An education technology company, working from Porto.
Setor Brilhante is Portuguese for Brilliant Sector. We build software for K-12 education: the families choosing, the providers serving, and the schools in the middle. American schools today, Portuguese ones from early 2027.
A product company that also takes client work.
Setor Brilhante is a Portuguese company building for K-12 education. We own and operate Encontra, a school-choice platform live in Alabama, and each year we take on a small number of consulting and custom builds for districts, edtech companies, and education nonprofits.
Education has less money than almost any sector that buys software, and it gets served accordingly, with enterprise pricing for tools built on enterprise assumptions. A lean company operating from Portugal has a cost structure that can build properly for education money. That is the whole reason to be here.
In early 2027 we open the same practice to private K-12 in Portugal, where colégios and international schools face the same problems on smaller budgets, in a market that is waiting for someone to build for it at a price that fits. We hire Portuguese talent at or above local market rates, as the work calls for it.
Why Portugal, for American schools.
The answer is arithmetic, and it works in your favour.
Education money buys real engineering here
Operating costs in Porto are a fraction of an equivalent US metro, so the budget that buys a thin pilot elsewhere buys a finished thing here.
Serious engineering talent
Porto, Lisbon, Braga, and Coimbra turn out engineering and design talent that competes globally. When there is work to hire for, we hire here, at or above prevailing local rates.
It is also the next market
Encontra was built for Alabama from Portugal, so working across the distance is well practised by now. From early 2027 the same practice opens to private K-12 here, where schools face the same problems on smaller budgets.
What we hold to, on every engagement.
These are terms of the work. Hold us to them.
We agree both in writing before anything starts, on a calendar that respects a school year.
You receive the code, the documentation, the infrastructure, and a proper handover, so your team has everything it needs to take it forward.
We write down your FERPA and COPPA obligations before the first commit.
We test to WCAG 2.2 AA with a keyboard and a screen reader.