My Origin Story: Baptism by Fire

Mon, 27 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

When I walked into Synaptic Pharmaceuticals for my first official software developer job interview, I had never written a line of professional code. I had no GitHub profile (it didn’t even exist yet), no computer science degree, and just a vague idea of what a design pattern was.

But I had something far more dangerous: momentum and an unlimited supply of hubris.

A few weeks earlier, I had built a working software system from scratch in a pharmaceutical lab despite having zero formal training. If I could do that, what couldn’t I do?

A Book, a Backyard War, and a Lifetime of Friendship

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Photo by Anna Samoylova on Unsplash

Reading has always been part of my family for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories are of my parents buying books from those traveling salespeople who used to go door to door selling encyclopedias—Brittanica, Barsa, Larousse, you name it. We always had a room dedicated to books, where we kept the dictionaries, classic literature, and those giant encyclopedia volumes that made you feel smarter just by being in the same room with them.

Storytelling on Og Maciel's Journal

My Origin Story: Baptism by Fire

A Book, a Backyard War, and a Lifetime of Friendship