Victorio Cabrera's Journey to Development

Victorio is the lead full stack developer for a water purification company and works with many tools including Ruby, Shopify, AWS, Javascript and more. He is not the average developer though! He caught my attention as a man who found his way into the tech world by being true to himself. Victorio had been on a fast paced trajectory to be a corporate lawyer when he realized that what he wanted from life did not line up with his path. He dove into some deep introspection and decided that he wanted time to enjoy his favorite activities, a high quality of life, work life balance, a good wage, and his stress to be low. Honoring himself and realizing that his current path was going to lead him from an unhealthy work environment to an unhealthy life sealed his decision to make the change. 

The change he was searching for was becoming a developer. He had always had an affinity for technology and decided to take the plunge and enroll in Carolina Code School after graduating from Yale. During the class he describes the environment as fast paced and intense, but effective. Victorio noted that he feels that even the students who had the toughest time during class ended up being some of the strongest coders in the end. The effort put in will effect the result you graduate with. He shares that, from his perspective, the odds that someone is a person who can not make it as a developer is very low, and everyone who sets their mind to it can become a great coder. Determination to grow is the key factor. Though his job search was relatively short (one month), he notes that others took longer, and to be prepared to have a little buffer time to find the right job. 

The extreme growth in the technology field is a major point to be noted, in his opinion, to those looking to enter the tech industry. He shared that he feels there is no safer bet to be able to find a niche you love, amazing opportunity in the direction you want to pursue, and opportunities galore to disrupt the status quo of many of the antiquated systems of our world. 

While stepping into the role of lead/sole developer for his current job, he encountered many challenges. Although he has had guidance and mentorship from his boss, the responsibility to solve the problems is his. He has had to learn many new platforms and tools so far and has been successful at using his critical thinking to find solutions. Victorio explains that the mindset of a developer is crucial. You have to be accepting that there will always be challenges, errors, and problems and you have to be able to accept “what is “ and go forward to find a solution. Managing frustration is vital. Documentation, instincts and breaking down the problem into smaller steps is his method for success. He will isolate the problem by runnings tests on different sections of code to eliminate what part of the program the error is coming from. As the scope gets more narrow, he re-evaluates what he knows about the errors and what could be causing them with the new information each step along the way. 

Although in the big picture he is relatively new to the technology field, Victorio has found his groove for excelling, learning and growing. He is extremely welcoming and is excited to see the technology field grow and change our society for the better ! 

https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/victorio-cabrera/

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