Hi, I'm Vasco.

I'm a software engineer with a love for building digital products.

I specialize in full-stack web development using Ruby on Rails and React. I also have experience with mobile development, having shipped five iOS apps.

If you have an interesting project in need of a developer, let's chat!

Cadouu

Group Gifting Platform

Work

Co-Founder & CTO, lead developer

Cadouu makes organizing group gifts painless. It allows friends and family to come together and celebrate a special occasion by pooling their money and giving one big gift in the name of everyone. Besides the monetary contribution, people can also leave a personal video message that only the receiver will see.

We raised an angel financing round and went through one of the top European accelerators. Unfortunately, the products did not get enough traction, but I learned a lot about product development and technical leadership.

  • Developed backend system handling financial transactions.
  • Integrated with Stripe Connect to handle payments and transfers.
  • Helped shape product direction.
  • Managed other developers on the team.

Technologies

  • Ruby on Rails
  • React.js
  • PostgreSQL
  • RSpec
  • Sidekiq
  • Stripe
  • Heroku

GiftSwipe

Mobile web-app to curate and share a wishlist

Work

Co-founder & CTO

GiftSwipe, a spin-off product of Cadouu, is a mobile web-app to discover new products, get recommendations from friends and quickly build a wishlist to keep track of your favorite items.

  • Developed mobile progressive web application.
  • Quickly iterated on the initial prototype and launched in just six weeks.

Technologies

  • Ruby on Rails
  • React.js
  • PostgreSQL
  • RSpec
  • Sidekiq
  • Heroku

CarbonHero

Make your holiday celebrations carbon-neutral

Work

Technical Lead, backend development, iOS development

CarbonHero calculates the carbon footprint caused by your holiday celebration and enables you to offset those emissions using officially accredited carbon certificates.

Choose between two different categories of climate initiatives: Forest Protection and Renewable Energy. Purchase your compensation and get information on the climate project used to neutralize your emissions.

  • Led the development of the iOS app and backend.
  • Designed REST API.
  • Managed and reviewed the work of two developers.
  • Integrated with Stripe to support mobile payments.

Technologies

  • iOS (Swift)
  • Ruby on Rails
  • RSpec
  • Sidekiq
  • Stripe
  • Heroku

FitnessRace

Multiplayer Fitness Mobile Game

Work

Backend development

Fitness Race combines a step counter and mobile 3D game with the goal of incentivizing people to live a more active lifestyle.

The game takes the steps you walk in real life and converts them into in-game steps that you use to race your friends in cartoonish levels based on exotic locations such as New York, Hawaii or Berlin. If you are falling behind, why not try some power-ups such as a Cupcake Trap or a Spaghetti Tornado.

  • Responsible for the backend development and infrastructure, including implementation of the game logic on the server.
  • Designed and documented REST API.
  • Prototyped initial game logic as a stand-alone rails app to allow for quick iteration on the game mechanics.
  • Integrated with push notification and In-App Purchases for iOS and Android.

Technologies

  • Ruby on Rails
  • REST API
  • RSpec
  • Redis
  • Sidekiq
  • AWS SNS
  • Heroku

Calligraphy Practice

Learn calligraphy on the iPad

Work

iOS development

Calligraphy Practice is an iPad App that teaches you to draw beautiful calligraphy. It features specially designed fonts with tracing steps and a custom multi-touch drawing system that uses two fingers to emulate a calligraphy parallel pen.

Calligraphy Practice received the award for best New Media project at the 2014 National Prize for the Creative Industries (Portugal).

  • Implemented all functionality of the app

Technologies

  • iOS (Objective-C)