Build. Share. Rewind.
Hello, I'm Matheus Albuquerque Brasil—but most folks know me as ythecombinator online.
Why... the... combinator?
Long story short; back in 2014-15 my handle everywhere used to be something around my full name — e.g. mabrasil, malbuquerque, etc. — and that was usually a huge source of confusion for non-native Portuguese speakers.
I then realized I needed something in English to reach a broader audience.
Back at the time, I was really into functional programming, abstractions, and compilers. When reading about the Y combinator, it all sounded super interesting to me.
I was also inspired by the pseudonym of the brilliant Jonathan Gillette — ie. "why the lucky stiff" or "_why" — and I realized ythecombinator was available pretty everywhere; so I took it!
By the way, if you're up for a long read, Mike Vanier has a great explanation concerning the topic!
I love building for the web, and I'm an experienced software engineer and Google Developer Expert from Fortaleza, Brazil. I've worked as a software engineer and architect in product and consultancy companies, taking the best from both worlds.
I'm currently based in Prague, Czech Republic, working as a Staff Software Engineer at Medallia, where I lead the development of their surveys platform, while writing technical articles and speaking to many international conferences. My current focus is on educating advanced developers and growing communities around React, perceived performance and developer experience.
Outside Medallia, I volunteer as a mentor at TechLabs Berlin, teaching front-end development, and I'm also part of the program committee of the US chapter of the React Summit conference.
Curious to know further details about the stuff I mentioned above? I keep some pages updated with these!