How I Did it #4
Sussie Casasola, Ingeniera en Nubank
Gracias por hacer parte de GringoJobs, la comunidad de profesionales de la tech de LatAm que quieren aprovechar de esa gran transición al trabajo remoto. Espero que tu 2021 está empezando del buen pie! Hoy tenemos un nuevo episodio de How I did It - con Sussie Casasola, Front End Engineer en Nubank. Hablamos de su camino como ingeniera en un industria todavía bastante masculino, y como llegò al mundo de los startups.
Tell me about yourself. What are you doing now?
I’m a Front End engineer at Nubank, the large Brazilian Fintech. I’m in charge of the Mexican site and application page. I also did some work on the Colombian product (until they hire people over there). I’ve been working there for nearly 1 year.
Cool! So how did you get into programming? Was it from a very early age?
I was born and raised in Mexico City. I didn’t have an interest in programming from a super young age, my decision to become a software engineer was more practical. I didn’t know what I wanted to do but I liked several topics: psychology, design, and especially math. I chose Engineering because of the Math assignatures and problem solving skills, and I was just enjoying the coursework. I really wasn’t that focused on career opportunities. I ended up going to a public university in Mexico City, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, or IPN. At the end of my career I found out about Frontend Development, which was the perfect combination between Design and Math, so I decided I would go for that path.
How did you make your start in the professional world?
I graduated in 2014. I was lucky enough to find this program called CTIN. It was an incubator for new grads sponsored by Carlos Slim and his foundation. They pay you to work on a project for 6 months and then can get you recruited by one of his companies. He is the richest man in Mexico, and has a monopoly in several industries - so there are lots of companies to choose from. I ended up working for a news media website - UnoTV.
I was a junior dev focused on the frontend, which is what I worked on more there. Most of my time was spent working on Uno TV - a news website and Claro Sports - a sports website. Didn’t use any JS frameworks, and mostly did bug fixing and page building. One of the cooler things I did was work on the portal for the 2016 Rio Olympics. From a tech perspective, I really started getting into and enjoying CSS which confirmed my decision to be a frontend developer.
So how did you move from there into the startup world?
A small company called Karmapulse found me on Linkedin. They do social media analytics and sentiment analysis. Lots of dashboards. There were only 18 people when I joined and about 25 at the end. In my 2 years there, I learned a ton of React and built apps from scratch.
I really liked the small company and startup vibe. It was less stuffy and I made some good friends. It was much better than the more traditional environment at UnoTV.
Beek found me via Twitter. They were doing book reviews at the time (like Goodreads) and now have pivoted to audiobooks. They are a YC startup in Latin América. I was hired as a Senior Dev there.
I really got to build my confidence at Beek - I had a bit of a complex around FE engineering. I thought it was not “real” engineering and was just design with a little code. With Beek I got to work on the backend as well and got to rebuild an app from scratch. At first I was just going to update the legacy code but ended up totally redoing it. Owning that project boosted my confidence and solidified my sense of seniority as an engineer.
I wanted to work abroad, with an international company. Nubank reached out and so I responded and started the process with them.
How was the interview process at Nubank?
I was a bit intimidated at first. It was going to be 100% in English which I had never done before. The first interview itself was not too hard but I needed to focus a lot on details, like edge cases. I did the onsite in Brazil which was actually very relaxed and conversational. Mostly we talked about the project I did at Beek, why I made certain decisions and what I would have done differently.
After that, I flew back just before the lockdown and got a job offer!
What’s a piece of advice that has worked for you?
Begin putting stuff online ASAP. As you saw, I’m fairly active on Twitter and I actually got recruited off the platform. I also wrote some articles that have helped me in the long run. For example I wrote something about the Contentful platform and I ended up chatting with them about it! What is good about writing is that it compounds. More people read and share your work and your name gets out there.
Ask to work and own a project on a job. You will be able to use it later on in your career with interviews. That is basically how I got from Beek to Nubank.
You are a woman in a fairly male-dominated industry. What advice would you give other female engineers?
Don’t “self reject”. More often, women will look at a job description and find one bullet point where they don’t have experience and decide they should not apply. Don’t do that! Many job descriptions are just approximations of what you’d actually do. So don’t be afraid to give it a shot.
In the same vein, you should “dare” to send your resume to companies that are more prestigious. I sent my resume to Airbnb and I actually was asked to do the in-person interview in San Francisco! (couldn’t do it because of the pandemic and because I was already hired on Nubank)
Find other women in the same industry. I started a group called Cafe con Ingenierias, where we gather (online) weekly (on thursdays) to discuss all sorts of topics. I’ve found it to be very helpful and supportive.
Thanks!
That’s it from me! Thanks again for being a reader, and let me know how I can improve. And don’t forget to follow @Gringojobs on Twitter.
Peace and Jobs,
Georges