Meet the Engineers: João Carmo, Senior Software Engineer

Meet João — with a tilde — from Portugal, one of the ten oldest countries in the world. He joined Capmo remotely from the UK, where he used to work for a biotech startup. Now he is planning to work from Portugal again, where he lived in both Porto and Lisbon. Before he moved to the UK, he spent the quarantine in the former city. During the lockdown, he created a pet adoption platform called Litten — short for little kitten. How cute! He’s for sure an animal lover but I think we can guess which one is his favourite!

Hi João! Nice to meet you! How did you start your week?

João: Hi there! I still eat cereal for breakfast every day. At the same time, I go through the most recent Slack messages and e-mails. Then, it’s time for the daily standup meeting with the team. Finally, I grab a quick espresso before pressing “join meeting” and thus the working day starts. With any luck, there aren’t many meetings on my calendar. I can spend the day writing bad code to drive my colleagues mad during reviews. Just joking obviously!

At the end of the week, we have a short virtual get-together with the whole team. We chat about anything — except work — or play a round of Gartic Phone!

I do love some good Choco Krispies for breakfast! But let’s get back to the work-related part. Why did you choose to work at Capmo?

João: I believe in advancing and digitising all aspects of our lives. Contributing to Capmo’s products will help in fulfilling that vision. I’m part of something I believe in and have the privilege to work with talented people from around the world. I love multicultural companies where everybody is welcome!

You choose to work remotely for Capmo. Was it the German weather?

João: I used to have to go to the office every single day, except on very rare occasions. With the COVID-19 pandemic, I was lucky enough to be able to continue to do my job from home. That proved to my employer that I could be as productive/reliable — if not more. I had more time to myself, avoiding the stress of commuting.

Sometime later, I started going to the office again but decided that I was happier working remotely. I’m lucky again to have found an incredibly supportive team at Capmo. They allow me to outperform myself from anywhere in the world!

The best part is not having to commute — as that was a major stress factor, especially on colder/rainy days. I can have control over my work-life balance. I’m able to take longer lunch breaks or go for a quick run. Then, I spread the work throughout the day instead of keeping it confined to the 9–5 window. Sometimes I’m just more productive in the evening!

Even though I’m working remotely from a different country, I loved going to the office in Munich for my onboarding! It was an amazing experience and allowed me to get to know a few people in person, especially my teammates. Also, the coffee at the office is great!

I see and what’s your favourite part about your job?

João: It’s exciting being a part of the engineering team behind the product our users love. I’m able to work on features that will make their lives easier. We want to give them the best we can, but sometimes a simple feature requires a complex solution. That is usually a challenge for us.

Currently, we are working on new features that we believe our users will enjoy. Some may actually have been waiting for them for a while! We want to enable our users to take ownership of their organisation, user management, and how they collaborate on their projects.

Is working at a SaaS start-up in construction as you imagined it?

João: I started my career working in corporate and only recently have I moved into the startup world. My perspective, so far, is that Capmo takes advantage of the best things in corporate. They are able to integrate those into the startup world — clear goals, a well-defined process, and accountability.

Coming from the biotech industry, it’s refreshing to find good software engineering practices implemented and respected. One would expect as much in the SaaS industry.

We have very talented people at Capmo and it’s a privilege to work with them every day. Each engineer is different and has something unique to offer which makes this an extremely rewarding experience for me.