After finishing my degree in Computer Software Engineering I began immediately working at a small web based company. There I went trough the challenges of a fullstack web developer, using SQL Server, MySQL, PHP, C#, JS, HTML, CSS and many others. After some years I felt the need for something more 🤔

So here I'm today working as a Software Engineer at a major retailer from Portugal, delivering IT value trough the many realities of this retailer.

I started this new challenge integrated directly at a PM team where bit by bit I started giving some consultancy on technical aspects of their projects.

Initially I was mainly a SharePoint consultant but after some time I made a transition to OutSystems development and something more...

Nowadays I'm dedicated to HR projects, there's a major revamp of all software related to HR at this retailer. I follow closely many projects, tying all technical dimensions of them, helping defining requirements and doing some integrations (APIGEE) and OutSystems development, this is my day to day reality 😊

By the end of my teen years I went to college with my dreams set on Astronomy, a physics/mathematics degree that would reveal itself too much theoretical for my taste. Had my first contact with programming using QBasic, Visual Basic and MATLAB.

After some time I understood that Astronomy wasn't a good fit for me and I began working while I considered my next step.

Taking consideration of my electronics past and my interest in IT, I took a degree in Electronic Engineering and Computer Networks. Only then I realized my love for programming and made a final change to Computer Software Engineering.

During this period I worked as a music teacher at elementary schools (the joy and hardship of getting children to know a bit about music 😅) and in the retail area as a copy center employee.

The skill I earned, constant work/studying/learning it's my founding cornerstone, helping me getting trough every day 🙂

Music my other half, other career path I may had followed if I lived in another country but Portugal isn't a country for musicians...

At late nineties I began learning piano, music fundamentals and started my choir life. Joined a small music band, where we played popular Portuguese and international music at local villages parties and weddings, an easy way to earn enough to have my PC hardware always updated😛

As I ended my studies at the music conservatory I joined a Tuna, a music group from my college, bringing enjoyment and music everywhere we could.

Meanwhile till today I maintained my membership at the choir from the conservatoire where I studied, with recurrent classical concerts (Requiems and other kinds) trough Portugal, Spain and Italy. Some of my fondest memories come from La Via dei Concerti gatherings, many concerts at Italy with musicians from all over the world, a really nice interchange experience.

My attention went to videogames, good old times with Megadrive, Sonic, Shinobi and many others games. Even today I can recall lively Virtua Racing, my first 3D real game 😲.

Meanwhile I began getting my first contacts with PCs trough school and my brother-in-law IT business, trough him I also had my first VR experience (with Doom 2, after 30 min a dizzying experience 😵, probably why these helmets disappeared).

Finally I got my first PC, a Pentium 166 mmx, Matrox Mystique 4MB, Sound Blaster AWE64 and a 56k modem (fortunately after some time I got an ISDN modem, the joy of using two telephone lines and getting the astonishing 128k speed 😆). Here begun my journey in IT, messing with my PC, exploring the internet, knowing new friends trough IRC, making my first website (oldie FrontPage that would publish an entire text html page as an image...) and much more...

Hi, I'm Ricardo the one (pun intended, I couldn't resist 😝) born, living and working in the northern Portugal.

I was broth up in the middle of radios, TVs and all kinds of electronics as my grandparent was one of the firsts TV technicians and my father was an electrician. Besides reading books and riding bike, my favourite hobby was dismantling TVs and all kind of electronics, I had to know how things were inside, how they worked 😃

Nowadays I'm a software engineer and this site is intended as a small side project, returning to web development basics. An opportunity to talk a little about me and subjects of my interest.