Hi! I'm Pedro and I'm a Backend Engineer! I’m an electrical engineer turned into a software developer over the years and I’m sharing my journey by documenting everything I learn so that it can help others.
I'm originally from Porto, Portugal. Between guitar concerts, wine tastings, and a few surf sessions, I enjoyed growing up in my small hometown with my friends. Later, although I had no idea what I wanted to do in life, my parents were convinced I had to go to university one way or the other to have some sort of success in life (not sure if it's true nowadays... but oh well). So, between Physics, Maths, and even Music—areas that interested me—I ended up having just enough good grades to enter this electrical engineering and computers course at FEUP. This shaped my education to become a true engineer and start to think like one. The 3 years I had in that college and all the people I met there meant a lot to what would happen next.
See, for me at least, Porto was small. It was impossible to go through downtown without stopping for 5 minutes and chatting with an acquaintance about what happened to other common friends last night. I remember sitting in my car, driving to university, and hearing in my head "Pedro, you've been driving the same roads for 20 years" and a big - "F**K!" - echoed in my head. And that's where my journey started. My course was integrated with a master's degree already—a good one, actually—but I had to get out. So I decided to ask for my bachelor's certificate and started to apply to other universities.
Many options were taken seriously but in the end, and after another round of close calls in interviews + exams, I got a spot at TUM in Munich to continue my studies in Electrical Engineering. During that time, my interest in the energy field rose exponentially, and I shaped my master's degree around that as well. I ended up graduating around COVID peak time, so as you can imagine, I had an amazing anti-climatic thesis defense in my 10 squared metered student room, with a suit and pajama pants on, and with 2 friends waiting for me behind my door to celebrate with a few beers. To be very honest, it was a hard time personally. Lots of things were changing, I had an engineering job I kind of hated and wasn't satisfied with, a stressful master's thesis to finish, trying to maintain my relationships with my hometown which proved to be way harder than I thought, and nobody knew what this COVID thing meant for our future.
Took a step back again and decided I needed another switch, so off I went. I quit my job and moved to Berlin. Why? Not sure. But I don't regret it, one tiny bit. It has been an amazing home for my girlfriend and me. I reflected on what I appreciated in my past working experiences and what I wanted from life. Coding was always there, from my studies to my time as an intern at Siemens. Someone would always shout in the office "DOES SOMEBODY KNOW HOW TO QUERY THIS S**T?" and off I went, because it was always way more fun than what I was doing, reading research papers about hydrogen, etc. I developed really cool applications while working in the Energy Department at TUM and I thought "Dude, I'm kind of a Software Developer already..." so I got my first job as a Junior Software Developer at a start-up that hired me with 0 experience.. And oh boy....oh boy was I wrong, I had no idea what awaited me.
But that's the fun part, and that's the journey I'm sharing with you guys.
Hope you got an idea now, of who's writing these posts ;)
See ya