São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
I am returning to my entrepreneurial roots and getting back to the development side after a decade of scaling AI teams and platforms. Following my tenure at iFood, I took a sabbatical to dive deep into the LLM era and refine my hands-on building skills. Now, I am focused on building new products in small teams or even alone. iWish (iwish.gifts): A smart gift registry platform designed to take the friction out of organizing social events. Guaxinim Finanças (guaxinim-financas.com.br): A minimalist personal finance ecosystem built for speed and actionable insights. Before that I was leading the AI teams focused on Recommendation, Search, and Ads at iFood (more than 20 data scientists and ML engineers), the largest food delivery platform in Latin America. I collaborate closely with engineering and product teams to build scalable AI-driven platforms that enhance personalization, optimize search ranking, and improve ad targeting that boost order conversion by 24% and ad revenue by 17%. Prior to iFood, I co-founded Hekima, an AI company that started with social media analytics and later expanded into enterprise AI and Big Data solutions. I led end-to-end AI projects in NLP, optimization, e-commerce, data infrastructure, and ads, applying deep learning, predictive modeling, and scalable ML architectures. We successfully delivered solutions for major companies in Brazil, including AMBEV, Raízen, Fiat, and JCPM Group. In 2020, Hekima was acqui-hired by iFood, where I transitioned to leading AI-driven personalization efforts. I hold a Master of Science (MSc) in Computer Science from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), specializing in text classification. Beyond industry work, I am an active speaker in Machine Learning, Big Data, AI, and Data Storytelling, with talks at institutions like Stanford (Graph Learning), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), PUC (university). I have also contributed to AI education by consulting on the development of postgraduate programs in Data Engineering and Machine Learning.
Currently focused on building and launching scalable digital products, overseeing the full Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)—from initial product conception and UX design to cloud infrastructure and deployment. Current Projects iWish (iwish.gifts): A platform designed to simplify gift registry and organization for social events like baby showers. Currently in Beta, with a strong focus on conversion rate optimization and seamless user journeys. Guaxinim Finanças (guaxinim-financas.com.br): A personal finance management app built with a minimalist UX approach for agile expense tracking and financial health monitoring. 🚀 I am actively looking for Beta Testers! If you enjoy trying out new tools and want to help shape the future of these products, your feedback is incredibly valuable. Feel free to explore and reach out!
Planned career break dedicated to learning, personal projects, and reflection. Currently focused on AI engineering, LLMs, agentic systems, and hands-on programming, while exploring ideas and preparing for my next professional chapter.
Leading Recommendation, Ads and Search Data Science (machine learning engineer) teams at iFood (>20 people), developing scalable AI-driven platforms that power personalization, search ranking, and discovery for millions of users. Worked closely with engineering, product, and business teams to drive data-driven decision-making and improve user engagement. Key Projects & Achievements FoodGraph – Developed a graph-based deep learning model leveraging user order history to generate embeddings for personalized recommendations. This approach captures complex relationships between users, merchants, and items, enhancing discovery and engagement. Recommendation Platform – Built a scalable, hybrid recommendation system that integrates: * Candidate generation pipelines to surface relevant options. * Offline models for ranking and personalization. * Reranking techniques to optimize engagement and conversion rates. Semantic Search - Developed domain-specific embeddings for food and grocery delivery, improving query understanding and item representation. This fine-tuned model enhances search relevance and discovery.
Co-founded Hekima, an AI company that started with social media analytics and later expanded into enterprise AI and Big Data solutions. Led a Data Science team in the development and deployment of machine learning and data analytics projects for major companies. In 2020, Hekima was acqui-hired by iFood, where I transitioned to leading AI-driven personalization efforts. ------------------------------------------------ ---Key Projects & Achievements-- ------------------------------------------------- Led AI & Data Science Teams – Managed a multidisciplinary team of data scientists, engineers, and analysts, driving end-to-end AI solutions from research to production. Enterprise AI Solutions – Delivered machine learning and data analysis projects for large clients, including AMBEV, Raízen, Fiat, and JCPM Group, focusing on NLP, optimization, e-commerce, and data infrastructure. Zahpee Monitor – Co-developed an AI-powered social media analytics platform that collected, processed, and analyzed millions of social media posts in real time, enabling businesses to track sentiment and trends. AI Education & Training – Created and taught the Data Science Course on Udemy, educating professionals on machine learning, data-driven decision-making, and AI applications.