João Gonçalves
I've spent 15 years scaling engineering teams. I now run a 14-agent AI orchestration system that does the work those teams used to do.
Founding Engineer at BRIDGE IN, running a 14-agent AI orchestration system that ships full-stack features end-to-end. 15 years of engineering leadership before that — DevOps, platform, and engineering departments through one $20M acquisition and several scale-ups.
Engineering used to be where everything stalled. Now it’s everywhere else: product clarity, decision speed, the ability to evaluate output that nobody on the team wrote.
The teams pulling ahead aren’t using AI more carefully. They’re using it harder, with their hands on the wheel. Senior judgment plus AI velocity. Depth in the system, ruthless review of output, willingness to throw the model’s first answer away.
I’ve spent 15 years in the old pattern: scaling teams, owning DevOps and platform functions, leading a department through a $20M acquisition. I now run the new pattern at BRIDGE IN. The leverage is different. The work is the same.
Founding Engineer at BRIDGE IN. Building the BRIDGE IN Operating System — a Django/React platform that centralizes payroll, accounting, HR, legal, and tax compliance for international companies across four European markets.
The unusual part is how it gets built. A 14-agent AI orchestration system runs a 4-phase workflow — plan, implement, test, deliver — through 27 custom development skills I authored. Sentry triage, Slack feedback processing, autonomous issue creation, CI failure resolution, production deployment. The agents operate as a permanent member of the engineering team. I direct the system. The system does most of the work.
- Building the BRIDGE IN Operating System from the ground up. A full-stack platform (Django, React) centralizing payroll, accounting, HR, legal, and tax compliance for international companies across four European markets.
- Designing and operating a 14-agent AI orchestration system where specialized agents coordinate through a 4-phase workflow to plan, implement, test, and deliver full-stack features end-to-end with minimal human intervention.
- Authoring 27 custom development skills that automate the entire engineering pipeline: from Sentry error triage and Slack feedback processing to autonomous issue creation, CI failure resolution, implementation, and production deployment.
- Operating AI agents that autonomously monitor production errors, triage user feedback, implement high-priority fixes, and generate release reports, functioning as a permanent member of the engineering team.
- Establishing the entire product development function from zero — CI/CD, quality gates, error monitoring, and release cadence in under 3 months.
- Integrating Valispace as an Altium 365 app and ensuring continuity and merging capabilities in the aftermath of a high-profile acquisition.
- Doubling the engineering department's size and coaching new team leads to own all operations, encompassing project management, system architecture, and software development.
- Interfacing cross-departmentally to identify and implement technology solutions that directly impact business growth, streamline processes, and optimize data analytics capabilities, notably equipping DevOps with improved Kubernetes infrastructure to accommodate a surge in demand.
- Cultivating a healthy, productive, and meritocratic department culture that retained 90% of its staff post-merger, despite the temptation of a generous shareholder payout.
- Positioned Valispace, a fast-growing startup, as an attractive asset for a $20M acquisition by Altium, and directed all due diligence to ensure a frictionless transaction and transition to new ownership.
- Partnered with the CEO & CPO to orient the company's strategic direction and pioneered AI's early adoption.
- Orchestrated an engineering department's 25+ staff on three teams to successfully implement cloud computing and other emerging technologies, notably operating a complex global cloud environment with only three engineers.
- Implemented ISO-27001 to access untapped and highly regulated opportunities in the aerospace sector, such as Airbus, Clearspace, and iSpace.
- Oversaw an operations team of four responsible for 100+ cloud-based & on-premise deployments with maintenance & support.
- Owned a robust continuous integration and deployment pipeline that accelerated time-to-market for software releases by 88.89%.
- Established and maintained strong relationships with external vendors and stakeholders to ensure the successful integration of third-party tools and services.
- Performed in-depth code reviews, amplified team productivity, reduced software defects, and streamlined development processes by introducing Agile and automated testing frameworks.
- Developed, maintained, and improved both the backend REST API and the Frontend app.
- Built and continuously improved a low-code tool that was ahead of its time because it enabled non-technical users to assemble complex software solutions like ERPs, HR portals, and document management resources; clients included Portugal's government & armed forces.
- Conceived an IoT modular platform, built a working prototype, and pitched the project to a larger tech company to secure financing and merge capabilities.
- Led the Partnering Place Mobile app: project management, UI render engine designed around descriptive models, Phonegap-based delivery with Backbone.js, Angular.js, and per-OS UI customization.
- Built and continuously improved a low-code tool that enabled non-technical users to assemble complex software solutions like ERPs, HR portals, and document management resources; clients included Portugal's government & armed forces.
- Built remote management applications across mobile devices and web admin tools, on Phonegap with JavaScript frameworks.
- Web applications (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, Django, SQL, AJAX, ActionScript) for intranets, newsletters, multimedia, and database systems.
Not actively looking, but I take a few conversations a year that are interesting enough to make space for.
What I’ll talk about: founding-engineer or early-stage technical leadership at a company building something at the edge of agents and engineering. Advisory work for operators figuring out how to integrate AI into their delivery loop without producing more slop. Intros to teams thinking seriously about agent infrastructure or AI-native eng tooling.
What I won’t: anything pitched as “AI transformation,” roles where AI is a buzzword, companies looking for a hire to validate a strategy already decided.
If that fits, the email and LinkedIn below work.