---
title: "Problem Solving & Adaptability - José DA COSTA"
description: "Problem solving, the way I practise it, is the **disciplined conversion of a fuzzy symptom into a clear diagnosis and a converging plan**, under time and budget pressure. Adaptability is the meta-skil"
locale: "en"
canonical: "https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/skills/problem-solving-adaptability"
source: "https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/skills/problem-solving-adaptability.md"
html_source: "https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/skills/problem-solving-adaptability"
author: "José DA COSTA"
type: "skill"
slug: "problem-solving-adaptability"
generated_at: "2026-04-26T21:12:16.337Z"
---

# Problem Solving & Adaptability

Icon: 🧠

## My definition

Problem solving, the way I practise it, is the **disciplined conversion of a fuzzy symptom into a clear diagnosis and a converging plan**, under time and budget pressure. Adaptability is the meta-skill that lets me run the same exercise on a new domain or stack without losing speed. Across **18 years of professional practice**, the two have become inseparable for me: the diagnostic muscle is precisely what makes me comfortable in unfamiliar territory, and that is what explains the **BEP audiovisual repair (1998) → CTO SaaS (2026)** trajectory.

### Context

I run this competency on **3 depth layers**. **Surface**: debugging in production, fast stack-trace reading, bug reproduction. **Mid**: root cause on a regulated domain (French accounting, Open Banking PSD2, NIS2) where mistakes carry direct legal cost. **Deep**: full business reframing when the initial solution is exhausted. like the Pichet DAM picked up **after 360 K euros of failed spend** and **5 previous project managers**. Top 1 and Top 2 portfolio frequencies (33 + 32 references): these are my structural signatures.

### Relevance

On the 2026 market, the **accelerated stack churn** (Bun, edge runtimes, agentic AI, vertical SaaS) has turned adaptability into an explicit **senior hiring filter**. The Pragmatic Engineer report [AI Tooling for Software Engineers in 2026](https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/ai-tooling-2026) confirms it: in an industry where **80% of engineers will need to upskill on AI tools by 2027** (Gartner), winning teams are not those who master one stack but those who **re-learn fast**. The T-shaped profile - broad adaptability with one or two depths - has become the recruited archetype.

## My evidence

### Reframing the DAM project after 360 KEUR of sunk cost

**Context:** When I took over the DAM in February 2019, the project was not late - it was stuck. **5 project managers** had come and gone, **more than 360,000 euros** had been spent on OpenText licenses, integrator fees, and internal management, and the platform was serving barely 20 people where it should have equipped the 1,400 employees of Groupe Pichet. Leadership was hesitating between dropping the initiative entirely and onboarding yet another vendor - which would have reproduced the same failure pattern.

**Action:** I refused to attack the solution before reframing the problem. Together with Stéphanie L., the new Communications Director, we set 3 foundational questions before relaunching anything: **what business outcome** does the platform have to produce (eliminate the manual asset redistribution, not just host images), **what contractual reversibility** is non-negotiable (exit the SaaS without lock-in), and **what does a successful day 90 look like** (a salesperson finds her own program visual in under 2 minutes). Only after locking those 3 criteria did I build the **6-step independent benchmark methodology** and steer the evaluation toward Bynder rather than yet another OpenText attempt.

**Result:** Bynder went live on **November 18th, 2020**, **1,400 users onboarded**, contract signed with **SLA and reversibility clauses** locked down by our legal counsel. Where 5 attempts had failed, the reframing shipped the project in less than 2 years for a few tens of thousands of euros.

**Value added:** That reframing method - reformulating the problem before touching the solution - has become a reflex I now replay on every CTO advisory engagement at ACCENSEO. The core lesson: a failing project almost never has a solution problem, it has a problem statement problem.

### Learning Babel AST + PostCSS in 6 weeks for Tailwind v4

**Context:** Late 2025 **Tailwind v4** shipped, fully rewritten in **Rust/Oxide**. The only existing obfuscation tool (unplugin-tailwindcss-mangle) relied on patching Tailwind internals - an approach that broke instantly with v4. No compatible solution existed on the market, and several teams I advise explicitly needed that tooling to ship their design system. The window was tight: **6 weeks** before the community would fall back to ad-hoc workarounds.

**Action:** I made a counter-intuitive call: instead of patching the internals like the incumbent, I bet on **pure static analysis** - directly scanning source files for the classes used, with zero dependency on Tailwind internals. That meant betting on a stack I had never touched: **Babel AST** to parse JSX/TSX/Vue/Svelte/Astro/Qwik, **PostCSS** to transform the compiled CSS, **magic-string** for replacements that preserve sourcemaps, and **5 bundler plugins** (Vite, Webpack, Rollup, esbuild, Nuxt module) sharing the same core engine. I learned the stack in pair-programming with Claude Code, validating every hypothesis with tests.

**Result:** 6 weeks later I shipped **tailwindcss-obfuscator** to npm: **82K lines of TypeScript**, **295 tests**, **10 frameworks supported**, **automatic detection** of Tailwind v3 vs v4, monorepo TurboRepo. **First Tailwind v4-compatible tool on the market**, picked up by external teams within the first weeks.

**Value added:** What I keep is not the tool, it is the method: when an unfamiliar stack is on the critical path you do not work around it, you learn it - and you learn through tests, not through tutorials. The same mechanic will let me absorb Bun + edge runtimes tomorrow, or any stack a future scale-up CTO role demands.

### Absorbing French accounting regulation in months

**Context:** When I started the ACCENSEO accounting SaaS in early 2025, I knew full-stack development inside out but I had no formal accounting expertise. The domain does not forgive approximation: **PCG**, **CGI**, **Code de commerce**, **EDI Teledec**, **DSP2** for Open Banking, the **2026-2027 e-invoicing mandate**. Any tax computation error has a direct financial consequence for the customer. And the horizon was non-negotiable: e-invoicing compliance had to be ready before end of 2026.

**Action:** I treated the regulation **as a system specification**, not as an afterthought layer. I archived the key PCG pages, intercepted competitor API responses, ran a market study of dematerialisation platforms, and audited the security of existing SaaS players (which surfaced IDOR + KYC vulnerabilities at several competitors). Then I mapped the rules into Prisma models: **91 models**, **63 enums**, **6 differentiated roles** (Admin, Collaborator, Consultant, Accountant, Accounting, Banking). For every feature - VAT CA3, IS, CFE, CVAE, DAS2, PAS - I wrote the spec, then **verification scripts** for every calculation, before chaining systematic non-regression tests.

**Result:** **234K lines of code shipped solo**, **42 features**, **382 API routes**, integration with **3 Open Banking providers** (GoCardless/Nordigen, Bridge, Qonto), EDI submissions via **Teledec**, **multi-provider AI assistant** (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini), **2026-2027 e-invoicing compliance** reached ahead of schedule.

**Value added:** Adaptability did not just help me survive - it turned a regulated domain **into a product moat**. That is exactly the posture a B2B scale-up CTO is hired for in regulated industries (healthcare, finance, institutional real estate): proving you can absorb a legal frame in months and code it without compromise.

## My self-critique

### Mastery level

Level **Expert (5/5)**. Portfolio recurrence (33 references to problem-solving, 32 to adaptability) is no accident: it is my structural signature. Proven ability to reframe a project after 360 KEUR of over-spend (DAM Bynder), absorb French accounting regulation + 2026-2027 e-invoicing in months, and run PHP legacy, modern TypeScript and Kotlin Android in parallel.

### Importance in my profile

It is the **absolute foundation** of my profile. Without it, the rest of the stack does not transfer: every new stack, domain, or organisation would become a mountain. It is also the key differentiator on the 2026 market where stack and business-model churn keeps accelerating, hiring a senior CTO who learns fast beats hiring an expert in a domain that may be obsolete in 3 years.

### Acquisition speed

### Acquisition speed

The most telling trajectory remains my [full journey](/en/journey) over **28 years**: from my first tech assignments (1998) to CTO SaaS (2026), across **65+ documented professional contexts**. Recent indicator: **6 weeks** to ship the first Tailwind v4-compatible obfuscator from scratch on Babel AST + PostCSS.

### Advice (for myself and others)

To myself: deliberately step out of the comfort zone **every 12-18 months** on an unfamiliar stack or domain, keep a reframing journal to calibrate the reflex. To others: never accept a symptom as a problem, always go back to the business root before diving into the technical solution. Repetition across different contexts beats expertise in a single one.

## My evolution in this skill

### Role in my professional project

Problem-solving and adaptability are **the foundation that makes me a CTO scale-up rather than a stack expert**. In the 24-month plan, they let me absorb a new regulated domain without long ramp-up, fix structural technical debt, and grow a team on an unknown stack. Without them, the EM to CTO jump would be conditioned on a known domain in advance. narrowing the addressable market.

### Mid-term target level

The goal is to **stay sharp without decay**: take over a tech organization in a domain I have never practiced, reach production posture within 90 days, and run a team *hire-to-impact* cycle under 60 days. Secondary indicator: **ship at least one OSS project outside my comfort zone every year**.

### Current training

RAG and LLM hands-on integrated into ACCENSEO pipelines (Claude, GPT, Gemini, TRELLIS, TripoSR), continuous reading of finance books ([Damodaran](https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/), Mauboussin) to push a domain far from tech, weekly intake of engineering blogs outside my current stack (Rust, Zig, Elixir).

### Future training

*Finance for CTOs* program planned 2027 to consolidate the domain-finance bridge. Annual out-of-comfort cohort (neuroscience, negotiation, design system) to keep the reflex of voluntary discomfort active.

## Progression across journey

This skill was developed across 14 different journey items.

- **1997** - [BEP ICEF (Home Equipment Installer & Advisor), Specialization: Audiovisual Electronics & Antennas](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/journey/bep-icef.md) (education) - Confidence: 3/5
- **1999** - [CTO · Founder · technical director](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/journey/celiane-founder.md) (entrepreneurship) - Confidence: 3/5
- **1999** - [Vocational Baccalaureate in Household & Institutional Equipment Maintenance (MAEMC), Specialization: Electrical Engineering](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/journey/bac-pro-maemc.md) (education) - Confidence: 2/5
- **2009** - [Software Engineer · PHP Zend Framework Developer](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/journey/european-sourcing-engineer.md) (experience) - Confidence: 5/5
- **2013** - [Senior Software Engineer · Lead PHP Symfony Developer](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/journey/medialeads-senior-engineer.md) (experience) - Confidence: 5/5
- **2016** - [Technical Project Manager · Co-founder · Early-Stage Startup](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/journey/adspower-cofounder.md) (entrepreneurship) - Confidence: 4/5
- **2017** - [Senior Software Engineer · Lead PHP Magento Developer](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/journey/smile-senior-engineer.md) (experience) - Confidence: 5/5
- **2019** - [Engineering Manager · Project Manager / Product Owner · Technical Lead](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/journey/pichet-group.md) (experience) - Confidence: 4/5
- **2019** - [Technical Lead · Flows and Products: content and enterprise integration](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/journey/pichet-technical-lead.md) (experience) - Confidence: 4/5
- **2020** - [Entrepreneur · Various Business Domains](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/journey/auto-entrepreneur-jdc.md) (entrepreneurship) - Confidence: 5/5
- **2021** - [PSPO Certification (Professional Scrum Product Owner)](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/journey/pspo-scrum.md) (certification) - Confidence: 4/5
- **2022** - [SAFe 5 Certification (Product Manager & Product Owner)](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/journey/safe-po-pm.md) (certification) - Confidence: 4/5
- **2023** - [MBA Strategic Project Management](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/journey/mba-strategic-project-management.md) (education) - Confidence: 4/5
- **2024** - [CTO · Founder · technical director](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/journey/accenseo-founder.md) (entrepreneurship) - Confidence: 5/5

## Related achievements

- [Intelligent Accounting SaaS Platform](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/plateforme-comptabilite-saas.md) - PCG, CGI, Code de commerce, EDI Teledec, PSD2 and 2026-2027 e-invoicing preparation. Mastered French accounting domain, Open Banking PSD2, and EDI tax filing from scratch
- [SaaS platform for mortgage credit brokers powered by AI](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/plateforme-saas-courtiers-credit-immobilier.md) - Navigated complex French mortgage regulations (ORIAS, HCSF, usury rates) and SSO debugging challenges - Mastered mortgage brokerage domain, multi-provider AI integration, and WebAuthn authentication
- [AI Chat Export - Multi-Platform AI Conversation Export Extension](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/ai-chat-export.md) - Overcame DOM parsing challenges, anti-bot protections, and cross-origin iframe constraints - Mastered Manifest V3 extension architecture and multi-store publishing from scratch
- [Gradient Generator - Advanced CSS Gradient Creation Tool](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/gradient-generator-css.md) - Delivered 51K-line application in 3 days using AI-augmented development workflow - Complex state management with 8 stores, real-time gradient rendering, and browser compatibility challenges
- [Atlassian Forge Developer - Intelligent IDE Plugin](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/atlassian-forge-developer-ide-plugin.md) - Modeled complex proprietary Forge schema (83 scopes, 71 events, 155+ templates) in Kotlin for IDE autocompletion and validation. Mastered IntelliJ Platform SDK, Kotlin plugin development, and Atlassian Forge ecosystem from scratch in 3 months
- [Trade Show Community Portal Platform](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/portail-communautaire-salons-professionnels.md) - Managed Google Analytics, AdWords, and server administration alongside development. Created navigable client mockups demonstrating community portal concept for B2B prospects
- [European B2B Search Engine for Promotional Products (European Sourcing)](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/moteur-de-recherche-europeen-b2b-objets-publicitaires.md) - Solved complex data integration challenges - heterogeneous supplier formats, multilingual search across 7 languages, massive catalog optimization where any poorly designed query was fatal for performance. Evolved from PHP custom + SVN monolith to Symfony microservices + Git + Elasticsearch + AngularJS SPA - continuously learned new stacks, frameworks and search technologies across 3 architectural phases
- [EuropeanTool - B2B Promotional Product Platform](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/europeantool-plateforme-b2b.md) - Evolved stack from procedural PHP to MVC frameworks, SVN to Git, manual to Docker-based deployment over 10 years - Designed queue systems with concurrency management, zombie detection, and automated export orchestration
- [B2B Product Data Export Platform](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/export-donnees-produits-b2b.md) - Designed zombie process detection, multi-level concurrency limits, and PrestaShop API error recovery mechanisms - Mastered PrestaShop WebService API (REST/XML) with undocumented behaviors and multi-shop support
- [DAM Bynder - Project Manager for 1,400 Users](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/dam-bynder-asset-management-project-manager.md) - Radical SaaS pivot after 5 previous failed attempts (360K€ wasted) and 6-step independent benchmark methodology - the cognitive anchor that turned failure into success - Mastered DAM ecosystem (Bynder, CI HUB, OpenText migration) and delivered despite Covid constraints
- [Partner Lead Reception API Platform (alias PSR)](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/plateforme-api-reception-leads-partenaires.md) - Diagnosed cross-system lead flow anomalies and complex partner-config migrations. Mastered Microsoft APIM and the real-estate lead management domain from scratch
- [Akeneo PIM Project Management and Product Information Governance](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/pilotage-pim-akeneo-migration-saas.md) - Designed G2P mediation system for automatic program reconciliation, resolved import pipeline issues, managed API migration risks - Mastered Akeneo PIM ecosystem from v1.4 through SaaS, learned real estate domain and multi-channel distribution requirements
- [tailwindcss-obfuscator - Open Source CSS Obfuscation Tool](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/tailwindcss-obfuscator.md) - Fast, self-directed ramp-up on 3 new technical domains (Babel AST, PostCSS, Rust/Oxide internals) to ship the package in 6 weeks, Chose static analysis over internal patching, solving the v4 compatibility challenge that blocked the competitor
- [MagicPlaylist - Android Music Discovery & Playlist Generator](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/magicplaylist-android-music-discovery.md) - Reverse-engineered unofficial Shazam API and solved rate limiting with progressive chunking and circuit breaker - Mastered Kotlin 2.0, Jetpack Compose, Material 3, Spotify OAuth 2.0, and Shazam API from scratch
- [E-Commerce Platform Redesign Magento Enterprise Edition (alias Fleurance Nature)](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/refonte-ecommerce-magento-fleurancenature.md) - Led solo a project scoped for a team, backported ElasticSearch to unsupported Magento EE 1.10 via autoloader rewrites, 7 spec iterations to uncover hidden business rules, Mastered ElasticSearch indexation and autocomplete on a Magento 1 context plus the 4x3 pricing complexity at Smile agency
- [PIM Extranet for B2B Promotional Products Search Engine (European Sourcing)](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/extranet-pim-b2b-objets-publicitaires.md) - Modelled complex business rules (dynamic pricing, marking variants, multi-currency) - some suppliers reaching 15,000 variations per product - Picked up the project from SQLI in 2014, then drove the rewrite from custom MVC to Symfony 3.1 + PostgreSQL + RabbitMQ
- [E-Commerce Site Generator with Customization CMS (alias MyEasyWeb)](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/generateur-sites-ecommerce-avec-cms.md) - Mastered Solr/ElasticSearch search engines, B2B marketplace operations, and 520K+ product catalog with 7 languages and 32 currencies - Integrated heterogeneous supplier formats, multilingual search across 7 languages, massive catalog optimization
- [AI Machine Learning SaaS Platform for Ad Optimization (alias AdsPower)](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/plateforme-publicitaire-machine-learning.md) - Self-taught NLP, ML classification, and Azure ML Studio to build advertising intelligence platform. Designed search intent classification and bid optimization algorithms using TF-IDF and k-means clustering
- [Multi-Supplier Product Data Import System](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/import-european-sourcing.md) - Maintained and modernized a 12-year legacy system, transitioning from custom PHP to Symfony
- [Food Truck & Mobile Concept Platform - French manufacturer (alias MCR)](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/plateforme-food-truck-concepts-mobiles.md) - Pioneered AI-assisted development at production scale - x3 to x4 productivity multiplier sustained over 41 days, first full solo mobilisation of this workflow
- [Centralized Multilingual Translation Management Platform](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/plateforme-gestion-traductions-multilingues.md) - Took over half-built project, replaced fragile custom PO parser with Gettext\Translations library
- [Supplier Back-Office - B2B Self-Service Portal](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/supplier-backoffice-european-sourcing.md) - Mastered AngularJS SPA patterns, CoffeeScript, WSSE auth, and B2B promotional product domain
- [Collaborative Project Management Platform](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/plateforme-gestion-projets-collaboratif.md) - Implemented JWT auth flow, role-based permissions, database triggers for audit trail, and CORS integration
- [ETL Pipeline for Real Estate Listing Syndication (alias Ligneurs)](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/pipeline-etl-syndication-immobiliere.md) - Same-day pricing fixes, defensive patterns (circuit breaker, exponential backoff retry), unique per-partner constraints, structured logging for fast diagnosis
- [Flux - Supplier Data Synchronization](https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/achievements/flux-synchronisation-fournisseurs.md) - Handled data quality and consistency across heterogeneous supplier data sources with error handling and retry logic

Interactive version with navigation: https://portfolio.josedacosta.info/en/skills/problem-solving-adaptability