QA automation, testing methodologies, and an Agile delivery context.

    There is currently no public artifact suitable for linking from this experience entry.

    Technologies and areas

    • Python
    • SQL
    • QA automation
    • Data validation
    • Testing methodologies
    • Agile

  4. international program

    European Innovation Academy

    CTO within the project team

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    Duration
    156 hours
    Recognition
    6 ECTS
    Final grade
    A
    • Took responsibility for technical vision and feasibility within a multidisciplinary team.
    • Contributed to product, architecture, and prototype decisions across an intensive international program.

    Program context

    The European Innovation Academy was an intensive international and multidisciplinary program focused on taking a digital startup idea from problem discovery to a final pitch. The 156-hour format combined technology, product, business, design, customer discovery, entrepreneurship, and communication under a time-constrained schedule.

    Multidisciplinary team

    The project team was organized around distinct responsibilities, including CEO, CTO, CPO, CDO, and CMO roles. I served as CTO, working with colleagues from different disciplines and perspectives to connect the product direction with a technically viable solution.

    The problem and product concept

    The team developed a system designed to help people in Spain discover housing opportunities provided by local communities. The broader objective was to make opportunities in lower-population regions easier to discover and potentially support regional economic development and the response to territorial depopulation.

    Product lifecycle

    The work covered the complete product lifecycle:

    Problem identification → Customer validation → Product definition → Technical feasibility → Prototyping → Business model → Go-to-market thinking → Final pitch

    My role as CTO

    My contribution focused on defining the technical vision, assessing feasibility, translating the product idea into a viable technical direction, and contributing to product and architecture decisions. I also helped communicate technical trade-offs while the team shaped the prototype and its narrative.

    Collaboration and final pitch

    The experience required close collaboration across technology, product, business, design, customer discovery, and entrepreneurship. The team presented the resulting concept in a final pitch. The project is documented here as a program prototype and pitch outcome; no production deployment is claimed.

    What I learned

    Working as CTO in this setting strengthened my ability to communicate technical decisions outside a purely engineering context, evaluate feasibility quickly, and contribute to a product under intensive time constraints.

    Technologies and areas

    • Product discovery
    • Technical feasibility
    • Prototyping
    • Customer validation
    • Business modeling
    • Go-to-market thinking