I'm Ricardo Cruz. I live in the Algarve, Portugal, where I build things for the web.

I'm a full-stack developer with over two years of professional experience building web and mobile applications. My core stack is PHP/Laravel on the back-end and React on the front-end, though I've also worked with Python, Go, Java, and C/C++.

My career in tech started from a different angle — I spent nearly two years as a telecommunications technician, installing and repairing fibre-optic networks. That hands-on experience gave me a solid understanding of infrastructure from the ground up, which later influenced my approach to server administration and DevOps.

At oseubackoffice, I architected and developed a full-featured web application from database design through deployment, built a cross-platform mobile app with React Native, wrote comprehensive test suites, and administered Linux servers — handling configuration, security hardening, and ongoing maintenance.

I'm currently completing my Computer Engineering degree at Instituto Superior Manuel Teixeira Gomes in Portimão, while working as a full-stack developer at Avanço Implacavel, where I'm building a restaurant booking application with Laravel, React, Inertia.js, and Tailwind CSS.