João Alves
@joaoqalves.net
2x Dad. Husband. Head of Engineering @Adevinta. Building abistama.com and rotahog.com
Opinions are my own. Writes in PT/ES/EN/CAT
Opinions are my own. Writes in PT/ES/EN/CAT
I failed two promotion attempts even when everything “looked right” on paper.
In a post-ZIRP world, doing great work isn’t enough. You need level n+1 stories, visibility outside your team, and impact across boundaries.
Full article below.
In a post-ZIRP world, doing great work isn’t enough. You need level n+1 stories, visibility outside your team, and impact across boundaries.
Full article below.
November 25, 2025 at 8:34 AM
I failed two promotion attempts even when everything “looked right” on paper.
In a post-ZIRP world, doing great work isn’t enough. You need level n+1 stories, visibility outside your team, and impact across boundaries.
Full article below.
In a post-ZIRP world, doing great work isn’t enough. You need level n+1 stories, visibility outside your team, and impact across boundaries.
Full article below.
Nueva edición de “El doble clic”
- Gestión de contexto en Claude Code, cómo Tinybird reforzó su infraestructura en entornos multi-tenant y mucho más. Aquí 👇
enespanol.joaoqalves.net/p/el-doble-...
- Gestión de contexto en Claude Code, cómo Tinybird reforzó su infraestructura en entornos multi-tenant y mucho más. Aquí 👇
enespanol.joaoqalves.net/p/el-doble-...
November 24, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Nueva edición de “El doble clic”
- Gestión de contexto en Claude Code, cómo Tinybird reforzó su infraestructura en entornos multi-tenant y mucho más. Aquí 👇
enespanol.joaoqalves.net/p/el-doble-...
- Gestión de contexto en Claude Code, cómo Tinybird reforzó su infraestructura en entornos multi-tenant y mucho más. Aquí 👇
enespanol.joaoqalves.net/p/el-doble-...
Doing active/active K8s setup is hard. In many cases — unless it’s a regional service with its own database, etc — it comes with a lot of hidden complexities. @tjamet writes about our experience at Adevinta doing it. Must read: medium.com/learnings-f...
November 19, 2025 at 8:18 AM
Doing active/active K8s setup is hard. In many cases — unless it’s a regional service with its own database, etc — it comes with a lot of hidden complexities. @tjamet writes about our experience at Adevinta doing it. Must read: medium.com/learnings-f...
More updated than ever. 2020s engineering leaders must be more into the details. That’s a feature and not a bug.
“Servant leadership” (misapplied) created a lot of peace time engineering leaders.
Full post on world.hey.com/joaoqalves/...
“Servant leadership” (misapplied) created a lot of peace time engineering leaders.
Full post on world.hey.com/joaoqalves/...
November 9, 2025 at 9:21 AM
More updated than ever. 2020s engineering leaders must be more into the details. That’s a feature and not a bug.
“Servant leadership” (misapplied) created a lot of peace time engineering leaders.
Full post on world.hey.com/joaoqalves/...
“Servant leadership” (misapplied) created a lot of peace time engineering leaders.
Full post on world.hey.com/joaoqalves/...
"538 microservices? What a mess."
Four years ago, I wrote Disasters I've Seen in a Microservices World. I thought by now we'd have solved most of them.
We didn't. We just learned to live with the chaos. Link below 👇
Four years ago, I wrote Disasters I've Seen in a Microservices World. I thought by now we'd have solved most of them.
We didn't. We just learned to live with the chaos. Link below 👇
October 29, 2025 at 10:51 AM
"538 microservices? What a mess."
Four years ago, I wrote Disasters I've Seen in a Microservices World. I thought by now we'd have solved most of them.
We didn't. We just learned to live with the chaos. Link below 👇
Four years ago, I wrote Disasters I've Seen in a Microservices World. I thought by now we'd have solved most of them.
We didn't. We just learned to live with the chaos. Link below 👇
I've written a sequel to "Disasters I've Seen in a Microservices World," my most-read blog post. Ten disasters later, it's still chaotic, and with the rise of AI agents, it's bound to get worse. Planning to publish soon. Anyone want to read it before I do?
October 28, 2025 at 10:45 AM
I've written a sequel to "Disasters I've Seen in a Microservices World," my most-read blog post. Ten disasters later, it's still chaotic, and with the rise of AI agents, it's bound to get worse. Planning to publish soon. Anyone want to read it before I do?
Everyone talks about multi-cloud and reliability. Here’s what it looked like in practice when I joined Adevinta five years ago. The company had just agreed to acquire the eBay Classifieds Group, its secondhand marketplaces division. On the table: private cloud, GCP, and AWS.
October 24, 2025 at 9:13 AM
Everyone talks about multi-cloud and reliability. Here’s what it looked like in practice when I joined Adevinta five years ago. The company had just agreed to acquire the eBay Classifieds Group, its secondhand marketplaces division. On the table: private cloud, GCP, and AWS.
.@karpathy says the best way to learn is to build things.
He’s right, but as engineers, we know that’s only half the story.
Writing, teaching, or preparing a talk forces you to understand what you have built.
That’s what this post is about. Link below 👇
He’s right, but as engineers, we know that’s only half the story.
Writing, teaching, or preparing a talk forces you to understand what you have built.
That’s what this post is about. Link below 👇
October 22, 2025 at 10:23 AM
.@karpathy says the best way to learn is to build things.
He’s right, but as engineers, we know that’s only half the story.
Writing, teaching, or preparing a talk forces you to understand what you have built.
That’s what this post is about. Link below 👇
He’s right, but as engineers, we know that’s only half the story.
Writing, teaching, or preparing a talk forces you to understand what you have built.
That’s what this post is about. Link below 👇
LLMs changed everything for me. I got my first money on @hirotahog, thanks to it. Before I had lots of ideas but with my limited time, I threw the towel before I went live. Now I go from idea to prod quickly and I try a lot of stuff. FAFO
October 20, 2025 at 6:44 AM
LLMs changed everything for me. I got my first money on @hirotahog, thanks to it. Before I had lots of ideas but with my limited time, I threw the towel before I went live. Now I go from idea to prod quickly and I try a lot of stuff. FAFO
At abistama.com, we’re cooking something new. 🧑🍳
October 19, 2025 at 10:06 AM
At abistama.com, we’re cooking something new. 🧑🍳
2025 is my "back to blogging" year! After 1.5 years of hiatus, I've written eight blog posts this year. The fun part for me? Talking about SaaS, Private Equity, being a Head of Eng, and more.
October 17, 2025 at 6:28 AM
2025 is my "back to blogging" year! After 1.5 years of hiatus, I've written eight blog posts this year. The fun part for me? Talking about SaaS, Private Equity, being a Head of Eng, and more.
I wrote a post, after @factorialapp's latest announcement: back in the office, five days a week 🔥 Remote is a tool, not dogma. Why? Juniors struggle, culture slips. Hybrid needs rules; remote edges, small teams. Tradeoffs. Full post below
October 16, 2025 at 9:22 AM
I wrote a post, after @factorialapp's latest announcement: back in the office, five days a week 🔥 Remote is a tool, not dogma. Why? Juniors struggle, culture slips. Hybrid needs rules; remote edges, small teams. Tradeoffs. Full post below
One of the comments I received in HN was this one. My post aimed at sharing my personal experience and not work-wise. Still, there are a lot of things to unpack.
October 11, 2025 at 8:38 AM
One of the comments I received in HN was this one. My post aimed at sharing my personal experience and not work-wise. Still, there are a lot of things to unpack.
I also learned how to "ping-pong" with ChatGPT in terms of producing good PRDs and identifying areas where there are weak spots, such as tests.
Read it here : bit.ly/48ieyVB
Read it here : bit.ly/48ieyVB
October 9, 2025 at 9:03 AM
I also learned how to "ping-pong" with ChatGPT in terms of producing good PRDs and identifying areas where there are weak spots, such as tests.
Read it here : bit.ly/48ieyVB
Read it here : bit.ly/48ieyVB
I’ve spent three years "vibe coding" with LLMs. Shipping side projects I’d never have had time to build otherwise. In terms of implementation, I agree with @iagolast and I don't feel it's "magic" anymore, but I do feel a lot more productive. Full post below.
October 9, 2025 at 9:03 AM
I’ve spent three years "vibe coding" with LLMs. Shipping side projects I’d never have had time to build otherwise. In terms of implementation, I agree with @iagolast and I don't feel it's "magic" anymore, but I do feel a lot more productive. Full post below.
I’m open sourcing Abistama’s support hero! 🦸
⚡ Emoji → Jira tickets
🤖 AI-powered summaries
📊 CSAT surveys
🔗 Slack & Jira integration
The biz model failed, but maybe it helps your team. Repo in the post below 👇
⚡ Emoji → Jira tickets
🤖 AI-powered summaries
📊 CSAT surveys
🔗 Slack & Jira integration
The biz model failed, but maybe it helps your team. Repo in the post below 👇
August 25, 2025 at 3:18 PM
I’m open sourcing Abistama’s support hero! 🦸
⚡ Emoji → Jira tickets
🤖 AI-powered summaries
📊 CSAT surveys
🔗 Slack & Jira integration
The biz model failed, but maybe it helps your team. Repo in the post below 👇
⚡ Emoji → Jira tickets
🤖 AI-powered summaries
📊 CSAT surveys
🔗 Slack & Jira integration
The biz model failed, but maybe it helps your team. Repo in the post below 👇
The other day, I had the chance to have a conversation with @agilestateofM about DevOps, Platform Engineering, SLIs, SLOs and more. It’s meant for people that are start looking into all of this. >>>
June 23, 2025 at 8:16 AM
The other day, I had the chance to have a conversation with @agilestateofM about DevOps, Platform Engineering, SLIs, SLOs and more. It’s meant for people that are start looking into all of this. >>>
🚩"Not a 9-5 job" in a job post: is it a red flag? Some roles, such as those at OpenAI or Anthropic, require extra hours but offer career growth, equity, or a mission-driven impact. Effort can be a choice, not a trap, if the upside’s real. Read more: bit.ly/3HIJKlw
June 16, 2025 at 8:21 AM
🚩"Not a 9-5 job" in a job post: is it a red flag? Some roles, such as those at OpenAI or Anthropic, require extra hours but offer career growth, equity, or a mission-driven impact. Effort can be a choice, not a trap, if the upside’s real. Read more: bit.ly/3HIJKlw
One of Slack’s major moats is to have access to a stream of conversations in a business. AI and LLMs that build atop these and generate meaningful summaries, documentation, etc are a big threat to their business. Alas, new rate limits.
June 1, 2025 at 12:24 PM
One of Slack’s major moats is to have access to a stream of conversations in a business. AI and LLMs that build atop these and generate meaningful summaries, documentation, etc are a big threat to their business. Alas, new rate limits.
Just published: "Five opinions I’ve kept, let go, and picked up as a software builder and leader"
Typed languages, CD, writing culture? Still worth it.
Scala? Test pyramids? Preprod parity? Not so much.
New lessons? Support, momentum, brag docs.
bit.ly/4mEzxXw
Typed languages, CD, writing culture? Still worth it.
Scala? Test pyramids? Preprod parity? Not so much.
New lessons? Support, momentum, brag docs.
bit.ly/4mEzxXw
May 27, 2025 at 8:48 AM
Just published: "Five opinions I’ve kept, let go, and picked up as a software builder and leader"
Typed languages, CD, writing culture? Still worth it.
Scala? Test pyramids? Preprod parity? Not so much.
New lessons? Support, momentum, brag docs.
bit.ly/4mEzxXw
Typed languages, CD, writing culture? Still worth it.
Scala? Test pyramids? Preprod parity? Not so much.
New lessons? Support, momentum, brag docs.
bit.ly/4mEzxXw
What happens after a private equity takeover? Many things. The playbook is quite consistent. One of the main parts is replacing leadership with people more experienced or aligned with PE interests.
If you wanna know more about Private Equities in tech, see the next post.
If you wanna know more about Private Equities in tech, see the next post.
May 19, 2025 at 7:38 AM
What happens after a private equity takeover? Many things. The playbook is quite consistent. One of the main parts is replacing leadership with people more experienced or aligned with PE interests.
If you wanna know more about Private Equities in tech, see the next post.
If you wanna know more about Private Equities in tech, see the next post.
The future has already arrived. It's just not evenly distributed.
May 17, 2025 at 7:18 AM
The future has already arrived. It's just not evenly distributed.
The MVP is live! Built a simple UI to assign tasks and track who’s up next for all-hands or newsletters. The fairness algorithm is in progress to stop the “always me” vibe. It’s rough, but it’s something. Any feedback?
April 24, 2025 at 6:01 AM
The MVP is live! Built a simple UI to assign tasks and track who’s up next for all-hands or newsletters. The fairness algorithm is in progress to stop the “always me” vibe. It’s rough, but it’s something. Any feedback?
Three years ago, I suggested we trade off a mid/senior-level engineer for someone out of college. It was the best call I ever made. Today, we're equally sad this engineer is leaving the team and super excited because he'll join a top-notch AI company. Hire junior folks.
December 18, 2024 at 5:51 PM
Three years ago, I suggested we trade off a mid/senior-level engineer for someone out of college. It was the best call I ever made. Today, we're equally sad this engineer is leaving the team and super excited because he'll join a top-notch AI company. Hire junior folks.
The last point is where you can shine as a manager, after all the hard work before, setting the tone and culture for further promotions. Make the reasons for promotion public, and start a virtuous circle. What's your experience with promotions?
July 11, 2023 at 2:23 PM
The last point is where you can shine as a manager, after all the hard work before, setting the tone and culture for further promotions. Make the reasons for promotion public, and start a virtuous circle. What's your experience with promotions?