My Journey (So Far)

Looking back, taking stock, and getting ready for what’s next.

I recently turned 50. And, not long before that, I had to close Decipad - a startup I co-founded and poured myself into for the past few years.

It feels like the right moment to pause and take stock - to look back, and to look ahead.

I’ve been working in this industry since 1997, one year before finishing my Software Engineering degree. That’s 28 years ago - which feels both like a blink and a lifetime.

If I’m honest, I’ve often felt that I was following the current rather than steering it.

• I joined the Distributed Systems unit at Link Consulting because a friend recruited me.
• I became CTO at Clarity Europe, a FinTech startup, because a professor invited me.
• Later, I found myself working for a bank simply because the company I was with got acquired by one.

I wasn’t complaining - I was learning a lot - but I wasn’t really choosing my own path either.

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Taking the Helm

That changed in 2004, when I decided to take control of my destiny. I moved back home to Madeira island and, since there was no real tech industry to join, I started my own company.

I fell, almost by accident, into the tourism industry - the heartbeat of Madeira - and learned how hard and beautiful building something from scratch can be. But when the business went bankrupt around 2010, I had to start over again.

This time, I decided to work remotely. I joined an education company that was doing good work and - just as importantly - needed the help.

Around then, I discovered Node.js.

That discovery changed everything.

I started creating open-source projects, writing, and sharing what I was learning. For the first time in a long time, I felt I was at the helm again - creating, not just reacting.

That led to my first real adventure in the cloud world: I was hired by one of the first Node.js PaaS providers.

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From Consulting to Open Source

Then a good friend invited me to join his consulting company in London. We built systems for Education, Retail, Publishing, Finance - you name it.

It was great work, but I realized I didn’t just want to build for others. I wanted to build something of my own again.

So, I quit.

Not long after, another friend invited me to join Protocol Labs to work on IPFS - a bold, open-source project building the foundations for a decentralized web.

It was a dream: hard distributed-systems problems, a massive mission, and a team of brilliant minds.

But the space around us shifted. The Web3 gold rush brought too many opportunists and too little meaning. Combined with hands-off leadership, I started feeling disconnected from the mission.

So, once again, I quit.

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Building for the Public Good

After that, I took a breath. I spent some time helping out at the local university, doing small research projects.

One of those projects quickly evolved into a mission-critical system during the first Covid lockdown - a platform that helped reopen Madeira’s borders safely.

We built and deployed it in three weeks - just me and two part-time, inexperienced interns - to support health authorities in a region that depends deeply on tourism.

It worked. But the experience also opened my eyes to the public sector’s pace and politics, and I burned out from the frustration of command hierarchies and media-driven priorities.

Still, it left me with a fascination for how software and public good intersect - how open-source and participatory processes could reshape how we build for society.

Sadly, few seemed interested in real change, and my enthusiasm fizzled out.

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The Decipad Chapter

Then came Decipad. In 2021, while searching for what to do next, a good friend shared an idea that instantly clicked.

Four and a half years later, after a wild, intense ride of building, learning, growing, and shipping, we had to shut it down.

It hurt. But it also felt like the closing of a chapter that taught me everything - about leadership, product, teams, markets, and most of all, about myself.

We shared a bit about that here: 👉 Decipad is shutting down

Looking Ahead

Now, as I look ahead, I know I want to do something that matters deeply - in health or education.

I’ve been exploring the field of Computational Psychiatry, curious about how technology might help us understand and support mental health in more human, data-informed ways.

At the very least, I want to connect with people who care about meaningful work - people building things that improve lives, not just metrics.

If that resonates with you, I’d love to connect:

→ LinkedIn

→ Twitter/X

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Here’s to whatever comes next - because I have a feeling the best part of the journey is still ahead.