The best feedback I've ever received

What I have been doing

For the past 1½ years, I have been working as a Frontend Engineer at the largest company in LATAM. In this role, I had the opportunity to act as a "Frontend Lead", serving as a technical reference and mentoring junior developers. This experience has been particularly enriching as I have been the only Brazilian in my teams and meetings, which led me to learn Spanish. I am now proud to say I speak three languages: Portuguese, English, and Spanish.

Taking opportunities

I led the development and was the main contributor to a big (and important) project, which ultimately deprecated a legacy project that no one wanted to tackle. By collaborating closely with Product Managers and Designers, I proposed a scalable architecture for this new project, ensuring it was flexible and extensible to meet business needs. We achieved 96% test coverage, creating a safe environment for rapid feature development. Additionally, we innovated by using Server-Sent Events for real-time validations. I also established patterns and best practices across our projects, focusing on documentation, testing, performance, and accessibility. This project impacted hundreds of thousands of users on all of the 18 countries the company is present, and it will impact millions in the following years.

Next steps

Following this success, I received the highest ratings in our annual performance review and changed teams to work on our brand-new streaming platform. This project feels like a startup within a large company, offering a dynamic and exciting work environment.

What really makes me proud

This entire experience was incredible, but what truly makes me proud is this story:

I was fortunate to meet one of the best junior developers I’ve ever encountered. She was a fast learner, proactive, and constantly seeking ways to enhance her skills and contribute to the team. When I realized she was open-minded and receptive to feedback, I began mentoring her. I provided daily feedback, conducted in-depth code reviews to raise the bar and spark discussions, and used decision-making situations to demonstrate how to tackle challenges. Additionally, I regularly reported her progress to our leader to advocate for her promotion. This wasn't my first opportunity to mentor a teammate, but it was by far the most productive one.

Her public feedback afterward made me immensely proud and validated that all our efforts were truly worthwhile:

Feedback Screenshot: Luiz is a professional who elevates the team. He is extremely proactive in seeking and proposing solutions to problems and is always willing to share his knowledge with the team. His constructive feedback contributes to both the professional development of his colleagues and the progress of team projects.
I had the opportunity to work with him at Mercado Livre when I was living a career transition between technologies, and he was an excellent mentor. Luiz helped me navigate this phase smoothly and to improve my skills as a developer.
He stands out for his exceptional communication skills, constantly aligning with the tech, product, and UX teams by adapting his way of conveying ideas to ensure everyone is on the same page. Additionally, he has always been a great support to the team by taking on complex issues, unblocking obstacles, and providing guidance on project direction with well-founded opinions while always maintaining an open mind to listen to criticisms and divergent ideas.
Luiz is never complacent; he is always seeking ways to improve processes and achieve better results. He will undoubtedly excel in any position he takes on.

This is just the beggining

I plan to share my experiences on this website. I hope you enjoy it!