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Alexandre "Alex" Alves

Automation Engineer

Education

B.E. in Electrical Engineering

Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa, Portugal
2007 — 2015

Languages

  • Portuguese (Native)
  • English (Professional)

Career Profile

I’ve always been a hands-on person, with an overarching pursuit for excellent delivery and proper feedback between my clients and colleagues. To achieve this, I have worked with several industries since 2008, to learn what led them further and what were their woes: from food manufacturing, to wind turbine construction abroad, electronic safety and homeland security, renewable energy, fintech, and now with insurance.

Experience

  • Senior DevOps Engineer

    May 2023 — Present
    Innowave, for Ageas Portugal, outsourced by Wire IT
    Hybrid (Lisbon, Portugal)

    • APIM Manager for all Ageas’ internal (and some external) APIs, ranging from publication to security, logging and good practices’ validation. Creator and maintainer of Ageas’ APIM.Ops, automation platform of processes and dashboards for APIM instances and connected cloud services.

    • Industry: Insurance
    • Skills:
      • .NET (C#, Minimal APIs)
      • Microservices and YAML CI/CD pipelines
      • Microsoft Azure
        • Function Apps
        • EventHub and Azure Data Explorer
        • VMs and IIS deployment
        • ServiceBus
        • Azure DevOps suite
        • PowerAutomate
      • Atlassian (Confluence)

  • Senior Software Engineer (SE III)

    Oct 2022 — Mar 2023
    NewDay, outsourced by YLD
    Remote (Lisbon, Portugal)

    • Maintenance of an API back-end

    • Industry: FinTech (Credit & Loan)
    • Skills:
      • .NET (C#, MVC API)
      • Microsoft Azure (Functions, CosmosDB)
      • Atlassian (JIRA / Confluence)
      • Agile Methodologies (Scrum)
      • CI/CD

  • Full-stack Developer & Team Lead

    Jul 2021 — Oct 2022
    EDP Production, outsourced by CGI
    Hybrid (Lisbon, Portugal)

    • Maintenance and improvement of a monitoring and reporting system.

    • Industry: Utilities (Renewable Energy)
    • Skills:
      • .NET (C#, ASP.NET)
      • Databases (PL/SQL, T-SQL - Azure SQL)
      • Microsoft Azure (Data Factory, PowerBI, DevOps)
      • Atlassian (JIRA / Confluence)
      • Agile (Scrum)

  • Technical Consultant

    Sep 2019 — Oct 2022
    CGI
    Hybrid (Lisbon, Portugal)

    • Development, implementation and maintenance of CGI’s proprietary RMS platform (custom, cloud-first SCADA solution for renewable assets worldwide) Creator and former maintainer of RMS DB Builder, CGI’s proprietary tool to help configure assets on the RMS platform.

    • Industry: Utilities (Renewable Energy)
    • Skills:
      • Microsoft Office (Excel, Word)
      • .NET (C#, WPF)
      • Databases (SQL Server, Redis)
      • Microsoft Azure (IoT Hub, Functions, Service Fabric, Storage)
      • SCADA (RTU configuration, HMI development)
      • OT protocols (OPC, IEC 60870-5-104, DNP3, Modbus, IEC 61850, MQTT)
      • Atlassian (JIRA)
      • Agile (Kanban)

  • Technical Consultant

    Nov 2018 — Feb 2020
    CGI, for EDP Renewables
    Lisbon, Portugal

    • Integration and maintenance of the WEMS project (based on CGI’s RMS platform).

    • Industry: Utilities (Renewable Energy)
    • Skills:
      • Project implementation, client-faced
      • Microsoft Office (Excel, Word)
      • SCADA (RTU configuration, HMI development)
      • OT protocols (OPC, IEC 60870-5-104, DNP3, Modbus)
      • Atlassian (Trello)
      • Agile (Kanban)
      • .NET (C#, WPF)

  • Junior Consultant

    Nov 2016 — Nov 2018
    CGI, for EDP Renewables
    Lisbon, Portugal

    • Integration and maintenance of the WEMS project (based on CGI’s RMS platform).

    • Industry: Utilities (Renewable Energy)
    • Skills:
      • Project implementation, client-faced (Waterfall)
      • Microsoft Office (Excel, Word)
      • SCADA (RTU configuration, HMI development)
      • OT protocols (OPC, IEC 60870-5-104, DNP3, Modbus)

  • Project Engineer

    Aug 2015 — Aug 2016
    Microsegur
    Cascais, Portugal

    • Homeland security and electronic passive security systems’ product and client/project manager.

    • Industry: Safety (Electronic and Homeland)
    • Skills:
      • Project coordination and implementation, tender response
      • Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Access, Project)
      • Electronic safety (fire, intrusion and CO detection, access control, CCTV)
      • Homeland security (metal, x-ray, radiation, explosive and narcotics detection, people, baggage and parcel check)
      • AutoDesk AutoCAD

  • Wind Turbine Technician

    Nov 2011 — Jan 2012
    Vestas, outsourced by LusoWindPower
    Osterrade, Germany

    • Wind turbine erection and construction (Vestas V90-2MW Mk9), from steel tower to ready-for-commissioning checks.

    • Industry: Construction (Electrical Generators)
    • Skills:
      • Electrician work
      • Altitude work

  • Front Desk Clerk

    Jul 2010 — Oct 2011
    BotameTinta
    Lisbon, Portugal
    • Industry: Stamping & printing consummables
    • Skills:
      • Customer service

  • Automation Intern

    Feb 2008
    Unilever
    Sta. Iria de Azoia, Portugal

    • Engineering team at Olá factory, FIMA complex.

    • Industry: Food manufacture
    • Skills:
      • Process control
      • Industrial automation (Siemens STEP7 Ladder language, PLC programming, HMI development)

    Projects and Tools

    Some tools I've created in the past or currently:

    APIM BackOffice & Ageas APIM.Ops — Ageas' tools and platform to automate multiple tasks within all instances of Ageas' Azure APIM services.
    RMS DB Builder — CGI's proprietary tool to help configure assets on the RMS platform.

    OSS Contributions

    Some open-sourced projects I'm currently working on:

    Wallet (alpha) — Open-sourced personal wallet and budget manager, built with Blazor tech-stack.