09/30/2026 updated
100 % available
Engineering Leader | Agentic AI, AWS Serverless & Backend Engineering | Remote (Portugal)
Quarteira, Portugal
Only remote
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and TechnologiesAbout me
I get AI past the pilot stage and into production. Most recently Head of Backend at Outplay (~80 microservices on AWS), where I turned an agentic code review PoC into a tool engineers used daily. 20+ years in backend engineering and team leadership. Remote from Portugal for UK & EU clients.
AI AgentsLLMBedrockJava (Programming Language)JavaScriptApplication Programming Interfaces (APIs)Agile MethodologyAmazon Web ServicesCloud EngineeringContinuous DeliveryContinuous IntegrationDevOpsAmazon DynamoDBEngineering ManagementRecruitment
Agentic AI & LLM Engineering
Took an agentic code review system from proof of concept to production, used daily by engineering: parallel specialist agents on Amazon Bedrock, integrated into the delivery pipeline, with cost and latency measured and a feedback loop on every review. Now building its next generation: dynamic orchestration, context-gathering agents, replay-based evaluation against historical reviews, and token-budget control.
Backend & Cloud Engineering
Deep hands-on experience with Python, TypeScript, JavaScript and AWS serverless (Lambda, Step Functions, API Gateway, DynamoDB, Aurora). Strong background in microservices, event-driven integration and REST API design, most recently across ~80 microservices in half a dozen environments.
Engineering Leadership & Team Scaling
Grew a department from 3 to 8 engineers across backend, DevOps, frontend and DataOps as hiring manager, owning the whole process: writing job ads, screening, behavioural interviews, and designing and scoring technical assessments. Line management, career frameworks and stakeholder management; drove Agile, BDD and a culture of operational excellence.
Delivery, CI/CD & Reliability
GitLab CI/CD, DORA metrics, DevOps and reliability engineering. Cut environment provisioning from ~6 months to 1 week, improved delivery KPIs by 25% for four consecutive quarters, and eliminated 24/7 on-call rotations. TDD and BDD practitioner across multiple roles.
Legacy Modernisation & Regulated Integrations
Consolidated legacy systems without pausing delivery while launching three global titles; built joint flows with a regulated gaming partner (KYC, anti-fraud, geofencing).
Integration Platform Engineering
Designed and built an IPaaS integration platform from scratch (Java EE, Spring, Apache Camel, OSGi, JMS, SOAP/REST), cutting bespoke integration effort by up to two-thirds for enterprise ITSM customers.
Databases
DynamoDB, RDS/Aurora, Redis, Redshift, MongoDB, MySQL, MS SQL Server, Oracle SQL.
Frontend
Working knowledge of React and Angular in full-stack, cross-discipline teams.
Earlier: ERP & Warehouse Management
Senior developer, technical lead and project manager on ERP and warehouse management rollouts across several countries (Oracle PL/SQL, ANSI C).
Experience
Professional experience10+ years
Freelancer since2026
Languages
EnglishFluentItalianNative speakerPortugueseFluent
Project history
Helping engineering organisations get AI past the pilot stage and into production through hands-on engagements, fixed-fee diagnostics and part-time engineering leadership for UK and EU clients. Building an agentic code review tool with context-gathering and consolidation agents around parallel specialist reviewers on Amazon Bedrock, cost-aware orchestration, and evaluation by replaying repository history against real human reviews.
Led a backend department of 5-8 engineers behind 10 live global mobile titles and 2 in development, running approximately 80 microservices across half a dozen environments on AWS. Took an AWS-funded proof of concept for agentic code review and rebuilt it into the delivery pipeline: up to 5 specialised agents reviewing every change in parallel, used daily by engineering, delivered at zero cost to the business. Cut environment provisioning from approximately 6 months to 1 week, improved DORA-style delivery KPIs by 25% for four consecutive quarters, and eliminated 24/7 on-call rotations through reliability engineering. Delivered the backend for 3 new global title launches while consolidating legacy systems. Built joint flows with a regulated gaming partner (VGW): account lifecycle with KYC, sweepstakes (AMOE), anti-fraud and geofencing. Stack: Python, JavaScript, React, AWS (Lambda, Step Functions, API Gateway, DynamoDB, RDS/Aurora, Redis, Redshift, CloudFront, Bedrock, Comprehend), GitLab CI/CD, Amplitude.
Grew the department from 3 to 8 engineers in two cross-discipline teams (backend/DevOps, frontend, DataOps) as hiring manager, owning the whole process: job ads, screening, behavioural interviews, and designing and scoring technical assessments. Built career paths and a culture of feedback and operational excellence, and drove Agile, BDD, CI and CD.