Staff Software Engineer - PHP / DDD / Event-Driven - AI-assisted workflows

Hugo Rafael Azevedo

Staff-level backend engineer, building production PHP systems since the early 2000s - domain-driven, event-driven, and increasingly AI-assisted. Most of that in fintech and payments.Payments and remittance platforms, a trading platform handling blockchain tokens and e-wallets, and the systems around them. Earlier, SaaS, education and cyber-security products for clients across the UK, Denmark, Germany and Lithuania.What I actually do: take a tangled part of a platform, model it properly as a bounded context, and hand back something a team can own.

Recent examples - a domain I hardened until extracting it into its own service took days rather than quarters, with no production incidents; a shared HTTP client library adopted across services; AsyncAPI established as a contract-first standard with schema validation and contract tests in CI. Smaller things count too: queue onboarding cut from a multi-day effort to a single morning, bug-fix lead time from sprints to hours.The newer thread is AI-assisted engineering. Not "I use Copilot" - I build the workflow: agent context files, structured command pipelines, PRD and Plan separation, pre-planning analysis, applied to production codebases and adopted by my team.My own site is built and maintained that way - a six-locale, fully-tested, domain-driven Laravel application.I care about tested code, clear boundaries, and systems the next engineer can reason about without asking me.Currently available for Staff, Principal or Lead backend roles - fully remote, Europe or North America.

Based in Portugal, with a full morning overlap with US Eastern hours. Contract or permanent.hradigital.com | github.com/HRADigital

0
Years of Experience
0
Companies Worked At
0
Projects Completed
0
Technologies Used

About

About

Hugo Rafael Azevedo

Attention to detail, task automation, clean code readability, code documentation, application performance, data integrity and web standards enforcement.

What I Do

Expertise

My Journey

Experience

  1. Staff Software Engineer

    TransferGo TransferGo

    Leading new-domain build-out within the Acquire team, alongside cross-cutting platform initiatives.

  2. Staff Software Engineer

    TransferGo TransferGo

    Continuing to lead Refer-a-Friend within the Acquire team, with expanded scope across platform and cross-service concerns.

  3. Remote Backend Web Developer

    TransferGo TransferGo

    Part of the Acquire team, leading the rewrite of the Refer-a-Friend platform.

  4. Remote Backend Web Developer

    TransferGo TransferGo

    Help maintain current Fintech solution, and help transition parts of the system to a microservice architecture.

  5. Remote Backend Web Developer

    Exporo Exporo

    Developing a trading platform project for financial asset transactions.

View full experience

My Work

Projects

View all projects

Academic

Education

University of Portsmouth

Software Engineering

Communication

Languages

What Others Say

Recommendations

I've had the privilege of collaborating with Hugo for over a year now, and it's been quite an adventure. Together, we embarked on the development of a cutting-edge Refer-a-Friend system at TransferGo, surpassing its predecessor in sophistication, flexibility, and scalability. From humble beginnings to its current seamless operation, serving a diverse clientele worldwide, our journey has been transformative.

Hugo played a pivotal role throughout this endeavor. He advocated for the internal development of the system early on, steering us away from potential external solutions after thorough discussions with prospective partners. Subsequently, he spearheaded the project from inception to deployment and beyond, ensuring its continuous refinement.

Throughout this process, Hugo demonstrated exceptional character and leadership. Unafraid to roll up his sleeves, he tackled challenges head-on and consistently went above and beyond to troubleshoot issues and support his teammates on this collective journey.

What I admire most about working with Hugo is his honesty and unwavering passion for his craft. His enthusiasm is infectious, inspiring those around him. As we brace ourselves for future challenges, having Hugo by our side instills confidence, knowing we have a dedicated ally to navigate whatever lies ahead.

Jan Bjelicic Engineering Manager @ TransferGo