Recently I visited my hometown and had the opportunity to give a short talk about my career talking about challenges and my experience during few years on IT. Inspired by this talk and after reading Dan Abramov's Decade Review I thought about making my own Decade Review, but this thought didn’t last long when considering I never saw one line of code in my life before 2nd semester of 2013. So, Let’s start there.
June, 2013
I was already one year after finishing High School and I was 19 years old, as any young person I was suffering some pressure to go to college and find a career to myself. The problem was I had no clue about what I wanted, I came from a family of police and lawyers and although I enjoyed to study law it was far from what I wanted as profession.
In June of 2013 it was happening in my city an event named AppWeen, with a funny proposal: Put together developers using costumes between 00:00 to 06:00am to code Windows 8 Apps. I was always into computer and technology, fixing some stuff by myself and disassembling my old desktop several times when I was teenager but I had never had contact with code, if you would ask me at that time I would say it was something for super math genius, but I decide to go and check this event.
I contacted the Microsoft Student Partner behind the event and explained my lack of knowledge and asked if I still could go. He was very supportive and thanks God I decide to go even with doubts about, it was an incredible experience and I met some nice guys from the IT University who talked with me about the course, job market and answered lot of my questions. I made some friends that day, drunk a lot of Red Bull and even do the Harlem Shake:
(Yes, I am this guy spitting card in the end of the video)
Few days later I signed up myself to the University and did it in time to start yet in August of 2013. From June to August I studied all materials the people recommended me in the event so I would know at least the very basic when the classes started. There’s a lot of discussion if university is really necessary or not for developers, well, I am not getting into this here but I feel like in debt with some amazing teachers I had and I learned how to code starting in the university.
Three months studying already and I was already looking for some internship, trying to have something to put hands on and I have to admit I feel really blessed by God, even being in the very beginning I passed in the process for internship in the Microsoft Innovation Center based in other campus. It was a program to develop new ideas for 3 months with all orientation from more senior guys and researches, there I had my first contact with web technologies (Asp.net and JQuery).
2014
I had just completed my 3 months at Microsoft Innovation Center and was starting my 2nd semester in the university. Few months in 2014 the coordinator of my course recommended me for an internship position at TecMidia, a company which developed software for newspaper industry, I started there working with C# and learning a lot of things, everything was new for me and even though I was afraid to not be good enough ( hi impostor syndrome ), the excitement for a new position and having contact with the real world of a develop was even bigger. It wasn’t easy to synchronise my student life with my internship, I lived and studied 25 km far from the company and public transportation is very poor in Brazil, but it was definitely worth.
Yet in the beginning of my 2nd semester I got selected for the position of Monitor of Algorithm, given my high grade on the subject in the first semester. Basically, what I would do was to be 1 hour early every day at the university to be ready to help any student struggling with the subject and also help the professor to correct some exercises. For the next 4 semesters I had the honor to stay as Monitor and help the professor, it was definitely a very nice way to no keep all the theory from the beginning fresh in my mind.
2015
It was a great year for me, I was still Monitor in my university and intern at TecMidia, although I was working in web projects now with Asp.net. Do you remember I told you I made some good friends in that event back in 2013? So, one of them was the guy organizing the event, Now he was the Microsoft Student Partner Lead responsible for my state, we keep in touch since that event. In 2015 he recommended me to the Microsoft Student Partner program, when I got accepted was like if I had reached the stars, together with him I would be sharing my knowledge and experience with the community and we did our best, making event and talks in several cities, participating of events and meeting so many nice people in this journey.
2016
I think was the year we traveled the most for MSP events and talks, I definitely lost the count of how many kilometers we traveled ( Remember Brazil is huge, so 3 hour drive is almost considered neighborhood :P ).
In the end of the year I was invited, together with others MSP, to go to the Microsoft in São Paulo to watch an event about the Imagine Cup in which the Satya Nadella itself would be there. I don’t even need to say it was an incredible experience, right?
2017
I was now a Jr Developer at TecMidia for almost a year and I learned that I really liked web technologies and was really focusing on that it was then that I got an offer from a Fintech in my city with a really nice proposal: To make the financial market accessible for everyone. They offered me a frontend developer position, I was the 3rd member of the very new team of “frontenders”.
( Designers and Devs having lunch in peace :P )
I had just joined one of the richest experiences I ever had, I would need to write a whole new article about everything I learned at Toro Investimentos, was my first experience focused in Front-end, working with designer in a scrum team and with a mission that I could relate with. I learned a lot about technical stuff and about working with a team, I am eternally grateful for having such amazing people to help me become a better professional there. ( Thanks Helena and Fabricio for the patience with me :D )
I was there in the very beginning typing the “ng new” command of what would become the Toro Investimentos, so you can understand how I still feel so proud of what we have built there when I see any news about the company.
2018
It was definitely the year with biggest changes in my life, till there I had never been abroad, I didn’t even have a passport and yet couple of months into 2018 I passed in the process for a company in Warsaw, Poland. I couldn’t believe myself, with my broken English I managed to get through the process, it wasn’t easy. But I got there.
I was going at Credit Suisse as a contractor from SII Poland, big company, new country, new culture, new challenges, new friends… Far from family, far from old friends… It wasn’t easy to adapt.
Thanks God I made such good friends here, I very soon was travelling a lot with Pawel, Karol and Rafael. I even managed to convince Karol, who was my manager, to visit Brazil with his girlfriend. Rafael and I used to go a lot for coffees and sit down in some random Starbucks to code or study. Life got easy with these friends here, time passed fast. It doesn’t seem like I am here 2 years already.
2019
In the very beginning of 2019 I got hired as a perm for Credit Suisse. I was now a Senior Software Engineer and worked in some different projects there. Early in 2019 I started to work in a project with a team based in New York, what was quite an interesting experience to communicate with them due time zones.
Meantime I was going to coffee places almost every day together with Rafael to study Algorithm and Data Structures, it was a nice period of our lives, we keep challenge and helping each other.
The most remarkable thing about 2019 is that in July I made a bold move and even not considering myself good enough ( hi again impostor syndrome ) I applied to a position in a company I always dreamed to work on.
You can notice my career since from the beginning had a strong influence from Microsoft, so nothing more natural than the fact I always had the dream to go work there someday. I made through the process and at the end of 2019, I got the offer, I think was one of the happiest days of my life. I didn’t know where to put myself with so much joy the day I got the offer.
2020
So the year is just beginning and big changes are to come, I am soon moving to Prague and starting my new journey at Microsoft so I am sure many exciting things are to come so if you want to follow me in this new phase of my life you can follow me at Instagram, Github or Twitter and you can reach me any time to a chat or even ask about some JS weird stuff that I might be of help.
I hope you have enjoyed the read, let some comments bellow. :)
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