About
Alexander De Sousa.
Software developer and founder. Sixteen years of professional development across agencies, internal teams, and now Digital Royalty — the company I founded to build the kind of software systems I wished I’d had to work with at every company before.
I started writing code in secondary school — Flash, HTML, CSS, JS, PHP, MySQL — building games, automation tools, and websites for anyone who’d use them. By the time I left college I was already working in industry; by the time I finished my degree at Solent University I’d been a website developer for two years.
The arc since has been: marketing agency → production team → lead developer → founder. Each role added something different. Netbasic taught me to think about ROI inside every line of code. Vertical Leap put me in the room with clients and made me a real communicator. JDI gave me agile and exposure to a constantly-changing stack. Kee was where process and automation became as important as the code itself. STR Group was where I led major systems end-to-end and learned to scope around real-world business constraints.
Digital Royalty is what came out the other side: a company built around the practices I knew worked, a delivery process designed to outlast any single developer, and a product suite (Beacon) running on the same platform as the client dashboard. The thread underneath all of it — the products, the platform, the engineering process — is the same: encode judgment as constraints, let machines enforce them, save human attention for the things that genuinely need it. The website you’re reading is my personal profile; the company is at digitalroyalty.co.uk .
Career
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2021 — Present · Portsmouth, UK
Founder & CEO
Digital Royalty
I founded Digital Royalty to build software the way I wished it had been built at every company before. Scope written down before work begins, delivery that can be tracked, and code that survives past the developer who wrote it. We deliver SaaS platforms, dashboards, AI agents, and mobile and desktop applications, plus the Beacon product suite that runs on the same Laravel + React platform as the client dashboard.
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2017 — 2021 · Portsmouth, UK
Lead Software Developer
STR Group
I took full responsibility for STR Group’s websites, moving them from a legacy format to a release-based system capable of powering any number of job boards with low maintenance overhead and high customisation. From there I led on every subsequent software project across a wide range of technologies.
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2016 — 2017 · Winchester, UK
Senior Developer
Kee
Joined to make the development process more transparent, methodical and bring it to the highest standard I could. Built out automation, safety nets, and documentation to streamline delivery, prevent the existing pitfalls, and open development up to the rest of the company.
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2015 — 2016 · Fareham, UK
Full Stack Developer
Just Develop It
A very large team with sub-teams and a high frontend demand. Heavy emphasis on agile and sprint-based work with a transparent development process. The role broadened my skillset into server technology and exposed me to a constantly-changing stack — a turning point for treating “keeping up with everything new” as part of the job.
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2012 — 2015 · Portsmouth, UK
Lead Website Developer
Vertical Leap
Filled a skills gap between an existing backend developer and a lead designer; eventually became responsible for all frontend, backend, responsive development, and HTML email campaigns. First role with full responsibility and no senior safety net. Working in a digital marketing agency taught me to scope development to fit a wide range of timing constraints — and gave me a working knowledge of SEO, PPC, social, and content that still shapes the way I build product.
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2010 — 2012 · Fareham, UK
Website Developer
Netbasic
Started as a Flash developer building interactive ads for the marketing team; quickly transitioned into the development team with a strong focus on frontend and backend. Heavily marketing-led, which made me a critical thinker about ROI in everything I built. Worked with the founder of PHP Hampshire and other senior developers of the same calibre — formed the development habits I still rely on today.
Education
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2008 — 2011 · Southampton, UK
Bachelor's, Web Design
Solent University
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2006 — 2008 · London, UK
A-Level, Information Technology
Barnet and Southgate College
Languages
- English Native
- Spanish Bilingual
- Portuguese Limited working