5 years at Microsoft, my lucky story!

This week, on September 1, 2019, it’s been 5 years since I was lucky enough to start working at the biggest IT company in the world – the dream company I finally joined at 25 years old.

But luck doesn’t come from just the last 5 years. That luck started in 2004 – 15 years ago when I was 15 years old. I started attending Technical High School, which led to an offer to start my first internship for 2 or 3 months at the Data Processing Laboratory of Colégio Bagozzi, right after beginning my technical course. I was a hard-working student with a high desire to learn. I studied in the morning, interned in the afternoon, and attended my technical course at night, leaving home every day around 6:30 AM and returning around 11:30 PM.

The internship was like any other; I did everything in the laboratory, kept all machines running fine, helped students, built computers all day, added and removed parts, and installed operating systems like Windows NT/98/2000/ME/Linux, email servers, and other things to keep the High School running. There was still time to create some software in VB 4/6 and Delphi for a friend’s pizzeria! Thanks, @Sergio Otacilio, my first boss, longtime friend, and first mentor. My luck here was finding you.

But this was a private school, and not everyone is as lucky as I was (privilege). What a piece of luck – the luck was having my parents, working exhaustively, probably not where they wanted to be, and stressing out every day to make money to keep the house and give me a good education. Probably the same luck that made my mother finish college, where she couldn’t buy sweet popcorn during breaks, hungry, coming home alone on the bus at night in fear (yes, Brazil is dangerous), or I wouldn’t have had that future. Or even the same luck that my father had, working on other people’s farms since he was about 9 years old, and despite the stress, remaining strong in other jobs. He had to support the family and take care of me while my mother was in college. I have always been so happy, and I hope my parents know how much I admire and am grateful to them, even though I don’t know how to express my feelings. That is the greatest luck of my life – being born to these parents. I love you SO much.

I worked there for 2 years, and when I was 17, I asked to leave my internship to dedicate myself to my Senior year so I could focus on my studies to join a good college and ensure the future I wanted. I continued the technical high school course and Senior year in parallel, finishing both; luckily, this was a great victory!

I joined Positivo University, where I had great teachers with huge technical knowledge who directed me correctly. On my first day in college, teachers asked what I wanted to do and what my plan was, and I promptly replied, “I want to work at Microsoft.”

I thought I would finish my Information Systems major in 4 years, but the story was much longer than that. In the first month of college, I got a software engineer internship as a C# and VB.NET developer (Framework 1.1 and 2.0) at ESAT, which was fortunate since I had to pay for college. Here I have two people to thank, @Rogerio Cordeiro, who has always been a mentor and inspiration, encouraging me to join Microsoft, and who put me in contact with @Diego Neufert, my second mentor and manager, who gave me the opportunity and taught me a lot for the next few years. I have a lot of respect for you, and I will never forget what you have taught me and still teach me today. You both were my second stroke of luck. Thank you.

In that same company, I was also fortunate to meet two other important people who taught me the programming base I needed and still teach today. Thank you very much, @Tiago Soczek, who worked with me here and today works on my old team at Microsoft Brazil. Thanks, @Jefferson Soares; I would never have delivered some projects in VB.NET if it weren’t for your teachings. You certainly contributed a lot to my career.

After some years working in the area, I went to look for new opportunities in a small company, where again @Rogerio Cordeiro put me in contact with the company’s owner. In this small but high-potential company, I met my third stroke of luck, @Matheus Safraid, who taught me many things professionally and personally. We became such good friends that I am his best man, and you can bet that you will be mine when I get married.

Although my focus was working at Microsoft, I learned to be more agnostic about technology here in this company. Many of the things we worked on were from Microsoft, and anyone who knows me knows that I was always a fan. However, I worked with several other technologies that opened my mind and made me a better professional. You are one of the greatest pieces of luck I have, a friend for life; I admire you so much. Thank you.

After some time, I returned to ESAT with a different mindset, new ideas, and more maturity. I took on many new responsibilities and learned much more than I imagined I could at the company I worked for before. This time, I was lucky again. The luck here was having an old friend, @Guilherme Karatchuk, as a new boss and showing more of what I learned in my time off. He already worked with me and has been a great friend since the first time in the company. It was a giant partnership; we worked on several projects together, which certainly contributed to my growth. Thank you.

Another significant person during this company was @Jimi Roy, a friend, manager, and mentor. He is part of the great ones that I admire, along with several I have met. If anyone taught me to have a corporate stance and analytical thinking at work, it was you. Thank you very much. I don’t deserve so much luck.

I never liked being in my comfort zone, and after some time, it was no different. I moved to one of the companies that most changed my life for the better, and I would not be where I am without it. I started working at CINQ, one of Curitiba’s companies that I considered most innovative, and still consider today. The three fantastic owners, @Aldir, @Edson, and @Jayme, certainly live up to the company’s good reputation. I have never worked in such a large team, with so much cutting-edge technology and a high level of development. I had many good opportunities, made many friends, and worked with some good clients. But here I had something that, besides being technical, changed my life forever. Although I already knew, in this company I saw how essential English would be if I wanted to get where I planned. Many people on the teams I worked with had excellent English, which made me ashamed of how I spoke. I then decided to become an international student, but I was scared and had many doubts, including leaving a company that I liked so much and had so many people to learn from. When talking to each of the owners, I was fortunate that they, instead of retaining me in the company and convincing me to stay, supported my will and told me their own experiences. Here my greatest luck was hearing your words, @Aldir Brandão. I believe you don’t remember that, but I will never forget what you said and how you encouraged me. Thank you.

With that decision, I left college, and in 2011 I went to Ireland to study English. My first departure from the country, and my first passion for traveling. That cold feeling in the belly that only those who travel know but don’t know what they will find ahead. I planned the trip for almost a year, as I had enough money to stay at least 6 months to finish the intensive English course. The course was every day from 08:00 to 13:30. In the first month, we lived in a family home, where I learned more than the other 6 months we stayed in the country. An enriching experience that brought me a lot of learning, maturity, and responsibility. My luck here was to have my Irish mother, @Kathy, who helped us from the beginning to the end of this exchange even though I no longer lived at home.

During that time, I tried several interviews in the IT area, but unfortunately, I didn’t get any sponsors to pay for the work visa and the job offer. The country was in crisis in 2011, and I knew it would be tough; even so, I did about 40 interviews in 6 months. If I had passed one, I probably wouldn’t have returned to Brazil anytime soon, and that would have been a huge departure from my career plan to join Microsoft, but I was delighted there, and it certainly wouldn’t have been bad. But at that time, I was not just studying. On the contrary, I tried to apply many software ideas to build my startup and maybe get rich. Perhaps due to a lack of maturity or even knowledge in some administration areas, they did not work, but I still use that learning and experience today, and it certainly helped me achieve my goals.

After finishing the course and going through many adventures with some trips which I can tell one day here, the time and money were over, and the ticket back home was already scheduled.

Before returning, I had already contacted some companies in Curitiba and had some interviews scheduled. I arrived doing interviews, and again luck knocked on the door, and I met @Horst Hunger, a giant with a giant heart, the best manager I ever had in Curitiba, a perfect guy at what he does, technical and with a huge soft skill to deal with people. He offered me an excellent job opportunity that would be the watershed of my career. I started working as a Software Architect / Cloud Computing at TechResult when practically nothing was said about Microsoft Azure or Amazon. I was also an ALM / DevOps consultant as in all other companies. Here, I was not only lucky, but I was also lucky. @Horst who gave me the opportunity and taught me a lot before and after this company. @Leandro Prado, whoever later you will understand the importance that has in my dream. @Daniel Oliveira, a model I followed for a long time before joining this company because I have known him since mid-2008, when he followed a very similar path and which has the career that I mirror as an example. When I joined the company, he already worked at Microsoft, which always helped me a lot, as a career guide, and an excellent mentor. Thank you, you were exceptional and essential to my growth. How lucky my friends!

After a lot of work, professional growth, and many customers, I left for a new company. I went to be Configuration Manager at GVT, currently Vivo, hired by BRQ as a third party. This was the company that most took me out of my career’s comfort zone because no technology was Microsoft. I had to learn a lot from scratch and try to link it with my knowledge in other areas. This was another crucial step to prove that I could do anything, and nothing would block me. Here I worked with an excellent team, and I will never forget the challenges we encountered and managed to solve. My luck here was to have you, @Wilson Bissi, as coordinator and friend. Working side by side to try to improve the company’s processes. @Tiago Manosso and @Alan do Espirito Santo taught me a lot about how to work with such different profiles and still be able to deal with everyday life challenges. You are friends for life. Always count on me.

Up to that point, you may have wondered about my college, which was a key point and mandatory requirement for joining Microsoft. Yes, I wasn’t finished yet. I came back from where I left off after returning from Ireland, but I still had a good way to go since I didn’t give the focus I should have, failing some subjects, and missing some classes to focus on lectures, training that I ministered or work. I ended up only here, during that company. It was gratifying to have a degree, despite being a clear example that it doesn’t count for more than practical experience. At my graduation, which would take place after the next part of the story, another phase was over, and my teachers made a point of remembering that one of the students was working at Microsoft. In addition to a huge honor, I am thrilled to have been remembered.

Thank you, @Marcelo Szostak, for being my advisor, teacher, and friend for so many years. You made me understand why focusing on college is so important, and as arrogant as I was, thinking that I didn’t need to be in college to do my job, you were patient and did everything you could to help me achieve that goal. I was fortunate to find you on that path.

I decided it was time to try to join Microsoft. I had already finished college and would only have to do my degree. It was ready.

Remember @Leandro Prado, who I talked about a while ago? He was already working at Microsoft, and since he worked with me, he told me about an open position on his team. The job was exactly my profile and what we did together at the company, and I was sure this was my opportunity. I applied for this position, and he referred me to the manager. The position was in São Paulo, but I always knew that I would have this change, for the second time, leaving the city where I had most of my family and friends. I owe you a lot for remembering me and the dream I always had. Thanks, @Leandro, for being my gateway to my dream, for being the greatest of luck, and for being a friend and colleague for all these years working together. I will never forget what you did for me, and I will always be here when you need me.

I was interviewed by one of the people I came to respect the most in the coming years, the best mentor I had at Microsoft Brazil, an excellent guy to work with, @Fernando Filiputti, who directed and helped me many times, taught, and was someone I could count on for help. I don’t even need to say how lucky I am that you came into my life. Thank you.

This interview was a mix of nervousness, anxiety, joy, and everything else you can imagine when you are close to achieving a dream. I was in my bed, sitting, sweating, prepared for the questions to come. It was a remote interview since I wouldn’t have to go to São Paulo for it. I did not imagine that I would have two and a half hours (2:30) of an interview with the most varied questions, extremely technical, and no room to escape. I left the interview without knowing if I had succeeded, although I was happy to answer some key questions. I worked all my life with what I needed in the position, always studying to know the latest news and details of the tool and applied processes. Even so, we are not talking about a small company, but the largest IT company in the world!

After that, I also did a minor interview with the position’s manager to see my profile.

Finally, after some time, I received the news that I had passed and received the offer to move to São Paulo.

That was the way to Microsoft. After that, I have a whole life inside the company. Things that I would never do in a smaller company. I was PFE (Premier Field Engineer) of TFS / DevOps for about 3 years. I moved from Curitiba to São Paulo, and then I moved to Rio de Janeiro; I moved to São Paulo again. I have worked with many clients, so many that it is difficult to count; I wrote a book, made many presentations, and met many, many people of whom I am proud and happy to be so lucky. I have many good stories and experiences, and I would like all my friends to have these growth opportunities.

My most recent move was the plan to change countries. In summary, to understand the difficulty of the process, even though I was already working at the company, I applied for more than 30 different vacancies in more than 12 countries. Since I was a child, my goal has always been the USA, but my focus here was on my career to keep moving, experience daily international work, and evolve. Hence, the country was not important but the position. After a while, @Rodrigo Gallazzi was my luck that allowed me to be here. Before leaving my current team, I worked with him, and I always admired him for his technical skills. You know I can’t thank you for what you did for me, despite your giant humility, thinking you didn’t do anything. Thank you. You will always have my respect. He told me about my position, directed me, and gave me essential tips. I applied for the position, did the technical interviews with whom I considered a reference in the company, with 20 years working for Microsoft, with the position manager, and passed. I received my offer with great joy. After a lot of work, processes, and goodbyes, we got it.

Today, I am living an even bigger dream, the dream of dreams. I am living in the USA, working as a Support Escalation Engineer for DevOps (Azure DevOps Server and Services), serving customers worldwide. I made my 5 years at Microsoft, and that is just the beginning. Here is my home, my place, and my dream. My next career step is already planned, but I still want to achieve some other goals. My ways have changed a few times during my plan, but none have been bad. Several times I took a step back to take two, three, four steps forward. And so I keep going until I find out what my life goal is. But one thing is certain, you will still hear a lot about my name, very much!

And you know what’s most cool? Since the beginning of the story, I have had a partner who was there sometime before going to Ireland, who accompanied me throughout this journey and will continue to accompany me throughout my life, I hope. My girlfriend, wife, life partner, and best luck in the same place as my parents, @Gabi. Thanks! I love you!

When you look at someone and think that person is lucky, ask them, and you may be surprised at how lucky they are in life. Lucky to have people around who can help, lucky for opportunities, and lucky to have privileges that others, unfortunately, do not have, such as family support, education, food, etc. And above all, luck comes with effort and dedication. If you are lucky in life and do not know how to enjoy it, you will remain the same, in your comfort zone, and you will never have the luck you want. If you still think this is a lucky story and didn’t get my message, reread it!

Friends who were not explicitly thanked can bet that I remember everyone who went through my journey and helped me. I would spend a whole day putting the names one by one here, but just as I told almost nothing of the complete story, I did not mention everyone important to my career and my life. Thanks to everyone who somehow contributed or went through my journey.

I hope my story can motivate someone, as all my fortunes motivated me. Count on me if you need someone to help in any way.

Thank you for reading my story! I published this to share my journey, and I will probably publish things related to my career and topics that can help others. If you want to know more, feel free to get in touch!

Please, I would love to hear your feedback. I want to improve, and for that, I need your insights.

See you soon!