Engineering Manager · Tech Lead · 16+ years building and scaling SaaS teams and products

Porto, Portugal · Open to Engineering Manager, Head of Engineering and Tech Lead roles · Available immediately Remote (Europe / CET) · Hybrid in Portugal · On-site in the Porto area

I build engineering teams and the products they ship.

I started an IT development department from scratch at one of Portugal's largest Mercedes-Benz dealer groups and grew it into a 9-person unit, promoting two interns into full-time engineers along the way. After that I led engineering at an AI-powered EdTech and HR marketplace, taking the platform from concept to production in 4 months and through a full migration to GCP and microservices.

I stay hands-on. Everything listed below is running in production, built by me or by teams I led.

• Engineering management: hiring, 1-on-1s, career growth, delivery cadence, remote teams, change management
• Applied AI in products: Gemini, RAG, edge functions, matching engines, AI-generated content pipelines
• Process automation and BPM: Bitrix24 at specialist level, 30+ workflows serving 150+ daily users
• System integration: 25 to 30 internal platforms unified into a single data layer (DMS, CRM, finance, marketing)
• SaaS architecture: Supabase/Postgres, microservices, Stripe, GCP, Docker, Cloudflare, observability

Beetravel & Beecard · Live Travel planning platform and digital business card product. 300+ users across 177 countries, 1,360+ AI-generated itineraries. 10 backend microservices plus a full internal ERP/CMS built from scratch. Team of 6, I lead as Co-Founder and Engineering Lead. React TypeScript Flutter Supabase Gemini Mapbox GL Next.js Cloudflare

Trakki · Live AI job-search platform. Tailored CVs and cover letters, job posting analysis, company research across three sources, salary estimation, AI mock interviews, daily automated role matching. Backed by a separate Python microservice (searching-eng). React TypeScript Supabase Gemini API Stripe Python Chrome Extension

AutoLeve · Live, 1 paying client SaaS management platform for the automotive sector: stock, expenses, workshop and document management. In active production use at bfautomoveis.pt. Laravel Filament Redis

Turtlemancer · Live AI assistant for a private World of Warcraft server community. RAG system fed by scraped game data so answers stay accurate and game-specific. JavaScript Supabase Gemini API RAG

Colorir Portugal · Live Gamified map of Portugal's 308 municipalities. Users paint the councils they have visited and mark towns, trails and boardwalks. Installable PWA. React TypeScript Mapbox GL Supabase PWA

Forgea · Live AI PC parts advisor for non-technical users, recommending components by need and budget. Vite TypeScript TailwindCSS PocketBase Docker OpenAI API

EuroSwitch · In development Directory for discovering European tech alternatives, focused on digital sovereignty. React 19 TanStack Start Cloudflare Workers PocketBase Docker

Full portfolio with all 13 projects: nelsondcosta.ovh

Engineering Manager at The Chaincademy (2025 to 2026) Led a remote engineering team building an AI-powered EdTech and HR marketplace. Shipped from scratch to 800+ users and 16 recruiters in 4 months. Negotiated a $100K Google Cloud partnership, authored the RFC for the full GCP migration, and guided the team through the move to microservices.

Tech Lead / Head of IT Development at Soc. Com. C.Santos SA, Mercedes-Benz (2016 to 2025) Built the development department from zero to 9 people. Shipped CarBase24, a real-time stock system for 1,000+ vehicles used daily by 250+ people. Ran the org-wide Bitrix24 implementation that removed 90% of paper across all offices and cut approval workflows from 4 to 8 hours down to under 20 minutes.

Co-Founder at CiberCore (2010 to 2014) Game server hosting business. 20 to 30 physical servers, 80+ clients, no dedicated support staff.

Backend

Frontend

Cloud & Infra

Data & AI

Automation & Reporting

Portuguese (native) · English (fluent, professional and technical) · Spanish (beginner)

If it can be automated, it will not stay manual.