Return to homepage

Mário Mesquita


Resume

Profile


Me Professional

About me

I like to think about myself as an all-rounder in tech, if there's something I don't know I NEED to figure out how it works.

I have explored lots of fields, but I am most passionate about: Gaming, web3 & Blockchain, Extended Reality, and AI.

Recently been interested in the Metaverse, but always learning and open to new challenges!

Spend my free time traveling, playing videogames, watching anime/series, or doing all types of sports and outdoors activities.

Details

Mário Mesquita

23

Porto, Portugal

Student, Master's in Informatics and Computing Engineering

Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto

Me Informal

Background


Education

Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto

Porto

Set 2020 - today

Expected Graduation in February 2023

Degree reference

Master's in Informatics and Computing Engineering

Continuation of my Bachelor degree.

Took a break for a whole semester to travel, so I'm finishing it 1 semester late.

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Hong Kong

Jan 2022 - May 2022

Degree reference

Master's degree - Exchange Program

1 Semester abroad as part of my Master's degree.

Learning about Blockchain technologies, Financial Technologies, Recent Advancements in Deep Learning and Digital Design.

Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto

Porto

Set 2017 - June 2020

Degree reference

Bachelor in Informatics and Computing Engineering

Relevant coursework includes: Algorithms and Data Structures, Algorithm Design and Analysis, Databases, Operative Systems, Computer Networks, Software Engineering, Computer Graphics, among others.

Colégio Casa-Mãe

Baltar

Set 2013 - Jun 2017

http://www.colegiocasamae.pt/

Highschool, Science and Technology

During highschool, among others, I learned about Math, Physics and Chemistry. I participated in numerous contests and events, winning prizes in many of them. In the end, the average of my grades rounded to 20 out of 20. In the final national exams, I had 20 at Physics, Chemistry and Maths.

It was in my 12th grade that I began programming, in Physics class with an Arduino. I immediately took a liking to it and, later on, decided to learn more in University.


Work experience

Software Engineer Internship

Anchorage

Porto, Portugal

September 2022 - today

Company website

Improved the reliability of Anchorage's pricing module for cryptoassets, used company-wide, by introducing a fallback mechanism for prices.

Exploring ways to accurately and reliably estimate the price of NFTs through ML and Deep Learning algorithms, for my Masters Thesis.

Co-founder

VR Portal - Penafiel

Oct 2018 - today

https://www.vrportal.pt/

Project that started with the goal of bringing Virtual Reality entertainment to Portugal and make it acessible to everyone, through our VR arcade: Gate Alpha.

Since then, we have been actively exploring new ways to expand our business through VR based solutions.

Software Engineer Internship

Meta

London, UK

July 2022 - September 2022

Company website

Migrated SparkAR insights to a new database system, by setting up the data schemas, IG event listeners, GraphQL interface and Dashboard UI.

Refined the migration's onboarding process, with Meta-wide impact, by capturing missing steps, updating wikis and suggesting optimizations.

Worked with little guidance and incomplete documentation, by independently looking through code and connecting with other teams.

Software Engineer Internship

Microsoft

Dublin, Ireland

June 2021 - August 2021

Company website

Simplified the Log Analysis process for on-call engineers, by creating tools to prepare, display and help analyze the trillions of Log data records.

Standardized the process for multiple teams, by leveraging feedback from various sources and making the solution extensible.

Understood the Log Analysis problem, explored solutions and defined the overall project architecture by writing a Design Document.

Teacher Assistant - Algorithm Design and Analysis

Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto

Porto, Portugal

Mar 2021 - July 2021

Course info

Helped the teacher of the Algorithm Design and Analysis Course (FEUP's Integrated Master's in Informatics and Computing Engineering 2nd year) in assisting the students with their projects, outside classes.

Created a tool for fetching, parsing and validating students’ submissions on HackerRank contests, to be used in the current and future occurrences of the Algorithm Design and Analysis course.

Backend Developer

Mindera

Porto, Portugal

November 2020 - May 2021

Company website

Reduced the time & monetary costs of creating browser games inside Mindera Gaming, by contributing to a reusable 2D game engine in Golang.

Extended the physics engine and improved collision detection, by taking inspiration in Box2D and Chipmunk engines’ implementations.

Information Technology Summer Intern

BNP Paribas Securities Services

Lisbon, Portugal

July 2020 - Sept 2020

Company website

Currently optimizing a team’s billing process by developing a Python robot using RPA technology.

Automating repetitive and time-consuming human interaction with MS Access, Excel, Outlook and websites

Teacher Assistant - Algorithm Design and Analysis

Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto

Porto, Portugal

Mar 2020 - July 2020

Course info

Helped the teacher of the Algorithm Design and Analysis Course (FEUP's Integrated Master's in Informatics and Computing Engineering 2nd year) in assisting the students with their projects, outside classes.

Prepared problems in HackerRank to challenge students about: graphs, greedy algorithms, divide and conquer, dynamic programming, backtracking, strings.

Teacher Assistant - Computer Laboratory

Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto

Porto, Portugal

Oct 2019 - Dec 2019

Course info

Helping the teacher of the Computer Laboratory Course (FEUP's Integrated Master's in Informatics and Computing Engineering 2nd year) in assisting the students during their classes.

The course focuses in low level programming (C and Assembly x86), applied to program the hardware controllers of peripherals (such as mouse, keyboard, serial port ...).


Other experience

Project Manager

NIAEFEUP

July 2020 - September 2021

ni.fe.up.pt

Head of projects in NIAEFEUP, the computer science student group from my university.

Responsible for maintaining past projects, making sure current projects are successfull, and considering/allocating resources for new projects.

Founder and Leader

CaptureTheFrancesinha

Dec 2019 - September 2021

https://ctftime.org/team/111459

Created the first Capture the Flag team from my faculty by bringing together people interested in cyber security.

Promoted learning and sharing for a group of 24, by organizing weekly training sessions and actively participating in online challenges and CTFs.

Summer Innovation Week

Critical Software - Coimbra

July 2019

https://www.criticalsoftware.com/

Week during which 25 engineering students were given the opportunity to work in a multidisciplinary team, accompanied by senior engineers from Critical Software, and develop a project across various domains.

I worked in a team of 5 through building a robot with vision, being in charge of the project architecture and technologies used. Was responsible for writing modules to ease development.

It was a great experience to work outside my usual scope of solely programming, dealing with networks, electronics and mechanics components.


Self-Motivated Learning

Web Development

The Web Developer Bootcamp

Online

43 hours of video

May 2018 - Jul 2018

Certificate of Completion

https://www.udemy.com/the-web-developer-bootcamp/

This course marked my first steps into Web Development. It is very complete, covering a wide range of contents from basic Html to a big production application. These include both frontend and backend. It was after completing this course that I developed this website!

Cyber Security

Learn Ethical Hacking From Scratch

Online

12.5 hours of video

Jul 2017 - May 2018

Certificate of Completion

https://www.udemy.com/learn-ethical-hacking-from-scratch/

I started learning about Cyber Security with this course. It focuses on the practical side of penetration, without neglecting the theory behind each attack. Starting from the basics of linux and computer systems, it took me through most penetration testing fields.

CyberS3c Workshop: Ethical Hacking

Porto

9 hours

Mar 2018

https://www.cybers3c.pt/

This workshop was an intensive full day learning experience. In it, I learned about information gathering, attacks and defense techniques with professionals working in the area. The event was very successfull in providing real time hacking examples and spreading awareness about security.

Python & Ethical Hacking

Online

23.5 hours of video

Jul 2018 - Set 2018

Certificate of Completion

https://www.udemy.com/learn-python-and-ethical-hacking-from-scratch/

I took this course on Ethical Hacking after finishing a previous one, having been left wondering how the given tools I used were built. This came as a solution to my curiosity, where I learned how to built my own custom programs and attacks in Python. Among others, I learned about backdoors, keyloggers and credential harvesters. This also covered web applications hacking.

Game Development

Complete C# Unity Developer 3D

Online

34 hours of video + many more developing

Nov 2019 - June 2020

Certificate of Completion

https://www.udemy.com/unitycourse2/

Unity course that focuses more on 3D aspects of Development, with 5 games that encompass a wide variety of genres and topics. Decided to learn this as a basis for starting developing cooler stuff in VR and AR.

Complete C# Unity Developer 2D

Online

51.5 hours of video + many more developing

Apr 2017 - Fev 2018

Certificate of Completion

https://www.udemy.com/unitycourse/

It was with this course that I really started learning how to program. It starts slowly with the basics of C# and Unity, but quickly steps up its pace. It is project-based, having developed many games as I was going through it. Covers many different types of games and different features.


Achievements

Selected as one of the 50 Huawei scholarship winners among 3000 portuguese students.

This program's aim was to recognize and award students for their academic and extra-curricular path

IEEEXtreme 2019

Maia - Critical Manufacturing

19 Oct 2019

1st place in Portugal

171th place out of 5015 teams

712.88 points

https://ieeextreme.org/ Check my solutions!

IEEEXtreme is a global challenge in which teams of up to 3 IEEE Student members compete in a 24-hour time span against each other to solve a set of programming problems. Our submission for each problem is evaluated through unitary tests, and our score reflects our performance in each task.

It was a great event! Played a lot of FIFA, filled myself with lots of food and somehow ranked 1st in Portugal!

Gamejam+

Online

Aug 2019 - Oct 2019

Qualified for the final phase

https://gamejamplus.com/ Play my game!

International Game Jam where, in 48 hours, in addition to creating a game, you must also develop a business plan for it.

We qualified for the final phase in Brazil through popular voting, where, along with the winners from each region, we had the opportunity to pitch our game.

Award given to the 22 University of Porto students with the best grades' average on their 1st year.

It was a huge honor to receive this prize and be invited to attend the University of Porto's Aniversary Cerimony.

Having won the portuguese national contest, my team got the right to participate in this european competition. The theme and our submission were the same, but now we were competing with the best team of each european country. To our surprise, all the jurys unanimously voted our submission to be the best. And so we won the contest and a trip to London!

ChemRus 2017

Online

2017

1st place

http://gqj.spq.pt/ Check my submission!

For this contest we had to conduct an experiment, document it and create a video in response to a given challenge. For my group this was "Playing with chemicals reactions", and we decided to make our own biodiesel from used cooking oil. The whole video editing was done by me.

Olimpiadas Geologia

Estremoz - Centro Ciência Viva

2016

6th place

https://www.socgeol.org/olimpiadas_1

This is a competition about geology that comprises the whole country. First there is a selection inside each school, then a local selection, then a regional one and, finally, a national. I got to the national phase and got 6th place in it.

Pmate

Aveiro - University of Aveiro

2008 - 2017

3rd place - 2015

2nd place - 2016

2nd place - 2017

https://pmate.ua.pt/oficial/

Pmate is a national Mathematics competition that takes place once every year. I started participating in my 3rd grade and, since then, kept going consistently. Overall, this competition was a great means of learning. It definitely had a positive impact in my school performance, allowing me to attain a more deep understanding of maths.


Groups / Organizations

NIAEFEUP

Porto - FEUP

Nov 2018 - September 2021

https://ni.fe.up.pt/

This is the Informatics student group of FEUP's Student Association, composed by students of the Informatics and Computing Engineering course. I joined it in my second year looking to work on real projects and learn new skills.

Computer Graphics and Multimedia Student Group

Porto - FEUP

Set 2017 - June 2021

http://necg.fe.up.pt/

I entered this group in the pursuit of delving into the area of videogames and, in it, I found many people who shared my passion. This group is responsible for organizing the Game Dev Meets in Porto, where all the enthusiasts of game creation are invited to appear, with the objective of creating a community for exchange of knowledge and experiences. In this meets, I was able to have a clear grasp at the state of game development in the north of Portugal.

IEEE UP Student Branch

Porto - FEUP

Set 2017 - June 2021

https://up.ieee-pt.org/

I joined this student branch as soon as I entered University. In it, I got to meet many new people from different courses and organize a whole range of events for the University community. These included talks, events, activities, competitions, workshops, among others. I also got to put to practice some of the knowledge I gained from online courses, teaching in workshops.


Volunteering

Talk a Bit - 6th edition

Porto - FEUP

20 Jan 2018

http://talkabit.org/

Talk A Bit is a non-profit tech conference organized by graduating Software Engineering students from FEUP, focusing on the social impact of technology. I helped with the logistics, check-in balcon, organization and meals. It was a new experience which also allowed me to better grasp how this kind of events are created and managed.

Skills

(Last updated: 17th Oct 2020)


Programming Languages

  • C
  • C++
  • Java
  • Javascript
  • Python
  • C#
  • Prolog
  • PHP
  • Bash
  • x86 Assembly

Theoretical Skills

  • Object oriented programming
  • Algorithms
  • Data Structures
  • Recursion
  • Code Smells
  • Design Patterns
  • Mathematics
  • NP-Complete Problems

Areas of Interest

Mobile / Web Development

  • Bootstrap Framework
  • CSS
  • HTML
  • Jquery
  • SQL
  • ExpressJS
  • MongoDB
  • NodeJS
  • Flutter
  • React

Cyber Security

  • Website Penetration Testing
  • Cryptography
  • Programming Hacking Tools
  • Reverse Engineering
  • Forensics
  • Network Penetration Testing

Game Development

  • Unity
  • Audacity
  • Blender
  • RPG Maker VX Ace
  • Unreal Engine
  • Pico-8

Technologies / Tools

  • Git
  • Docker
  • Linux
  • Cheat Engine

Soft Skills

  • Creativity
  • Flexibility
  • Problem-Solving
  • Leadership
  • Communication
  • Confidence

Languages

  • Portuguese (Mother tongue)
  • English
  • Spanish
  • French
  • Japanese (learning)
  • German

Projects

(Last updated: 17th Oct 2020)



Interests

(Last updated: 17th Oct 2020)


Cyber Security

Artificial Intelligence

Virtual Reality

Games

Entrepreneurship

Sports

Culinary

Books

Traveling

Select the icons to know more!

Contact


Icons made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com is licensed by CC 3.0 BY