Luis Alves

I'm a staff software engineer with 21+ years of experience covering the full software lifecycle — analysis, architecture, development, testing, and delivery. My career started in 2005 building financial systems in Brazil (investment funds, custody, and payments) and grew from engineer into tech lead, Scrum Master, and product owner.

Over the last decade I've delivered microservices, data platforms, and enterprise integrations for major clients — GAP, Williams Sonoma, SquareTrade, and Merchant e-Solutions — as a tech lead at Avenue Code, relocating from Brazil to the US along the way. Most recently I've been leading AI-first, agentic development — building an internal rules engine end to end and pioneering AI practices across a supply-chain vertical. I care deeply about a strong testing culture (TDD/BDD), clean architecture, and mentoring engineers.

I also have a strong entrepreneurial streak that helps me solve problems from the ground up: I was the founding engineer at X4Fare (a transit fintech), co-founded fleeber (now amy.network), and I'm currently building AtipicALI alongside my full-time work. I lead by example, enjoy talking to non-technical people, and like turning ambiguity into shipped products.