Portrait of Fernando Bevilacqua

Fernando Bevilacqua

Staff Software Engineer

Technical Leadership · Distributed Systems · Developer Productivity

Profile

Software Engineer and technical leader with 20+ years of experience building software products, distributed systems, developer tooling, and AI-enabled solutions. Currently Head of Software/CTO, combining hands-on engineering with architecture, technical leadership, and product delivery. PhD in Informatics with experience spanning industry, research, open source, and entrepreneurship. Strong track record of improving engineering productivity, designing developer-facing systems, and taking products from conception to production.

Experience

Head of Software / CTO at Optidata

Aug 2022 – Present · 4 yrs 1 mo · Brazil

  • Led architecture and development of an enterprise SaaS platform spanning file storage, office collaboration, chat, video, social, calendar, and email; it became the company's second-highest-grossing offering.
  • Remained hands-on across PHP/Laravel, Go, PostgreSQL, Redis, Ceph, Kubernetes, and Docker.
  • Introduced internal CLI tooling, AI-assisted code review, documentation, reusable AI-agent skills/prompts, and engineering practices to improve developer productivity.
  • Increased team delivery by 32% despite a 45% reduction in team size.
  • Built tooling and AI-assisted workflows associated with reported improvements of +105% tasks/month and +213% individual contributions.

Technology Consultant at Amplimed

Aug 2022 – Apr 2025 · 2 yrs 8 mos · Part-time contractor · Brazil

  • Advised engineering teams on architecture, technical-debt reduction, framework selection, and development practices across production systems.
  • Prioritized improvements to simplify development and long-term maintenance across PHP, Laravel, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, and AWS.

Software Engineer at Animati Computação Aplicada

Mar 2021 – Jun 2022 · 1 yr 3 mos · Part-time remote contractor · Brazil

  • Developed and maintained the flagship Radiology Information System (RIS), including custom functionality for high-stakes medical workflows.
  • Contributed research used in the web-based DICOM viewer; worked with Java, Spring Boot, Hibernate, Docker, and PostgreSQL.

Software Engineer / Architect at Iara Health

Jul 2019 – Feb 2021 · 1 yr 7 mos · Part-time remote contractor · Brazil

  • Designed and implemented APIs, SDKs, and processing pipelines for healthcare customers integrating Iara's speech-recognition technology.
  • Built the JavaScript SDK and developer documentation for external integrations.
  • Worked across JavaScript/TypeScript, Java, Python, Google Cloud, speech-to-text, and machine-learning systems.

Adjunct Senior Lecturer at Federal University of Fronteira Sul

Oct 2010 – Jun 2022 · 11 yrs 8 mos · Chapecó, Brazil

  • Taught Computer Science, including algorithms, software development, computer graphics, game development, web development, and object-oriented programming.
  • Conducted research in Human-Computer Interaction, computer vision, and AI.

Experience continued

Co-founder / Software Engineer at Decadium Studios

Sep 2004 – Nov 2011 · 7 yrs 2 mos · Santa Maria, Brazil

  • Co-founded a software and game studio, building products from concept through production while handling customer requirements and business negotiation.
  • Developed 2D/3D applications and games for web and desktop using PHP, JavaScript, C++, Java, Ogre3D, and ActionScript.
  • Built and supported Ryudragon from concept through nearly seven years of operation; the browser MMO reached almost 300,000 players.

Open Source & Selected Projects

Codebot · Creator

Built a code editor and later evolved it into a web-based IDE focused on game development.

cvui · Creator and main maintainer

Header-only C++ UI library, with Python support, that draws through OpenCV without a separate OpenGL or Qt backend.

Flixel Studio

Contributed to in-game editor tooling for HaxeFlixel.

Flixel Community / HaxeFlixel

Long-term open-source involvement as a co-maintainer and contributor in the game-engine ecosystem.

Education

PhD in Informatics · University of Skövde

Apr 2015 – Dec 2018 · Skövde, Sweden

Research in computer vision and machine learning for remotely estimating player affect from facial and physiological signals without wearable sensors. Built experimental tooling to automate data collection, analysis, and event detection.

Video demo·Thesis

Masters in Computer Science · Federal University of Santa Maria

Dec 2007 – Dec 2009 · Santa Maria, Brazil

Research focused on Computer Graphics applied to games.

BSc in Computer Science · Federal University of Santa Maria

Dec 2003 – Dec 2007 · Santa Maria, Brazil

Selected Technical Writing & Research

Technical Writing. Authored Understanding Steering Behaviors, described in the source CV as a top-ranked Google result and praised by Craig W. Reynolds, creator of the technique.

Speaking. Speaker at conferences and guest lectures, including Sweden Game Conference 2018.

Developer Documentation. Designed and authored Iara SDK documentation and cvui documentation.

Academic Research. Published scientific papers in Human-Computer Interaction and related areas; see Google Scholar for the full list.