JOAO NICOLAU

Freelance Translator

👨🏻‍💻 Current Position :: 📚 Education :: ⌛️ Experience :: 🌍 Languages :: 💻 Information Tools :: 🕶️ Other Interests

👨🏻‍💻 Current Position

2005-2023 Self-employed
Freelance localizer

• Language pairs:

  • 🇬🇧 English > 🇵🇹 European Portuguese
  • 🇵🇹 Portuguese > 🇬🇧 English
  • 🇪🇸 Spanish > 🇵🇹 Portuguese
  • 🇫🇷 French > 🇵🇹 Portuguese

• Specialized in:

  • IT: software, hardware, games, apps
  • Marketing, communication
  • Economics, business, finance
  • Automotive
  • Energy...

📚 Education

1997-1998 ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics & Management (Lisbon University)
MSc in Development & International Cooperation

1990-1995 ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics & Management (Lisbon University)
Degree in Economics (5-year)

⌛️ Previous work experience

2003-2005 Lionbridge (Lisbon, Portugal)
Localization Project Manager

• Project manager for the Portuguese language in Microsoft projects (WinXP SP2, PSS, Office Launch, MSN Messenger, MSDN and TechNet Newsletters, etc.).
• Vendor management and support, including schedule management, quality assurance on vendor work and financial control.
• Process improvement, with cost reduction and duplication of project revenue (an increase of over €100,000).
• Point of contact for clients (Microsoft headquarters in Redmond and local subsidiary).

Joao is a great Project Manager. Always clear explanations of what was expected from the translator(s) and the job(s) in question, as well as a permanent availability as problem-solver, troubleshooter and/or help provider. Very nice to work with!

- Freelance localizer

2001-2003 Microsoft Corporation (Dublin, Ireland)
External Localization Coordinator (Windows)

• Coordination in the following software localisation projects: Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, Windows XP SP1, Windows 2000 SP2/SP3, IE6 SP1, WSRM, DX 8.2, for 2-16 languages.
• Project management of software localisation projects, managing internal and external/outsourced teams.
• Process improvement.
• Bug fixing and bug management, including escalation to US team.
• Interaction with engineering, testing and user assistance teams.
• Point of contact for product queries from internal and external teams.

Joao is not only an honest, highly motivated and dedicated professional but also an inspiring co-worker with excellent interpersonal skills. He is a responsible, organized and deadline-oriented professional that puts all his energy to get the job done with outstanding quality."

- Azure VM Support Engineer at Microsoft

1998–2001 CIDAC NGO (Lisbon, Portugal)
Development Education Coordinator

• Project management: design, financing, implementation and evaluation of Development Education projects.
• Member of the Board.
• Key “resource-person” on social economy.
• Webmaster.

1996–1998 Portuguese Youth Institute (Lisbon, Portugal)
Technical Assistant to the CFO

• Coordination of applications to the European Fund for Regional Development.
• Technical assistance on the Youth Tourism component of the 2nd European Support Framework.
• Budget management.

1995-1996 EMTI (Lisbon, Portugal)
Software Localizer

• Localization of IBM and Microsoft applications (incl. Windows 95)

🌍 Languages

🇵🇹 Portuguese: native speaker.

🇬🇧 English: First Certificate in English (Cambridge University); full oral and written fluency (lived and worked in Ireland for two years).

🇫🇷 French: 3-year course; good oral and written expression.

🇪🇸 Spanish: oral and written fluency.

🇮🇹 Italian: beginner.

💻 Information Tools

Operating systems macOS Ventura (advanced), Windows 11 (advanced), iOS 16 (advanced), Android (intermediate), Ubuntu (intermediate), Linux (beginner).

Coding HTML (intermediate), PHP (beginner), Javascript (beginner).

Localization tools SDL Trados Studio 2021 (advanced), Translation Workspace (advanced), Smartling (advanced), Wordfast (intermediate), Memsource (intermediate), memoQ (intermediate).

Spreadsheets Excel 365 (advanced).

Databases Access 365 (intermediate), mySQL (beginner).

Presentation tools Visio, PowerPoint 365 (intermediate).

Web authoring HTML (intermediate), WordPress (advanced), Grav (intermediate - I coded this website!).

🕶️ Other Interests

📕 Reading (Jose Saramago, Cormac McCarthy, Ian McEwan, Haruki Murakami...)
🎸 Music (from classical through jazz to punk rock)
📸 Photography
🎬 Cinema (sci-fi, espionage...)
🗺️ Travelling, road trips, electric vehicles (I drive electric!)
🎮 Technology, AI, computer games
✊🏾 Activism (Human Rights, self-determination, feminism, environmentalism, climate change...)