As a developer

I am focused, passionate and curious. Being able to learn new things every day and struggling with new concepts for a while until it becomes clear how they work is a very rewarding feeling.

There are a few concepts I consider that every project needs to have in order to be a presentable work. Some of them I am still learning or perfecting and my goal is to have these mastered as much as possible.

• Responsive

  In this day and age, apart from a few exceptions, a website MUST be responsive since most traffic now comes from mobile devices. Here's how I handle it:

  • Develop for mobile first and modify accordingly for larger screens
  • Test extensively by using Chrome Dev tools and Responsively App
  • Percentages and viewport units instead of fixed pixel dimensions
  • CSS Flexbox and Grid Layout

  One change I am really looking forward to start using is aspect-ratio CSS properties It's a great tool to improve the way we handle images and it's a shame it's not fully supported across all browsers yet.

• Accessible

  A public website's content should be accessible to everyone, whether they have disabilities or not. I still have plenty to improve in this area but at the moment these are my strategies:

  • Descriptive alt texts on images
  • Good semantic HTML composition
  • Aria labels to help with website navigation
  • Google Lighthouse to help identify any current accessibility issues

• Performant

  There are many ways to achieve this, and it varies a lot from application to application, but my general approach is:

  • Lazy loading to render content only when it's necessary
  • Avoid unnecessary component re-rendering
  • Handle state in different ways depending on the application complexity
  • Investigate and improve load times by inspecting HTTP requests
  • Optimize image file size for production
  • Purge unused CSS classes

• Maintainable

  Good maintainable code is something I always strive to achieve. This can sometimes be hard to do since it's somewhat of a subjective matter, therefore impossible to please everyone. Here's how I try to achieve it:

  • Each function/component only does one thing and does it well
  • Making re-usable and flexible components with the help of props
  • Naming variables, functions and components based on their purpose
  • Adding comments to explain complex logic

Personal Story

Born and raised in a seaside town called Vila Real de Santo António on the south coast of Portugal, a beautiful country with lovely weather and great quality of life.

I got my high school diploma in Economics and started working summer jobs in the catering industry.

In 2015 I moved to the UK in search of better growth opportunities, I lived and worked there for about 5 years before returning to Portugal to chase a career in Web Development and to be closer to my friends and family.

Moving to the UK was the best decision I've ever made because moving away to another country alone with just enough money to sustain myself for about two months and no job lined up made me who I am today.

Since most of my days are spent sitting at a desk, I like to have hobbies that involve exercise. I go to the gym 3/4 weeks a week and try to cycle everywhere I can. I also enjoy other sport such as tennis and bouldering. On the other hand, I'm also a gamer so if there's a new game out I desperately want to play then I won't be moving much at all.

Whenever I go on holiday I try to go to sunny places and explore around. My favourite trips so far have been to the Philippines and Sri Lanka, where I spent 2/3 weeks travelling around the country and meeting the locals, never staying in the same place for more than a few days.

As a student

Most of my knowledge regarding web development comes from self-study through different online courses and then applying what I learned to my own personal projects.

I am also a student at 42 Lisbon. The way 42 school works is that there are no teachers and all the learning is projected based and peer-to-peer learning.

Each project has its own specifications of what you are expected to do and all the learning is done through your own research and discussion with your peers.