Hi, I am Thomás

Thomás Horta

Senior Software Engineer

Software Engineer with 7+ years of experience in Android Development, having built apps used by millions of people all around the world. Passionate about software development and always keen to learn and share knowledge about new technologies, frameworks, and programming languages to deliver high performance, high quality, well tested, and accessible products.

Self-motivated professional, and consistently recognized as a tech reference, also being interested in deeply understand products and deliver value to the end-users.

Besides programming, I also enjoy games (digital and board games) and playing music!

Leadership
Team Work
Communication
Adaptability
Fast Learner
Problem Solving

Experiences

1
Android Mobile Engineer
Automattic

November 2022 - Present, Remote

Distributed company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, Pocket Casts, Tumblr, and other products. On a mission to democratize publishing and commerce so that anyone with a story can tell it, and anyone with a product can sell it, regardless of income, gender, politics, language, or where they live in the world.

Responsibilities:
  • Working on the open-source WordPress and Jetpack Android apps.
  • Making technical decisions and improvements across different product features.
  • Using the latest Android development practices on a daily basis.
  • Collaborating and coordinating asynchronously with several teams distributed around the world.
Senior Software Engineer
HOMER

July 2021 - August 2022, Remote (New York, NY, United States)

Ed Tech company, on a mission to give kids the best start to their learning journey, crafting amazing apps and experiences to help kids learn and become enthusiastic learners using the proven HOMER method.

Responsibilities:
  • Worked on a distributed team in the flagship HOMER app, a kid facing application focused on learning using the HOMER method, through video and interactive lessons played by internal JS game engines and ExoPlayer.
  • Contributed to internal framework libraries used for parent user management, lesson playing, and analytics, communicating with services such as Amazon AppSync (GraphQL), AppsFlyer, and Embrace.
  • Active participant in discussions and presentations with the broader Android and App Engineering teams and Engineering Managers in internal tech talks, discussing cross-team efforts, best practices, and Android specifics.
  • Android tech reference in business discussions for new features, enhancements, and roadmaps, analyzing feasibility, proposing solutions, and leading cross-team initiatives.
  • Introduced Jetpack Compose to the Android application, granting interoperability with existing code.
2
3
Zup Innovation

September 2020 - June 2021, Campinas, SP, Brazil

Tech company, software consultancy and development center specialized in the banking industry, also being a creator of innovative OSS products focused on developer experience, software development and deployment.

Specialist Android Software Developer

May 2021 - June 2021

  • Working on a quality-oriented initiative to split the repository in multiple separate modular repositories, making architectural decisions, building complex solutions from scratch, and laying the groundwork for other squads.
  • Mentoring fellow Android Software Developers and becoming more active in cross-squad initiatives.
Senior Software Developer

September 2020 - April 2021

  • Building a main feature in a mobile banking app for one of the largest private banks in Brazil, with 99.8% crash-free users, 4.8 stars in Google Play, more than 10 million downloads and over 400k DAUs.
  • Recognized as an informal technical lead and reference in Software Engineering and project specifics by squad members and Android developers in other squads, frequently helping in cross-squad initiatives.
  • Active participant in product discussions and business decisions with the rest of the team, providing technical perspective, insights and feedback, analysing feasibility and proposing solutions to achieve the objectives.
  • Worked on several other internal SDKs and libraries on an inner source environment, introducing features, fixing issues, and pushing towards high-quality deliveries through code reviews and pair programming.
Software Developer
Dextra

July 2019 - August 2020, Campinas, SP, Brazil

Software consultancy and development center with a wide variety of national and international clients in several industries, being one of the pioneers in widely adopting Agile methodologies in Brazil.

Responsibilities:
  • Enhanced app features and proactively troubleshot bugs and crashes in the sports app of the largest TV network in Brazil, consuming GraphQL APIs, and being recognized as reference in development and testing.
  • Improved stability and architecture while working as lead developer on a redesign in the main app of one of the biggest currency exchange companies in Brazil, with a tight deadline and a fast-paced environment.
  • Contributed in the development of apps for a mobile network operator and for one of the biggest crowdfunding platforms using my expertise to deliver quality features and elegant solutions for bugs.
  • Shared technical knowledge by frequently making presentations to the Android Developers Guild and to the whole company about Kotlin basics, Coroutines, Android testing, MockK, and Android Certifications.
  • Supported and mentored a group of interns for the 2020 Interns’ Challenge Project, by teaching them the basics of Dart, Flutter and MobX, and helping to build a cross-platform app from scratch.
  • Mentored Junior and Mid-Level software developers across the organization, focusing not only in the technical aspects but also on personal skills and career growth.
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5
Eldorado Research Institute

March 2016 - June 2019, Campinas, SP, Brazil

Non-profit research institute and software development center focused on energy, telecommunication and information technology industries with both national and international clients.

Software Engineer

September 2017 - June 2019

  • Worked as a contractor Software Engineer for a global Android smartphone OEM with headquarters in the United States and globally distributed teams across US, China, India, Europe, and Brazil.
  • Developed, reviewed and owned Camera app code, a system app using native libraries and in-house built framework and architecture based on finite state machines.
  • Traveled regularly to US headquarters to work on high-impact and complex projects such as camera features for foldable devices, and a 360º photo viewer, video player and editor app.
  • Won the Innovation award in the internal annual Hackathon with an idea conceptualized by myself.
  • Mentored Junior and Intern team members from a technical perspective, supporting and teaching them overall programming best practices and company specifics.
Junior Software Engineer

March 2016 - August 2017

  • Worked as a contractor Software Engineer for a global Android smartphone OEM with headquarters in the United States and globally distributed teams across US, China, India, Europe, and Brazil.
  • Developed internal imaging sharing tools used by the whole company including backend, web frontend, and Android app code, also improving the overall system’s performance and stability.
Itaú Unibanco

October 2013 - March 2016, São Paulo, SP, Brazil

Largest private bank in Latin America, providing a range of services and products to the most varied client profiles with over 90,000 employees, nearly 5,000 full-service branches, 28,000 ATMs, and operating in 20 countries.

Junior Analyst

January 2015 - March 2016

  • Member of the ATM (Automated Teller Machine) operational team, focused on technical analysis of ATM hardware and software, specially troubleshooting issues, in the whole country.
  • Responsible for correlating and analysing ATM sensor data to select machines to undergo through preventive maintenance, avoiding future breakage and corrective maintenance.
  • Coordinated the preventive maintenance schedule and results, working closely with technical service providers, such as ATM manufacturers and certified repair companies.
  • Automated processes and developed software tools for the ATM operation help desk analysts using Microsoft Excel, Access, and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).
Intern

October 2013 - December 2014

  • Gathered a deep technical understanding of ATM equipment, suggesting hardware and application improvements.
  • Automated processes and generated reports using Microsoft Excel, Access and VBA.
  • Rsponsible for analyzing equipment unavailability and breakage causes.
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7
Research Project Assistant
University of Rochester

May 2013 - August 2013, Rochester, NY, United States

One of the world’s leading research universities, located in Rochester, NY.

Responsibilities:
  • Worked in an academic environment, helping MSc and PhD candidates developing Project Bridge, a system to detect and classify emotions based on speech analysis and artificial intelligence.
  • First experience with Android Development, responsible for porting the BaNa Algorithm, a resilient pitch detection algorithm written in MatLab, to run in the Android platform, by converting it to C and using JNI.
  • Taught myself Java, Android, and C Development by myself using books, official documentation, and available online resources to accomplish the objective in the short time of this Summer experience.
  • Successfully developed an app to record audio and process it using the native C version of BaNa, optimizing both the C code using NEON intrinsics, and the Java app code using multithreading.