Arcual Life: Meet Our Backend Engineer, João!

Tell us about your professional background?

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Hello, Arcual Life! I completed a masters in Civil Engineering, specialising in steel structures. At the end of my degree, however, programming entered my life, triggering a significant shift in my career! I worked as a researcher for an institute at the University in my first position, where I was implementing an algorithm related to the seismic loading and behaviour of steel joints (which seems like a million years ago now!). Then I joined SAP, where I contributed to the implementation of an e-commerce product, laying the foundation for my journey into the intricacies of Software Engineering. Afterwards, my former employer was a cool start-up called Talkdesk, one of the few Portuguese Unicorns. There, I worked on the development of a product targeted for the healthcare industry in the United States. And now here I am, proudly working for Arcual!

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What was a career highlight?

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I was lucky to join Talkdesk by the time they were establishing a brand new unit, named ‘Industries’. I was placed within a fantastic team that was only on its third week of existence, focused on the development of the Healthcare product I mentioned previously. I had the opportunity to build it from scratch, and it was extremely satisfying to see our first customers going live and refining the product according to their usage. It was like seeing a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. I am extremely proud of what we achieved, and very grateful for all I learnt there.

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What drew you to Arcual?

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Being passionate about music myself, I have many friends who decided to pursue a more artistic path for their careers. It saddens me that a fair portion of them struggle to find stable work, with some even having to abandon their artistic career. This was one of the main reasons I joined Arcual: we aim to place artists at the heart of the art ecosystem. I believe there’s an opportunity to empower artists with enhanced rights and guaranteed royalties. That was my emotional reasoning. Then, on a technical level, I believe the art world is highly complex and brings very interesting technical challenges. In the Engineering team, we strive to use the latest technologies available in the market, crafting very diversified products.

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What does a typical day look like for you and the Engineering team?

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My day starts early in the morning, around 8am. Until 9am, I drink my first coffee and get some quick tasks done, such as replying to pending messages or finishing some code reviewing while my head is still quite fresh. Then I get my second coffee, and with that comes normal daily meetings, such as the daily stand-up itself, technical and product refinements, engineering meetings, or even lunch’n’learn sessions. In between, I get my hands dirty in the code, drink a couple more coffees, and also do code reviews for other colleagues.

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What is your favourite thing about culture at Arcual?

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The team is absolutely incredible, always willing to help each other and bring new perspectives to the table. Arcual’s team is made up of more than 20 nationalities from the most varied backgrounds, and it’s the norm for each of us to be very passionate about the products we’re developing.

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What would you be, if you weren’t Arcual’s Backend Engineer?

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In another lifetime, I’d imagine having been a Jazz musician and music instructor, but I never did such a difficult thing in my life as studying music. Alternatively, I wouldn’t mind having been an Architect, one of the famous ones. Or perhaps a lottery winner. Or, why not, a Nobel Peace Prize!!

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Where do you see Arcual in two year’s time?

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Well, probably looking for some office facilities in Silicon Valley - there’s where they farm all of the unicorns, right?

Jokes aside, I see Arcual growing in everything, from service offering, market usage and its team growing. Two years is a lot of time, and believe me, we are a very fast paced company. I believe the market is demanding for the range of features we are developing, and I see us growing to be the one of the leading softwares in the art industry, empowering the artists and bringing them back to the center of the art ecosystem.

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