A member of the Citizens' Action Party (PAC), Alvarado previously served as Minister of Labor and Social Security during the presidency of Luis Guillermo Solís.

[3] Alvarado, who was 38 years old at the time of his presidential inauguration,[4] became the youngest serving Costa Rican president since Alfredo González Flores, who took office in 1914 at the age of 36.

[10] In 2012, he published the historical novel Las Possessions, which portrays the dark period in Costa Rican history when the government confiscated the properties of Germans and Italians during World War II.

He was a consultant to the Institute of Development Studies of the United Kingdom in financing SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises),[3] Department Manager of Dish Care & Air Care (Procter & Gamble Latin America), Director of Communication for the presidential campaign of Luis Guillermo Solís, professor in the School of Sciences of Collective Communication of the University of Costa Rica and the School of Journalism Of the Universidad Latina de Costa Rica.

[3][11] Same-sex marriage was a major issue in the campaign, after a ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights required Costa Rica to recognize such unions.

[14] He planned to build an electric rail-based public transit system for the capital, San José since 40% of the country's greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation.

[15] On 24 February 2019, he launched a plan to fully decarbonize the country's economy, in a ceremony alongside Christiana Figueres, the Costa Rican former UNFCCC head.

Alvarado was invited by organizations such as Chatham House,[23] Atlantic Council,[24] and DC Dialogues, moderated by Columbia University professor and CNN en Español columnist Geovanny Vicente.