Gabriel Fontes

Curriculum Vitae

Gabriel Silva Fontes - gabriel@gsfontes.com - GitHub

Overview

Software engineer focused on reproducible infrastructure, cloud platforms, developer tooling, and free/open-source software. Experience in production cloud operations, infrastructure as code, CI/CD, and deployment automation. Currently working at Magalu Cloud and pursuing a PhD at the University of São Paulo, researching software sustainability in open-source ecosystems.

Technologies: Linux, Nix/NixOS, Terraform, AWS, OpenStack, Incus, Juju, Ansible, Docker, GitHub Actions, PostgreSQL, Rust, Python, and Lua.

Industry experience

Magalu Cloud (2024-present)

Brazilian public cloud platform.

Software Engineer (2025-present)

  • Work on underlying cloud resources, virtualization, packaging, and deployment orchestration using OpenStack, Incus, Canonical Juju, and Ansible.

Site Reliability Engineer (2024-2025)

  • Worked on the Object Storage platform, including deployment automation, automated testing, and monitoring.
  • Coordinated operational processes, including deployments and disk replacements.

Zoocha (2023-2024)

Web development agency focused in Drupal.

DevOps Engineer (2023-2024)

  • Migrated Chef-based client infrastructure from AWS OpsWorks to Terraform-managed AWS SSM.
  • Improved developer tooling and practices, addressed technical debt, and supported day-to-day cloud operations.

U-Get (2020-2023)

Startup developing computer vision-based vending systems.

DevOps Engineer (2020-2023)

  • Led the migration from manual deployments and partially configured Kubernetes infrastructure to reproducible AWS infrastructure using Terraform, ECS, ECR, IAM, and S3.
  • Decoupled application components, introduced CI/CD pipelines, and supported blue-green deployments with short feedback loops.
  • Helped replace direct production changes with review-gated workflows. Mentored peers and senior stakeholders on Git, Linux, infrastructure practices, and code review.
  • Worked with databases and multi-tenant environments.

Freelance Developer (2020)

  • Built an Android tablet fleet-management solution, initially as a Python CLI and later rewritten as a Rust backend, covering the tablets’ lifecycle.

EVAG (2020)

Communication Intern

  • Built campaign websites during Brazil’s municipal elections, working directly with candidates to deliver their requirements under tight deadlines.

Education and Research

University of São Paulo (2020-present)

  • PhD: Computer Science and Computational Mathematics (2026-present)
    • Advisor: Elisa Yumi Nakagawa.
  • MSc: Computer Science and Computational Mathematics (2023-2026)
    • Advisor: Elisa Yumi Nakagawa.
    • Dissertation: Free and open source software sustainability: an exploratory analysis in the cloud observability ecosystem.

My research focuses on software sustainability in open-source ecosystems and practices that support long-lived, self-sustaining projects. Some of this work was published at Designing ‘26.

  • Bachelor’s: Computer Information Systems (2020-2022)

Teaching assistant through USP’s PAE program for Software Reuse (May-November 2025), supervised by Elisa Yumi Nakagawa, the course instructor.

Teaching assistant for Database Practice (Laboratório de Bases de Dados, September-December 2022), supervised by José Fernando Rodrigues Júnior.

University of Groningen (2025)

Research Internship (May-July 2025): Research on cloud computing sustainability ecosystems, supervised by Vasilios Andrikopoulos. Some of this work was published at SESoS ‘26.

See all publications.

Academic Service

Ad hoc paper reviewer (2024-2026) for ASE, EASE, FSE Industry, ICSA, ICSE (NIER, SEET, and SEIP tracks), ECSA, ESEM, ICTSS, SBCARS, and SBES (NIER).

Open-source and Community

Nix ecosystem

  • Created nix-starter-configs, Nix/NixOS configuration templates with 3,700+ GitHub stars, helping newcomers adopt reproducible system configuration.
  • Created nix-colors, a collection of base16 color schemes and an integration module, with 580+ GitHub stars (now archived).
  • Contribute packages and modules to nixpkgs and home-manager.
  • Maintain Foundry, my personal NixOS infrastructure: declarative hosts, services, secrets, deployment workflows, and reproducible development environments.

Rust tooling

  • Created flavours, a Rust CLI for managing, generating, and applying Base16 color schemes across applications.

GELOS - Leadership

  • Co-founded and help lead GELOS, a free/open-source software group at ICMC-USP with roughly 10-20 members. Coordinate work, mentor contributors, review contributions, and help resolve conflicts.
  • Implemented and maintain the group’s infrastructure and development workflows: NixOS hosts, website, GitHub monorepo, CI/CD, merge queues, and CODEOWNERS-based review.
  • Maintain Brazilian free software package mirrors together with UFSCar’s Patos.
  • Co-organized Caipyra 2026, a Python community conference held June 4-7, 2026, in São Carlos, jointly organized by GELOS and Grupy-Sanca.