Hi, I’m Charly. I live in sunny Lisbon 🇵🇹 where I design and build apps.

I fell into web development in 2015, just as I was about to graduate with my Master's in Management. At the time, software was slowly but surely eating the world, and I was curious about how all of it was even happening. So I started playing and experimenting with basic HTML and CSS in my free time, quietly wondering if I'd chosen the right path. But I couldn't justify throwing away five years of studies for a field I barely understood, so I left it at that.

Fast-forward a few months. I was getting ready to move to Paris to look for my first corporate job when my dad told me he had been diagnosed with cancer. A bad one. I canceled the move, put the job hunt on hold, and moved back to my hometown to be closer to my family and help him through his treatment.

There were very few exciting job opportunities in suburban Bordeaux, and I had a lot of time on my hands. So I put this downtime to use and went back to learning web technologies, for hours a day. Thanks, Codecademy, for the free education! I was fascinated by the fact that I could build anything I wanted, with little to no money, without anyone's permission, and from anywhere in the world. It was very different from the corporate world I was about to enter.

After a few months of online learning, I decided to take the plunge and go pro. I was lucky enough to attend one of the first sessions of Le Wagon, a coding school in France. It was the most challenging and rewarding course of my life. I never thought my brain could absorb so much knowledge in such a short time. It was the stepping stone I needed: by the end of the course, I knew enough to build my own ideas. And other people's too.

Around the same time, a friend of mine launched one of the first coworking cafés in France, Hubsy, which turned out to be an immediate success. He needed a tool to manage bookings and take his hands off the day-to-day operations, and I needed a project to work on. A match made in heaven. So I started building an app for a booming business in Paris, from my childhood bedroom. I couldn't believe it. I was working remotely before it became the norm.

A few months later, the app was up and running and making a real difference for his business. Even better, Hubsy's clientele was mainly composed of entrepreneurs and early-stage startups, some of whom also needed help with their websites. Requests started coming in. I accepted one project, then another, and before I knew it, I was a freelance web developer. In less than a year, I had completely derailed my original career plans and embarked on a new journey. And I haven't stopped since:

• I've designed and built websites and apps for 20+ clients while working remotely from around the world. You can see some of them on the projects page.
• I've taught at Le Wagon countless times in France, China, Australia, and Canada. I even launched their first campus in Sydney!
• I co-founded a SaaS company, Syncly, and led product development for two years before we decided to shut it down in the middle of the COVID lockdowns.
• I've launched a few side projects with good friends in the tech space, like Lottie Studio, a design studio powered by Lottie, a really cool open-source animation library.
• I've taken many online courses to keep learning and master core web development concepts. Kyle Simpson's Deep JavaScript Foundations was life-changing.

Well, actually, I did stop. For about four months in 2022, for the first time since I started working. Working with computers for so long didn't turn me into one, and I needed to take care of myself after two intense years running Syncly through taxing COVID lockdowns. This break gave me a fresh perspective on where to dedicate my time and skills moving forward.

Today, I'm drawn to small and medium-sized companies that take culture seriously, the Basecamp, Buffer, and GitLab of this world: async work, a writing culture, a calm pace. I want to work with people who are empathetic, passionate, and talented, in that order.

I specialize in frontend development and design, the parts of the stack I enjoy most, but I've worked with backend technologies for years and I'm open to fullstack roles. My tools of choice are on the uses page. I can join as a contractor or employee, I work remotely from Lisbon, and I'm happy to travel to meet the team.

What pulled me into code in that bedroom still drives me today: the freedom to build something real with cool people, from anywhere. If that resonates, I'd love to hear from you. You can find my contact details below. Talk soon!