Hi. I'm Nuno Balbona

Spanish full-stack developer , sysadmin, and technical founder, with a passion for software that connects people. ✌

Get in touch or Download resume

👨‍💼 Experience

  • Freelance Developer [2020 - Present]

    • Worked on personal projects, currently unreleased.
    • Developed new CuriousCat webapp and native apps (+4.5 stars) iOS App, Android App

  • Developer at vonvon inc. [2018 – 2020]

    • Developed new features for CuriousCat, and kept an availability of +99.9%
    • Developed multiple systems using nodejs microservices to improve CuriousCat's safety, like blocking questions from bad agents, moderation for images/reports, and more.
    • Helped increase ad revenue by working with different partners and running experiments.
    • Developed multiple other social websites/apps, like Beacon.

  • Technical Cofounder at CuriousCat [2016 – 2018]

    • CuriousCat is a Q&A social network used by more than one and a half million people every day, where you can ask and receive questions, sometimes anonymously.
    • I cofounded CuriousCat in 2016, and we were acquired by Vonvon Inc. two years after.
    • Developed MVP with PHP + JQuery, and migrated to a SPA using Vue.js as the app got more complex.
    • Ran experiments to drive user retention and acquisition.
    • Scaling was one of the main challenges, as we sometimes reached +40k concurrent users. It currently serves +2B requests per month.

  • Freelance Developer at Webmonster [2014 – 2017]

    • Developed company websites and webapps for multiple multinationals and local companies like Danone/Dannon, and Interporc.
    • I developed sites from scratch, and improved existing websites using PHP, Wordpress, jQuery, and Vue.js
    • Customer support, answering tickets and fixing issues with the client's websites + emails.

🕵 Up close and personal

👨‍🏫 Education

I started programming at age 11, and taught myself how to code. I pursued a CS degree for a couple of years, but ultimately decided to drop out to focus on my projects.

I mainly deliver using common technologies (Vue, React, PHP, Node.js...) But I also love trying new things (Like Rust)

Incomplete list of things I'm skilled in:

  • Frontend: Vue, React, React Native, Redux, Webpack, SASS
  • Backend: AWS, Linux, PHP, Node.js, TypeScript, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, Memcached
  • Languages: Native Spanish, Professional English
  • Personal skills: Remote work, Independent, Empathy, Work Ethic

👨‍🔧 Personal projects

  • Brawlmance

    • Brawlmance provides statistics for the videogame Brawlhalla
    • It has mantained a small but steady user base for many years, mainly from recurring users and search engines
    • It crawls millions of players every day, and keeps track of the global trends
  • react-native-web-refresh-control: An implementation of React Native's RefreshControl for web, since react-native-web does not provide one at the moment
  • Valentine Cards Bot: Anonymous valentine cards! Twitter Bot where you can send virtual valentine cards using a web interface. +30k cards sent
  • Conway Engine: A performant JS engine for Conway's Game of Life
  • Node Image Hash: Perceptual image hash for node.js
  • JS Launchpad: Library that uses the Web MIDI API to interact with the Launchpad Mk1

🧙 Trivia

  • I was born in 1997, and grew up in a tiny town in Galicia, Spain
  • My mother tongues are Spanish and Galician, but I also speak English at a professional level. (And I understand Portuguese fairly well. Thanks, Galician!!!)
  • My favourite emoji is the lil cowboy guy 🤠