About
João Costa is Head of Software Architecture and Co-Founder at Grandhelm. He leads the firm's technology delivery, ensuring that operational transformation translates into working systems that compound value over time. João's perspective is built in production, not on slideware. Over the past decade he has engineered mission-critical systems at four high-growth European technology businesses - Teya in payments, Feedzai in AI-driven fraud prevention, Truphone in connectivity, and Farfetch in luxury e-commerce, taking on increasing technical leadership through hyper-growth, IPO, and platform-scaling phases. That trajectory has given him a working knowledge of the architectures, trade-offs, and operating constraints that define modern technology businesses across payments, AI, telecommunications, and consumer platforms. He understands what good engineering looks like under real pressure, and equally important what bad engineering costs.
Areas of focus
- Mission-critical systems architecture
- Scaling through hyper-growth and IPO
- Engineering leadership under production pressure
- Architecture trade-offs for high-stakes systems
Where it started
- MSc Software Engineering, Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto
- BSc Computer Science, Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto
Selected highlights
- Co-founded Grandhelm to translate operational transformation into working software
- A decade engineering mission-critical systems at Teya, Feedzai, Truphone, and Farfetch
- Technical leadership through hyper-growth, IPO, and platform-scaling phases