3rd employee to contractor - Emanuel Machado

00:00

I felt like I needed some time for, freelancing for finding my own projects.

00:04

That's what I did.

00:05

It was hard for me finding the work, being that I'm not, a business person.

00:12

You've worked for multiple different companies, who have made big impacts on the world [inaudible 00:00:18] Sky. When you make a decision about where to work, what's at the top of your priority list?

00:25

The number one, the work environment. And the, environment between the working colleagues, more important that than what me methodologies you use, what technologies tech you use. it's really the people you work with, and who you can rely on.

00:46

Why? Why is that the top of your list personally?

00:49

I have to say that I'm a bit, bit of an introverted person, something that that's really important to me, being with open people, and knowing that I can talk to Them.

01:00

You started off your career at materia. You were there for a long time, of 5 years or so, before moving onto over cube, and then eventually sky, what was that journey like? Because, you finished university and then progressed up to lead and then, and then started moving onto other things, I'd love to know more about that journey, and, how you navigated it.

01:23

First of all, I did not finish college, I'm a dropout, but then I started, I started my development journey at, we are materia, and it was, really fun working there, because it started it, it was a startup. When I joined, we were only three people, it was the CEO, the graphic designer, and me, so as we would work a lot that's for sure. At the beginning, it always takes some more effort, to make things work, but it was, it was really fun having the company growing, and becoming, becoming the lead developer.

02:09

We were not just a digital agency, we would also build some, these kinds of prototypes for small and medium Portuguese companies, that they were interested in, innovating, they were mostly shoe companies, shoe making companies, or shoe redistribution companies. I can give you one example of, of a prototype, which was for a, for a materials company, like a company that does fabrics, so, they asked, build a prototype that consisted on this, we built the hardware for a babies chair, the babies chair you put in the car, that hardware would detect if there was a baby in the chair and it would pair up with your phone. We built a lot of these, let's say different kinds of projects different because it, it wasn't really eCommerce, it was, more of experimental, work, it was really fun, that's the word.

03:26

What, how come you left?

03:27

At the time, the company was getting bigger and bigger. And at some point, I was mostly doing management work, I'm a developer, I'm better, I'm best if I'm working, I'm developing stuff. At some point I got a bit fed up, and I decided to look for another opportunity. I thought I was, I think I was a bit, I got a bit tired. Because management tasks require a lot of mental processing from me, it's not something natural.

04:07

Was there the opportunity to, to stay and move back into a development position? Or did you feel like you had to start again somewhere else?

04:17

First of all, I felt like I needed some time for freelancing for finding my own projects. That's what I did started grabbing a couple of projects, on my own. First of all, it was hard for me finding the work, being that I'm not a business person. I shouldn't say this because everyone can learn and anything, I could learn business as well, I guess I'm just lazy. But eventually I went to overcube, I found a position in overcube, which was a shoe selling company as well.

04:53

And was that contracting?

04:54

Yeah.

04:54

Did it add a, an extra layer of pressure going contracting because you've, like you said, got to use that business part of your mind constantly negotiating new contracts and move on to other things, if your nature is to avoid that, and to focus on the development, why did you choose to go down the contracting group?

05:18

I really like to help stuff, help people that are starting out.

05:23

Do you go down that route because you want, you kind of want the challenge of it.

05:28

At some point I thought it would be a nice experiment. I could learn some things from it, and, I definitely learned some things from it. So I did it for the, for the experience you have to try, what's best for you.

05:44

What's your own definition of what it means to you to do your best work.

05:48

You work with a purpose, right? And, and it's, then it's not only to pay the bills, at least in 2022 where, the world is full of opportunities, especially in I-T. What it means to me, doing my best work is doing work that, actually matters and actually makes a difference, in people's lives, that actually makes people's lives easier.

06:18

How does that, affect the way that you go about looking for work?

06:21

I tend to enjoy more, more small projects, projects that are starting out, because, there's also a lot of opportunity for improvements. For example, when I worked at sky there wasn't a really, I couldn't really make a difference because the application was, the application I was working on, which by the way, was a cross TV application, the application was already built. It just had some, well, it had bugs and we were migrating for a new, to a new framework. I couldn't really add anything to the application, just a couple of small new features, for example, in that project, there wasn't really, space for, or opportunity for, for real improvement. And that's something that I, that I always look for.

07:20

Did you know that going in?

07:22

No, I really did not know because, well, I was hired by sky, but I could be doing anything. They have a bunch of different projects, so I could be doing anything. I just knew it, when I got to work with them.

07:38

It's so tricky in those larger companies to know, what, I mean how could you know, what type of project you are going to be landed on, if actually when you are offered the position, it could be in any one of multiple departments.

07:55

Exactly, it's a huge company as it has a bunch of departments, I could never know. But I was pretty excited when I found out I was working for, a streaming platform, when I heard about it, I was pretty excited.

08:10

When you're considering working at slightly larger companies, Is there a way of trying to work out, what type of projects you would be working on?

08:17

At the interviews, you can always, ask your questions. And it's something that I started doing, I started, placing questions in the interviews, so that I really get to know what to expect, not about just the type of work, but, about, the way the company works, everything around that.

08:39

Sound like something that you have learned to do overtime. Sounds like there are questions that you didn't perhaps didn't ask.

08:45

Yeah.

08:46

Earlier on in your career, but ask more now.

08:49

Exactly, I had my fair share of failed experiments.

08:54

What was it? What was one of those failed experiments?

08:56

It was a [inaudible 00:08:58]. It was a failed experiment because I thought I would be okay with a tech stack. Didn't really know what to expect, of the team. I had no idea, I just talked to them once, I did not make the questions, I did not check the work environment. Actually I talked, it was, we were not in lockdown, I went there to their offices, but I didn't ask the questions, when working there, really didn't get along with mostly the work environment, but also the technology stack, it was something that I should have been more careful about.

09:38

How do you want your relationship, your own relationship with work, to develop now? because, you've had an incredible start, where you've built materia, you've now worked at multiple different companies, working on different projects. What's next? What comes up over the next 5 years? And what do you want your working relationship with work to be like?

10:05

If Possible a project that's just starting out, because in the next 5 years I could, I wanted to, climb the ladder and maybe try again at, a position like tech lead or, maybe architect, not, specifically management positions, mostly technical positions. But I'd really like to grow.

10:33

I can empathize so deeply with the experience that you've gone through building materia. And I think in so many ways early stage employees don't get, enough of the credit for the companies that they build. And it's a burnout is way too often with early stage employees. I think that inevitably has an impact on the way that you then, want your own relationship with work to, evolve, in the future. Sometimes you might want to do it again, cause you loved it so much, and you miss it, and other times it might be like, I want to have a really good work-life balance, I don't want to go through that again. What is it for you?

11:12

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about materia, a lot of time I spent there. So that's I feel I'm feeling a bit nostalgic, I would like to go back to that kind of environment, the place where I left, with the company, with a small company, we had about 20 people, at the time, so, it's different than, than 3, but the first time I did it by hinch, I just, I just did it, I, they asked me to, to become a tech lead, so I would show up and perform, what was needed, but, I didn't know what the hell I was doing. And I think right now I have an overview, I have, it's a completely other way of, other perspective of looking into work, and how an organization should work. The tech organization should work. So I would like to, go back there, but this time, knowing what I'm doing, or knowing a bit more about what I'm doing.

12:28

Just a bit more. Thanks so much for taking the time out to, speak to me today, Emanuel.

12:36

Thank you.

12:40

Can't wait to hear what you do next.