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João Silva

João Silva
Product engineer and technical co-founder

I help you launch products people use, and pay for.

I've taken products from a blank page to real users as a co-founder and founding engineer, and joined teams to grow what they already had. I talk to your users, shape the plan, build it myself and help people find it. AI comes in when it makes the product better, not because it's fashionable.

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Based in the Netherlands. Working with founders and teams worldwide. Open for freelance projects and full-time roles.

Products I've launched

Three products I helped build from zero: my role, what I did across product, engineering and business, and what happened.

TracklistFinder product screenshot
  • LLM parsing
  • Spotify API
  • SEO
  • Go-to-market

Founder, built soloConsumer web app, live and growing

TracklistFinder

Turns any YouTube DJ set into a Spotify playlist in one click.

DJ sets and live mixes on YouTube rarely come with a usable tracklist. Fans end up scrolling comments and searching tracks one by one.

What I did

  • Found the problem in music communities, then shipped a first version in weeks, not months
  • Built LLM parsing that pulls track names out of messy titles, descriptions and comments
  • Designed the Spotify flow so a playlist is one click away
  • Owned growth: technical SEO, content and visibility in AI assistants

Results

  • Over 150% growth in the last 30 days
  • 5,000+ sets uploaded
  • 150+ registered accounts
  • Ranks high on Google and is recommended by AI assistants
Visit TracklistFinder
Old Mates Advice product screenshot
  • Ruby on Rails
  • Video
  • B2B SaaS
  • Roadmap

Technical co-founderB2B SaaS, Australia, three co-founders

Old Mates Advice

A video-consultation platform for Australian businesses doing house inspections, electrification and home upgrades.

Home-services businesses lose hours driving to first visits that a short video call could handle, and the insight from those calls was lost.

What I did

  • Co-founded the company with two Australian founders, working remotely from the Netherlands
  • Designed and built the entire platform myself, from architecture to deployment
  • Shaped the roadmap and took part in the business decisions
  • Ran a delivery rhythm that worked across a large time-zone gap

Results

  • Full SaaS platform shipped end to end by one engineer
  • Co-owned product and business decisions, not just the code
  • Worked as one team across continents and time zones
Visit Old Mates Advice
Granino product screenshot
  • User interviews
  • Next.js
  • Supabase
  • Mobile

FounderConsumer product, web live, mobile app coming

Granino

Helps specialty-coffee lovers find beans, cafés and roasters that match their taste.

Specialty coffee is full of choice and jargon. Enthusiasts struggle to find the next bag they will actually enjoy.

What I did

  • Co-founded with my sister, a product designer
  • Ran user interviews with specialty-coffee enthusiasts before writing much code
  • Turned interview insight into a focused feature set and taste model
  • Built the web platform and the mobile app, now close to release

Results

  • Strong early feedback from interviewed users
  • Web platform live; mobile app launching soon
  • Product decisions grounded in real conversations, not assumptions
Visit Granino

Deep where it counts, wide where it matters

Most engineers go deep. Most product people go wide. Launching a product needs both: someone who can build the whole thing and who also sits with users, design, sales and the founders.

Across the business
  • User interviews
  • Roadmap and priorities
  • Design collaboration
  • SEO and go-to-market
  • Sales, ops and support
  • Founder-level decisions

Starting from zero

Co-founder or founding engineer: owning the product, the code and the decisions.

  • Old Mates Advice
  • TracklistFinder
  • Granino
  • StashFriend
  • Renovista

Building it myself

  1. Product architecture
  2. Full-stack: Rails, Next.js, React
  3. Infrastructure: AWS, Vercel, Supabase
  4. AI and LLM features
  5. Performance and technical SEO

Inside your team

Senior engineer embedded with product, design, sales and support.

  • RegLab
  • SuperYacht Times
  • Tablevibe
  • IbiCasa

How I can help

Pick the problem closest to yours. Every engagement starts with a free 30-minute call and a written proposal, so you know the scope and cost before anything starts.

AI where it earns its place

I follow the field closely and use it every day. I also think a lot of what's shipped as AI is noise. My goal is a product people like using and will pay for. If AI gets us there faster or makes it better, AI it is.

  • Start with the user, not the model

    If a feature doesn't make someone's day easier, a better prompt won't save it.

  • Use AI where it beats the alternative

    Messy text, fuzzy matching, summaries: yes. A form that should be a form: no.

  • Ship it like real software

    Evaluations, fallbacks and cost limits, so it still works on a bad day.

Example: TracklistFinder uses an LLM for the one hard part, reading tracklists written in a hundred different formats. AI product development

Free, honest audit of your website

Paste your address. The audit runs real checks on your page, then gives you specific, prioritised ideas to increase sales, improve SEO and AI-search visibility, and new features worth building.

  • Search and AI visibility
  • Speed and technical health
  • Calls to action and conversion
  • Feature ideas for your users

Teams and products along the way

Several years across real estate, regtech, media, food delivery, yachting, marketplaces and consumer apps. Different industries, same job: understand the domain fast, then ship something people rely on.

Roles and clients

  • RegLab

    Senior software engineer

    Anti-money-laundering and KYC software for professional services across several European countries.

  • StashFriend

    Technical co-founder

    Peer-to-peer storage marketplace for the Dutch market. Led full-stack development and supported business decisions.

  • SuperYacht Times

    Lead engineer

    Led development, shipped a full redesign with the UX/UI team and brought Unity 3D worlds into the web platform.

  • Tablevibe

    Software engineer

    Integrated Foodpanda, Uber Eats and Grab across Singapore, the Philippines and Australia, handling 1,000+ daily orders.

  • IbiCasa

    Freelance

    Migrated an Ibiza real-estate platform from PHP to Rails with live users, moved it to AWS and shipped a redesign.

Other things I've built

  • Renovista

    Side project

    Turns listing photos into realistic post-renovation visualisations for buyers and agents.

  • The New Elearning

    Side project

    Multi-tenant LMS for invite-only training with certificates, SSO and audit reporting.

  • My Health

    Private

    Garmin data, lab reports and DNA exports in one dashboard with correlation views.

How a project runs

Short loops, weekly releases and decisions you can see. You always know what's being built and why.

  1. Step 1

    Understand

    Talk to users, read the numbers, and agree on the one outcome that matters.

  2. Step 2

    Shape

    Cut the idea down to the smallest version that proves it, with a plan you can see.

  3. Step 3

    Ship

    Build it properly, release early, and keep you in the loop every week.

  4. Step 4

    Learn and grow

    Use real usage, SEO and feedback to decide what to build next.

João Silva, founder of Code and Waves

Hi, I'm João

I'm a product engineer from Portugal, living in the Netherlands. I've spent 8+ years building software, and the part I enjoy most is the space between engineering, product and business.

I've co-founded companies, been the first engineer, and joined established teams. I've run user interviews, sat with sales and support, argued about roadmaps and done the SEO myself. That range is what I bring: fewer hand-offs, faster decisions, and a product that's built for the people using it.

Code and Waves is my studio. I work with a small number of founders and teams at a time, so each one gets my full attention.

Book a free intro callLinkedIn

Questions founders ask me

Can you help me launch a product from scratch?

Yes. That is most of what I do. I help you shape the idea, talk to users, build a focused first version and get it in front of people. I've done this as a co-founder and as a founding engineer.

I'm not technical. Is that a problem?

No. Many of the founders I work with aren't. I translate between product, business and code, explain trade-offs in plain language and make the technical decisions with you, not for you.

Can you help my website get more visitors and customers?

Yes. I work on technical SEO, page speed, content structure and visibility in AI assistants like ChatGPT and Perplexity, and on the pages that turn visitors into leads or customers. Start with the free audit to see where you stand.

Do you help with branding?

I help with positioning, messaging and the landing pages that carry them. For full visual identity work I collaborate with product designers I trust.

Can you join an existing team instead?

Yes. I regularly join established teams as a senior product engineer, working closely with design, product, sales and support.

How much does it cost?

It depends on scope. After a free intro call I send a written proposal with a fixed scope or a monthly rate, so you know the cost before we start.

Where are you based?

In the Netherlands, originally from Portugal. I work remotely with teams across Europe, Australia and beyond.