hi — I'm
Marco Escaleira
Full-stack software engineer with 7+ years shipping fintech and SaaS products end to end — React, React Native, Node.js, and AWS — from architecture to production.
Right now: Software Engineer at yetipay in London.
7+
Years experience
From scratch
Merchant app shipped
10×
CI/CD faster
~50%
Faster page loads
AWS
Infra ownership
On-call
Production engineer
E2E
Testing introduced
About
Portugal roots, London base — building products people actually use.
I grew up in Portugal and took my first steps as a developer at the Faculty of Medicine in Porto. I moved from Porto to England while already at Mindera — kept shipping software and completed my Honours BSc in Computer Science (First-class) along the way. I later taught at Mindera Academy; these days I'm based in London.
I build production-ready products from frontend to backend — owning architecture, infrastructure, developer experience, and customer-facing features. I enjoy shipping scalable software while improving engineering velocity through automation, testing, and reusable systems.
Currently: shipping payments products at yetipay end to end — merchant app, APIs, AWS, and on-call for a live platform.
- Started out writing PHP + jQuery — and I'm not ashamed of it.
- Taught humans before teaching computers was even a job title.
- On-call survivor: the pager and I have an understanding.
- Faculty of Medicine → Tap to Pay. Long story, worth asking.
Experience
End-to-end ownership — from faculty web work to production payments, on-call included.
Fullstack Engineer · London, UK
- Built the React Native merchant app from scratch — Tap to Pay on iPhone and Android, unlocking new payment capabilities for merchants
- Designed and implemented backend APIs powering production payment flows
- Owned and maintained AWS infrastructure for a live payments platform
- Operated production systems: on-call rotations, incident response, and debugging live issues
- Built scalable internal architecture shared across product surfaces
- Partnered closely with Design and Product to ship customer-facing features
- Introduced an automated E2E testing strategy that raised release confidence
- Cut CI/CD runtime by ~10×, unblocking faster iteration across the team
- Grew a reusable design system that improved engineering velocity
Beacon
Mar 2022 – Aug 2024Software Engineer · London, UK
- Designed a future-proof architecture for the core shipment-tracking feature
- Integrated Chromatic visual testing so UI stayed consistent across releases
- Improved page-load performance by ~50% for a lighter, faster app on devices
- Built PoCs that helped steer key product decisions
- Built a backoffice app that became part of Ops workflows and automated BAU work
- Joined on-call rotations — supported production systems and resolved live incidents
Mindera Academy
Jun 2023 – Dec 2023Front End Teacher · Remote · alongside Beacon
- Built and delivered Front End 101 lesson plans for aspiring developers
- Created learning resources — reading materials and coding exercises
- Ran live coding sessions tying concepts to real-world product work
Mindera
Sep 2019 – Mar 2022Software Engineer · Porto, Portugal · TVG / FanDuel
- Implemented a monorepo with custom tooling and CI/CD that improved team delivery efficiency
- Owned a challenging TVG / FanDuel project spanning micro-frontends and mobile apps — React, React Native, Redux, GraphQL
- Led and assisted in technical interviews
FMUP (Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto)
May 2018 – Jul 2018Early-career developer
- First professional steps — web work that served faculty staff and students
Projects
Real products, real constraints — open a card for problem, who benefited, and impact.
Problem
Small merchants needed to take card payments without buying dedicated hardware, limiting how they could grow revenue.
What I built
Merchant-facing Tap to Pay on iPhone and Android, plus card reader support for those who want it. Designed the backend services and AWS platform underneath so payments stay reliable in production. Day job at yetipay — live in merchants' hands.
Outcome
A production payments product merchants use today — new revenue opportunities without extra hardware, backed by scalable backend services.
Skills
The stack I reach for when shipping production software — not a laundry list.
Core
AWS & Cloud
Data
Delivery & Quality
Craft
Contact
Hiring for full-stack, fintech, or SaaS engineering work? My inbox is open.