About

I’m Luís, a backend focused software developer living in Brasil 🇧🇷. I’m very passionate about a lot of things, some of them are:

  • Custom keyboards
  • Text editors
  • My computer environment (you can check my dotfiles if you want)
  • Developer tooling in general
  • Getting better at stuff
  • Learn more about linguistics and philosophy

This website is meant to be a place to share a few things, in the form of blog posts as well as notes. This page is mostly a resume of my professional experience and education. If you want to get in touch or discuss anything you can email me at luissimas@protonmail.com. If you’re interested in my projects and open source contributions, check out my GitHub.

Technical Skills Link to heading

At a high level, these are the skills I’m most comfortable with and use in my day to day:

  • Go
  • Python
  • Node.js (TypeScript and JavaScript)
  • PostgreSQL
  • MongoDB
  • Docker
  • Shell scripting
  • CI/CD Pipelines (GitLab and GitHub)
  • Git
  • Linux administration
  • Observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, Alertmanager, VictoriaMetrics and InfluxDB)
  • IaC and configuration management tools (Terraform, Ansible, MAAS, Juju)
  • Kubernetes (Helm, GitOps, FluxCD)

Professional experience Link to heading

Researcher (Volunteer), Grupo de Sistemas Distribuídos e Redes (UFSCar) (2024-Present) Link to heading

This research group is focused in researching and developing software that plays a key role in the foundation of public clouds. In my time as a volunteer researcher, I led a research team focused in automating the deployment and operations of Incus in bare metal servers using Juju and MAAS. Besides that, I’ve also contributed new features to the Incus project.

Cloud developer, Luizalabs (Magalu Cloud) (2024-Present) Link to heading

I’m currently working at Luizalabs building Magalu Cloud: the first brazilian public cloud with multiple data centers. Although still a developer, I’m now involved in a wider range of topics that go from underlying hardware infrastructure to internal developer tooling. During my time here, I work mostly on the following:

  • Designing and implementing processes for test, validation and release via CI/CD pipelines
  • Implementing and maintaining libraries and tools to improve the internal developer experience
  • Contributing new features and bug fixes to open source projects such as Incus and Juju using Go
  • Developing automation solutions for deploying and operating critical services

Software developer freelancer, Upwork (2023-Present) Link to heading

In 2023 I started to work on a few projects sporadically as a freelancer. I felt that I needed more experience dealing directly with clients. It’s very rewarding to be able to deliver value by means of a complete project and get feedback directly from the client. During my time as a freelancer, I’ve done some work in:

  • Migrating production databases with several GiB of data
  • Designing and implementing cloud solutions using GCP services
  • Creating CLIs and automations using Node.js

Back-end developer, Liven Tech (2022-2024) Link to heading

Liven is a software house in São Carlos, Brazil. Their clients range from startups to big companies in a variety of domains.

As a back-end developer at Liven, I had the chance to work on a fast-paced environment composed of small squads dealing with constant change in project requirements. A good portion of my work was focused on the development of REST APIs in Node.js using Typescript and Clean Architecture. Besides that, I also worked on developing and operating telecom platforms in both Python and Node.js.

During my period with telecom platforms, I worked in instrumenting the applications with Prometheus and Grafana. Besides that, I also developed a process for load testing applications using open source tools such as xk6-diameter. The load tests provided us valuable insights to identify and solve bottlenecks that ultimately led to an almost 100X performance improvement in our Python services.

Finally, the work environment enabled me to start a functional programming study group with my coworkers. Together, we developed an internal tool using Elixir and Phoenix LiveView that was widely used in the company.

Software developer, CATI Jr (2021-2023) Link to heading

In the beginning of my graduation I’ve joined a junior enterprise focused on building software solutions for local businesses called CATI Jr. The bulk of my work consisted in the development of REST APIs in Node.js, which introduced me to project management, patterns, documentation and Scum practices. During my time at CATI Jr, I worked on:

  • Developing REST APIs with Node.js
  • Integrating with payment services such as Mercado Pago
  • Helped in designing an internal process for knowledge retention within the company

Education Link to heading

Pragmatic Studio Courses (2023-2024) Link to heading

I took two great courses on Pragmatic Studio focusing on Elixir/OTP and Phoenix LiveView. With these courses I was able to fully grasp the core concepts in Elixir and OTP and develop a series of interactive UIs using Phoenix Liveview.

You can check out my certificates of conclusion at my alumni page.

Introduction to Functional Programming (UTFPR) (2021) Link to heading

I’ve attended to a UTFPR extracurricular course open to the community in which I had the opportunity to met people from different countries and learn a lot about the foundations of functional programming.

During this course I’ve implemented a method of proving classical logic arguments know as Analytic Tableaux using Elixir, including a simple propositional logic parser using the Erlang libraries leex and yecc.

Besides that, I’ve presented a talk about the basics of OCaml and the joy of working with algebraic data types and pattern matching on a statically typed language.

Computer Science bachelor (UFSCar) (2020-Present) Link to heading

During my computer science bachelor course at UFSCar, I was actively engaged in extracurricular activities such as extension groups. It’s also been a great opportunity to dive deeper in computer science fundamental, such as compilers, operating systems and cybersecurity.

High School & Technical Certification (IFSP) (2017-2019) Link to heading

I’ve attended to a high school that included an integrated technical course on software development. During this period I had the opportunity not only to build solid technical foundations, but also to engage in extracurricular activities, mostly in cultural events.