Joao Alves

Senior Engineering Manager at IndeedFlex

Recent posts

Oct 3, 2026
Cruzadex, 14 Years Later — I have a group chat with former work colleagues. All from a mobile background, all excited about AI, all building their own products and apps on the side. Some being very successful with it, others not as much (enters me πŸ˜…).
Feb 14, 2026
Prompt-Driven Product - When Code Isn't The Hard Part — Turns out there was more to talk about in this journey. Not that surprising I guess πŸ˜… Today I'll go through one aspect that isn’t talked about as much, and where these tools clearly still struggle a bit. At least based on this specific experience.
Jan 31, 2026
Prompt-Driven Product - What Worked, What Didn't — First, an apology. It has been almost six months since the last article in the series. If you were following along and expecting more, sorry about the silence. To be honest, a lot happened during that period. Work, personal life, and also growing frustration with the project itself. Motivation dropped quite a bit as a result. More on that below.
Jul 8, 2025
Prompt-Driven Product - Setting Up The Developer Environment — In my last article, we transformed the raw app idea into a more detailed plan. With that plan in hand, it was time to build. But to do that, I first needed to properly set up my full developer environment. As mentioned before, I had been using Zapp! as a quick cloud IDE for my tests.
Jul 3, 2025
Prompt-Driven Product - From Idea to Plan — In my previous article, we saw how I put Gemini Pro through its paces, essentially "interviewing" it to see if it could be my AI partner for this project. With its capabilities validated (mostly! πŸ˜…), it was time to start the real work...