From Engineering to the Edges of Web3

I started my career as an engineer and ended up at the frontier of crypto payments. This is not an accident — it is the result of a consistent pull toward complexity, systems thinking, and the parts of financial infrastructure that most people find intimidating. This page is an introduction to who I am, what I have built, and why I write about digital assets and regulation.

Education

I hold a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Industrial and Management Engineering from the University of Porto (2013–2019), one of Portugal's leading technical universities. The programme combined systems engineering, operations research, statistics, and business strategy — a foundation that has shaped how I approach every problem since: with data, structure, and a bias toward first principles.

Career

Business Data Analyst · SONAE

Oct 2020 – May 2022 · Porto, Portugal

My career began in one of Portugal's largest retail conglomerates, where I built Excel-based statistical models and BI dashboards that gave commercial and product leadership visibility over KPIs and forecasts. The role was grounded in rigour: data had to be right, models had to be auditable, and findings had to translate into decisions. I left with a strong analytical foundation and a clear sense that I wanted to apply those skills somewhere faster-moving.

Business Development Manager · Coinshift

Aug 2022 – Jan 2024 · Remote (Web3 / DeFi Treasury Infrastructure)

Coinshift was my entry point into crypto — a DeFi treasury management platform used by protocols like Lido, Maple Finance, and AthenaDAO. I joined as a BD manager and owned the full commercial cycle: generating and qualifying opportunities, closing an average of 3+ new clients per month, and expanding the company's ecosystem footprint. I also implemented HubSpot from zero, defining the data architecture and pipeline hygiene standards that the team depended on for GTM reporting. It was here that I developed a hands-on understanding of how Web3 teams operate — their priorities, their constraints, and the infrastructure gaps they needed solving.Business Development Lead & GTM · Request Network

Apr 2024 – Dec 2025 · Remote (Crypto Payments & Invoicing Protocol)

At Request Network, I owned the commercial strategy for a crypto-native payments and invoicing protocol — end to end. That meant defining the ICP, building the outbound motion, running a pipeline of 100+ qualified accounts at 3–5× target coverage, and personally closing mid-market integrations across payments, checkout, and invoicing. The technical dimension was central: I coordinated directly with product and engineering to translate SDK and API capabilities into commercial positioning, and managed technical discovery sessions with partners across Web3 fintech, iGaming, e-commerce, and trading. I also represented the company at 20+ industry events — including Token2049, EthCC, and Paris Blockchain Week — generating over 500 qualified contacts and sourcing approximately 40% of the pipeline through direct ecosystem relationships.

Web3 Community & Learning

Beyond my professional roles, I have invested in building deep fluency in the crypto ecosystem through selective participation in two programmes that I consider genuinely formative.

Kernel Block 4 (Gitcoin)

Kernel is an invite-only, 8-week peer-learning fellowship for builders in Web3, run by Gitcoin. Each block brings together approximately 300 fellows — founders, engineers, researchers, and operators — from across the world for a deep immersion in the history of blockchains, decentralised finance, token economics, and community design. Block 4 was not a course. It was a network and a worldview: a way of thinking about what the internet could become and what it means to build in public, with shared ownership as the north star. The relationships and mental models I developed there continue to shape how I analyse this space.

DevRel Uni — Cohort 2

DevRel University is a scholarship programme designed to train the next generation of Web3 developer relations professionals. Cohort 2 was a competitive intake of 30 participants from across the world, led by Bianca Buzea (Developer Relations Engineer at Balancer) and featuring instructors including Nader Dabit. The curriculum covered documentation strategy, event design, content and personal branding, and DevRel metrics — all applied to the specific dynamics of open-source Web3 ecosystems. This programme deepened my understanding of how crypto protocols grow developer communities and build trust with technical audiences, knowledge that directly informs how I write and communicate about this space.

Areas of Expertise

My work sits at the intersection of commercial strategy and technical infrastructure in digital assets. The areas where I have the most depth are: crypto payments and stablecoin infrastructure — particularly how payment protocols integrate with merchants, PSPs, and Web3applications; digital asset regulation — including MiCA, stablecoin frameworks, and how compliance requirements shape product and go-to-market decisions; business development and GTM in Web3 — from ICP definition and outbound mechanics to technical partner onboarding; and data-driven commercial operations — pipeline modelling, unit economics, and CRM architecture.

Why This Space

Crypto is one of the few domains where you can watch a new financial system being designed in real time — with all its contradictions, failures, and genuine breakthroughs visible to anyone paying attention. I came for the technical challenge and stayed because the questions are important: How should digital money work? Who should issue it, back it, and regulate it? What does it mean for a stablecoin to be "stable", and stable for whom?

The content I publish here is an attempt to engage with those questions seriously — not as a maximalist or a sceptic, but as someone who has spent years inside the infrastructure and wants to help others understand it clearly. I am actively looking for roles in digital asset risk, compliance, BD, or strategy at companies building at the intersection of traditional finance and Web3.