"No" Is Always Guaranteed... So Strive for a "Yes", with the Coding Mermaid Monica Fidalgo

Meet Monica Fidalgo 🇵🇹! Monica is a front-end product engineer at Cloudflare, an advocate for new developers and women in tech, as well as a teacher, mentor, and resume reviewer. Her path to tech wasn’t straightforward: she originally studied marine biology and was a licensed scuba diver!

Monica's life took a dramatic turn when she was involved in a serious car accident that temporarily left her unable to walk. After months of recovery, she was even able to run again! However, her recovery made finding a job in her already competitive field even more challenging. In 2018, she began exploring other interests and remembered her love for customizing her Blogger and Tumblr templates. So, she decided to learn web design!

In this episode, you’ll learn a thing or two about motivation. You'll also discover a fantastic technique you should be using when applying for jobs, and learn everything about Monica's inspiring career change. You'll also find out when to switch companies, how to evaluate coding schools before you sign up, and how Monica's car accident changed her outlook on life.

🔗 Connect with Monica

• 👩‍💼 LinkedIn

⏰ Timestamps

• Monica studied marine biology and thought IT was just for men (01:31)
• How Monica's car accident changed her outlook on life (04:29)
• Feeling sorry for yourself won't take you anywhere (08:53)
• Community break with Jan the Producer (09:27)
• How Monica learned to code (11:02)
• Monica coded during the day and worked at night - but also took up sports (13:57)
• "It's difficult, but it won't last forever" (15:24)
• Monica's family wasn't always supportive (16:36)
• You can't count on luck (18:38)
• Monica had a checklist of companies she wanted to work for (19:10)
• How to apply to a company without open job ads (20:35)
• Quick-fire questions (21:07)
• How Monica found her first job in tech (23:09)
• Getting ahead of the curve: why you should be sending your CV to HRs on LinkedIn (23:27)
• Why - and how - Monica changes jobs (25:57)
• How Monica got a job at Cloudflare (29:37)
• Monica's first counter-proposal and why women should negotiate their salaries (32:51)
• "You already have a NO. Try getting a YES"
• Sometimes you feel bad - and that's okay (39:19)
• Boxing! (40:45)

🧰 Resources Mentioned

• Lisi Linhart
• From Pathologic Anatomy to QA Lead

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Creators & Guests

Host

Alex Booker

Host of The Scrimba Podcast

Producer

Jan Gregory Arsenovic

Producer of the Scrimba Podcast

What is The Scrimba Podcast?

Learn from inspiring developers about how they found meaningful and fulfilling work that that also pays them well. On The Scrimba Podcast, you'll hear motivational advice and job-hunting strategies from developers who've been exactly where you are now. We talk to developers about their challenges, learnings, and switching industries in the hopes of inspiring YOU. This is the podcast that provides the inspiration, tools, and roadmaps to move from where you are to work that matters to you and uniquely fits your strengths and talents.

Monica Fidalgo:
It's hard because all your money is going to pay your course or to transport to the school, but it's going to end after a while. It's not going to last forever. It's an investment that I'm going to take so I can go after what I want. So if you think that way, it's easier.

Alex Booker:
That was Monica Fidalgo. A front-end product engineer at Cloudflare. She's an advocate for newer developers and women in tech, and it all stems from her experience learning to code and switching tracks as a biology graduate. Monica learned to code primarily via the bootcamp route, which as you know, can be really expensive. That means there's a lot on the line when you invest in a bootcamp and to make matters even harder, some of her family and friends didn't necessarily understand or support the investment she was making in herself.
The pressure really adds up in that situation, and Monica wasn't immune to some bad times. But as you'll learn in this interview, it's nothing she can handle compared to her past adversity where she recovered from a major car accident. Her transformation is really inspiring. This is a very inspiring story, but it's also filled with actionable advice from Monica's perspective as a recent hire and a tech resume reviewer. I'm your host, Alex Booker, and you are listening to the Scrimba Podcast, a weekly show where I interview recently hired developers like Monica to help you learn to code and land your dream role in tech. Let's get into it.

Monica Fidalgo:
I really enjoyed animals, helping animals in some kind of way. So I went to a biology course and in the end, I decided to went to marine biology. We had a lot of informatics in the same university as me, but they were all men. So it was like, okay, this is a course only for men, and it was only some years after when I didn't find a job in marine biology that I decided to do something different.
I tried accountant, but I didn't it enjoy at all. I was trying to follow my mother's footsteps, but that wasn't for me. I remember doing some magic stuff with Tumblr and Blogger. I was able to add some scripts to add some music to my Tumblr, so I thought, okay, maybe something related with that, and that's when I started to look into technology courses. But there were so many at that time that I was like, okay, which one should I choose? Should I pick one related with what the market is looking for? Am I going to enjoy? Am I going to be able to do it?

Alex Booker:
So you studied marine biology. Did you work in marine biology at all before trying some new stuff?

Monica Fidalgo:
Not really. So we were maybe more than 100 doing the same course. There are much job offers. Basically, there are several openings for volunteering, but not actually a real job. So I did some volunteering related with helping on some recovery centers. I also did a scuba diving course.

Alex Booker:
Oh, cool.

Monica Fidalgo:
I also have a boat driver license, but yeah, I didn't get a job.

Alex Booker:
So you loved animals and it sounds like you loved the ocean a little bit as well, and that's what took you towards the marine biology and the diving and the boat drive. I bet you're a ton of fun to go on holiday with.

Monica Fidalgo:
I was still scuba diving until three, four years ago because here the sea is quite cold.

Alex Booker:
You're in Portugal, is that right?

Monica Fidalgo:
Yes. I was under there and I was freezing so much that I thought to myself, okay, this is not for me anymore because I'm not that young. Just suffering all the time. So I decided to stop with that and now I prefer, for example, activities related with kayaking or just trekking anything else but freeze myself to death.

Alex Booker:
Hmm. That's so cool. Yeah, it's easy to underestimate how cold it can get. Monica, I heard you had a car accident around this time. What happened then?

Monica Fidalgo:
Yes, so after I take my marine biology course and I was also looking for a job in that field, I had a serious car accident and I broke my leg in a really hard way. So I was in the hospital for two months. I wasn't able to move because the injury was so bad that I needed to just be laying down with my leg, hang up. And during that time it was a hard time, but it was also a time where you discover yourself so you can gain some strengths because it's not only physically hard but also very mentally challenging because you need to just, okay, it's another day, I will be here for more days, but yeah, I'm here so I'm alive. I will be able to recover.

Alex Booker:
Were they confident that you would recover fully or was there an element of doubt?

Monica Fidalgo:
They were always very confident speaking me saying, yeah, you will be able to run again, you will be able to just horse riding and stuff like that. But, when you feel so much pain and you see your own body like, okay, it's not moving the way that it was supposed to, it's hard. You want to believe them, but at the same time, you get some doubts.

Alex Booker:
How did it feel to lose your independence at a time when you had so much to figure out, right? You had this degree and you were trying to figure out the next steps in your life. Losing your independence like that seems like a significant setback.

Monica Fidalgo:
I'm not going to say that it was easy, but I think that when you can find some strength in yourself, you can overcome those doubts that you have. Since I was spending so much time at the hospital, I decided to do something different, so I get really addicted to watch animes.

Alex Booker:
Anime.

Monica Fidalgo:
Anime, sorry.

Alex Booker:
Yeah. Okay.

Monica Fidalgo:
And I started also to read old books like the Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, that kind of stuff. It was really fun to read those books at night at the hospital hearing some strange noise, but it was fun in the end because it was something that I always wanted to do, but somehow I didn't always get the time, so now I have all the time in the world.

Alex Booker:
You're so brave and I love that outlook where you turned it into a positive. And yeah, I mean apart from the fact that you came out of it, able to walk and run and all these things, which sounds great, it sounds like your mindset grew at the same time. And I'm wondering if that helped you in the next chapter when you had to figure out what to do with your career.

Monica Fidalgo:
Yes, for sure. One thing that I was told when I left the hospital was like, okay, so you will have two, three months of recovering and then you will be able to run again. And I was like, okay, I will do it, but in less time than that. And one month after I left the hospital, I was able to work again. I was doing a part-time just to pay some bills. I was working just at a store selling scuba diving gear and that kind of stuff, surf-related material as well, and I was already able to walk. I was feeling a little pain, but I was able to do the job.
So that I think helped a lot when I was doing that career change because it wasn't easy to do a new course, something that I wasn't really comfortable with, learning something new, but I was always thinking, okay, you were able to overcome this. Why aren't you also able to do this course? Yes, I'm able to.

Alex Booker:
I like that. If you can overcome what you went through with the car accident and your recovery, you can do hard things, right? What else can you do?

Monica Fidalgo:
Yes, it's in order to not give up, feel sorry for yourself, it's not going to take you anywhere. No one is going to say, oh, I feel so sorry for you, I will give you this or do this for you. No, you need to stand up yourself and just go after what you want because there are so many people in the world trying to achieve their goals that you just need to do the same thing, not waiting for some miracle to happen. You need to put yourself out there.

Jan Arsenovic:
Coming up, how Monica got a job at Cloudflare and what to do when you need to take a break.

Monica Fidalgo:
One thing that I started doing was, for example, box.

Alex Booker:
Packing stuff into boxes.

Monica Fidalgo:
No, fighting.

Jan Arsenovic:
But, first, let's take a look at our socials. Here's a YouTube comment on our last week's episode with Shaundai Person. This is literally one of the most insightful podcasts that I've ever listened to as a uni student who is still navigating the CS career. The parts where he talks about commodity and side quests are really helping me rethink my whole coding journey. Thank you so much.
And Ethan Fivee tweeted about our episode from the week before saying, "Finding time and motivation to code after work is tough. Many face this challenge. Alex Calloway's words on the latest Scrimba podcast struck a chord. I've tried and failed the 100 days of code challenge many times in the past, but each attempt was just one step closer to getting me into tech. I highly recommend you listen to the Scrimba podcast episode with Alex Calloway, the creator of 100 Days of Code."
I agree. I'm really happy we got to have Alex on the show, and I hope you will find a lot of value from that interview. If you like what we're doing and you'd like to support us, the best thing you can do is tell somebody about it. Now, of course, you can do it in person or you can do it on Discord, but if you decide to do it on socials like Twitter, LinkedIn, or YouTube, you might get a shout-out right here on the show like these people just did. But for now, let's go back to the interview with Monica.

Alex Booker:
Where did coding come into the mix for you exactly?

Monica Fidalgo:
So that was really funny. I went to a web design course because I thought, okay, maybe I should do something a little more easy, at least from my understanding. So I thought maybe something related with web design, doing user experience, that kind of stuff. So I went to a course where I had that, but I also had digital marketing, and the last part was programming. Programming was HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL, that kind of stuff.
I found a course here near where I live in Lisbon and I was really bad doing Photoshop stuff. I feel that I'm a creative, but compared with my colleagues at that time, I felt that I was a little dumb because everyone was already very familiar with Photoshop, that's why I think they joined the course. But I wasn't able to keep up with the rest of my colleagues. But when I get to the programming part, it was the part that I loved the most. I was able to do all my websites in code and I was like, yay, I was able to do this. So I was so happy, my teacher invited me to join him in his company after the course.

Alex Booker:
Oh, it was like a job.

Monica Fidalgo:
An internship, because I was like the best at the programming parts.

Alex Booker:
Is it because you'd been toying with things like Tumblr and widget-type things you described before or is it maybe like a natural aptitude rooted in logic and problem-solving, for example?

Monica Fidalgo:
I think it was related with the part of me adding some scripts to Blogger and Tumblr. I was already familiar with the HTML of the page. Yeah, I think that that helped.

Alex Booker:
I guess programming is quite different from what you studied.

Monica Fidalgo:
It's quite, quite different. And when you are doing like HTML and CSS, that is pretty awesome because it's quite easy to do, but when you get to the JavaScript part, that's a different story.

Alex Booker:
I've heard that before, yes.

Monica Fidalgo:
It's the logical part. So you really need to use your mind to accomplish things like, okay, if I do this, this should do that. It's like a machine, right, a washing machine, for example, if you press this button, this program will run. If you press another button, another thing will happen. If it gets to the end, it'll open the door, make a noise. So programming, it's the same thing. So you need to think that you are building stuff that is going to work in this certain way and building this logical way of thinking, it's a little tricky for someone who did science courses, me, that didn't require that part of the brain.

Alex Booker:
Yeah, it takes a lot of hard work. How did you approach the studies? How would you structure your day alongside working in the scuba shop?

Monica Fidalgo:
I started to work at night, so I was able to study during the day. At the same time, I also started doing more sports because I was like, I need not only to develop myself learning a new thing, but I also need to improve how I feel physically. So I started to do more sports as well, gain some strength, and also that helps a lot with your mental health. So basically it was like studying in the morning, doing sports in the afternoon, and working at night.

Alex Booker:
Interesting.

Monica Fidalgo:
But when I finished the course, I was very focused on trying to find a job, so I decided to just start doing less hours at work.

Alex Booker:
You kind of scaled back your hours and scaled up the time coding. That's cool. And I really liked the balanced approach you're describing where you're both revitalizing yourself with your physical and mental health and then spending that on effort to code. It sounds like you spent your cleanest best energy learning to code, and then when you work in the evening, you're a bit more tired and it is harder to focus on coding when you're tired so-

Monica Fidalgo:
Yes, use your mind when you are fresh, and when you don't want to think about anything else, you can just do manual stuff like working, in this case.

Alex Booker:
This course you were doing, is it the type that you have to spend money to enroll in?

Monica Fidalgo:
Yes. It was a little expensive. It was hard because I wasn't getting that much at work, so I asked to pay the course monthly, but for example, when you are starting the course, you need to pay some part in advance. So I asked my mother, she was the one who helped me to inscribe to that course. And then I was working and paying the course at the same time. It's hard because all your money is going to pay your course or the transport to the school, but it's like you are just investing in your future. If you think like that, okay, I'm doing this, this is hard, but it's going to end after a while. It's not going to last forever. It's an investment that I'm going to take on myself so I can live the job that I have and just go after what I want. So if you think that way, it's easier.

Alex Booker:
I love that. And it's so nice that your mum could support you to get started like that. What did the rest of your friends and family think about you changing career?

Monica Fidalgo:
Well, the rest of my family was a little in doubt. There is this idea that if you want to get a job, a real job, you need to take a university course. If you are just taking a course online or whatever, they just think that people are trying to fool you to get your money. Now it's more common and you can see that you have so many schools that are credentialed and you are able to find a job after you finish the course. But when I started, I think it was a little more difficult to explain that to people. Yes, no, this is a real school. I'm doing a course here and I will be able to find a job, hopefully. It was also very expensive. It was equivalent for three years in university.

Alex Booker:
Really?

Monica Fidalgo:
Yes, here in Portugal at least. But, I didn't know some people were able to find jobs after they finish the courses in these kind of schools. Because I was investigating in LinkedIn, if you search for a school name, you are able to see people working and that did the course in that school. So you were, okay, this is real, this-

Alex Booker:
It works, yeah.

Monica Fidalgo:
It works.

Alex Booker:
I think a lot of the time our parents and friends, they want the best for us and especially if you're part of an older generation where the common wisdom was you have to go to university to get a good-paying job like a lawyer or doctor or something, I think they're looking out for us with their best intentions, but maybe haven't realized the way in which the world has changed a little bit, especially in tech and for programming roles where the opportunities are a bit more democratized. Like, you don't necessarily need a degree. But, also I love how you vetted the school by looking on LinkedIn to see the prospects and where you could see yourself going. I think that sounds like a very sensible way to go about things.

Monica Fidalgo:
For sure. I think LinkedIn, it's awesome for you to just do networking and find more about companies, schools, et cetera, but this doesn't happen just by lucky. You need to put your efforts in what you want to achieve. In this case, when I finished the course, I had less working hours because I really wanted to focus on finding a job, and I continued to study to improving my GitHub, for example, heading more projects to it. I also started to talk with random people on LinkedIn, like, Hey, are you enjoying your work? Are you enjoying working at this company? So I found a friend that she was working for a tech company that happened to be on the list that I did. I did the list of all the tech companies that I would apply for.

Alex Booker:
Oh, I like that. That's cool.

Monica Fidalgo:
And I was, check, check.

Alex Booker:
That's so powerful by the way, because when you're looking for a job and there's just thousands and thousands of companies and opportunities, it's so overwhelming. Creating a list like that helps you visualize what specific roles and companies you want to work with, and once you visualize that, it's motivating and you can align by it, and as you learn new things, you can think, does this bring me closer to working at one of these companies I'd be totally stoked to get an opportunity at? That's a really good practical tip.

Monica Fidalgo:
It was funny because I wasn't familiar with job alerts that we now have on LinkedIn. Now, you can just add a job alert and any job related with front-end developer for example, you get that on your email and you are able to just apply to that job. But at that time, I just made a list and I applied to all the companies. Even they didn't have any opening jobs available, I was just trying my luck.

Alex Booker:
How do you apply to a company without any open job ads?

Monica Fidalgo:
I just find the HR email and I just send an email.

Alex Booker:
It's that simple, right?

Monica Fidalgo:
Or you connect to someone from HR on LinkedIn and you start talking and you can just send your CV.

Alex Booker:
Well, Monica, how about we take a quick break to do some quickfire questions and after those, we can learn a bit more about how you got your first role in tech?

Monica Fidalgo:
Mm-hmm. Sure.

Alex Booker:
Okay, so welcome to this segment where I throw some quickfire questions your way. The first one is, what is one learning resource that has been the most impactful to you on your journey learning to code?

Monica Fidalgo:
freeCodeCamp, Dev, Scrimba as well. You have so many information already on the internet. You can just read through some articles and see some code examples. That's the way I've been learning the most. I then try to replicate what I see on the articles and try to do some small exercise and push to my GitHub.

Alex Booker:
What is your favorite technology to use at the moment?

Monica Fidalgo:
I really like React, but I have a crush on Vue.

Alex Booker:
Okay.

Monica Fidalgo:
So I like to use Vue for my personal projects and React on my daily work.

Alex Booker:
What technology would you like to learn next?

Monica Fidalgo:
I'm thinking about Rust or Go, not really sure.

Alex Booker:
What music do you code to?

Monica Fidalgo:
I usually like lofi beats, so I don't like hearing music with singing, or else I will start singing as well.

Alex Booker:
All right, Monica, last question. Do you look up to or follow anyone in the tech community that we could maybe check out after the show?

Monica Fidalgo:
Yes, for sure. Lisi Linhart, she was my team lead when I worked at Storyblok. She's a rock star. And also Lina. She's a head of QA. She works on the FinTech I think, and her background is in pathology.

Alex Booker:
We'll link them both in the show notes so people can check them out after the show. All right, so Monica, going back to our interview here, you were telling me how you would sort of create a dream list of companies, reach out to people on LinkedIn, and sometimes even cold email companies that aren't listing job roles. That's a cool tactic. Did it pay off in any interesting ways?

Monica Fidalgo:
At the beginning, it didn't. The way that I found my first job, it was through a friend, so I was searching for companies and I say to her, "Are your company looking for someone?" She told me, "Yes, for sure. Just give me your resume." And they called me one week after and that's how I got my first job. But there was a job that I got through just spontaneously giving my resume through LinkedIn. I just approach someone from HR and I told them, "Are you looking for a front-end developer? I really love your company. I have been following for a while." And she told me, "Yes, for sure. Just give me your resume because we are going to open a new job and that way we can already have your CV."

Alex Booker:
I like that. Kind of getting ahead of the curve there, that's cool.

Monica Fidalgo:
Mm-hmm. I'm always like a big fan of doing this kind of stuff because they are opening jobs every day, so if you are waiting for your opportunity to just apply to a job, you are already a step behind in my opinion. You need to connect before. Speak with someone of the company. Someone can just deliver your resume internally because we always have the job offers opening internally, and if you are already familiar with someone, it's easier. That's how I've been doing and that's been great until now.

Alex Booker:
When you send your resume to the recruiter and they said, oh, we're hiring soon, so we'll keep it on file kind of thing, did that pan out in any way or-

Monica Fidalgo:
Yes. What happened next was one week after, they just called me to an interview at the same time they opened the job to the public, so I was one step ahead as I said. And it was great because I was able to get the job.

Alex Booker:
Nice. Tell me a bit more about that. What was the interview process like?

Monica Fidalgo:
I was working in tech already for two years. It was a little more challenging than at the beginning. So after the bootcamp I got a job at a big tech company, but it was my friend who gave the resume internally. I worked there for three months and the job interview, it was really easy because I was very junior, so they didn't ask me to do some coding exercises. It was more based on soft skills, showing my work. Like I did this, here is my work on GitHub, I'm also doing a Vue.js course by myself, and they were working with Vue.js. They were very surprised that I was studying by myself. They believed in me and that's why I got hired.

Alex Booker:
Nice.

Monica Fidalgo:
That was my first job and I was like, yes, I'm in the tech world already. This is amazing. But I was very, very junior and I felt that I needed more support, so I started having some work to do, but at the same time I wasn't learning at the pace that I wanted. At the same time, I had an event where I went just to some networking in another company and it happened to be there, the CEO of the company in that day.
A friend of mine presented to CEO and I was speaking about my scuba diving license and he felt in love with all my experience related with what I was able to do with career changing. I was very surprised with that, and I got a contact two weeks after to go to an interview just because of that. I went to an event, I met some people there. I talked about myself and people really enjoyed my persistence of trying to do a career change, so that's how I got my second job and it was amazing. I grew a lot. It was during two years, I had an amazing manager. It was really, really important for my growth that time.

Alex Booker:
Which company was this?

Monica Fidalgo:
It was a Dutch company with an office in Portugal, Evident. Now it changed the name to Valtech. Everyone was very welcoming. I had some cool and different projects to work on. I had to deal with clients, I had to work in teams with QAs, scrum managers, backend developers. It was very complete and I felt that I was growing so much. I also had that manager push me to always go further, and in that case, I was very lucky. It was really hard for me when my manager left the company,

Alex Booker:
What was their name?

Monica Fidalgo:
Stuart. Stuart was amazing. I still keep in touch with him and every time that I speak with him is very encouraging.

Alex Booker:
It sounds like you definitely had some stronger and growing technical skills under your belt, but of course, being newer, you were still learning. You mentioned that they liked your perseverance in changing career. Is that an example maybe where you got the job based on your practical skills, sometimes people call them soft skills, and your potential as opposed to only your raw coding skill?

Monica Fidalgo:
Yes. I think when you are very junior, you don't have that many coding skills, so you need to invest more in what you can bring to the table besides coding. In this case, it was like the soft skills. I showed, okay, I did this, I was able to accomplish that. I'm always trying to learn new things by myself. I think it impresses companies like, okay, if this person is able to learn by herself, she also will be able to do the same at work. Just don't be afraid to show yourself on interviews when you are very junior because your coding skills aren't very sharp at that time.

Alex Booker:
Sure. Well, Monica, I happen to know you're currently working at Cloudflare, which is a company that many people listening will recognize because they're a developer tool that we sometimes come across in our work. How did you get a job at Cloudflare?

Monica Fidalgo:
I still can't believe it. When you say that, I'm like, yes, I'm working at Cloudflare. I worked at a company and I started speaking with another front-end developer. We push ourselves and she became my friend. She left the company to be working at Cloudflare. I left the same company, but I went to work at a different company at that time where I grew a lot and I met Lisi by the way, but I was still like, I want more. I want to work at a big tech company because yeah, it's completely out of my comfort zone. Will I be able to? I'm a little afraid, but we never know, right? So as my friend was working at Cloudflare, I told her, "Hey, do you have any job opportunity that I can apply to? And she told me, yes, we are going to open the job."

Alex Booker:
Well, well, well, there's that technique again.

Monica Fidalgo:
Yes. I just gave her my resume. She gave it internally. And after one week, I was invited for the first interview. I'm saying the first because it was a long process of six interviews.

Alex Booker:
Six interviews, what?

Monica Fidalgo:
The first one is only with HR, which are your expectations, what are you looking for, et cetera, are you familiar with the company? Then you have the second interview with your future manager. Then you have the third interview with developers where you need to do a coding challenge and pair programming. You also have an interview with a designer or another team lead where you show your soft skills and also your logical way of thinking. Then you have another interview with the manager again, and then you have a final interview with someone from the C level.

Alex Booker:
Executive leadership interview. Yeah, scary.

Monica Fidalgo:
Yes. It was a little scary.

Alex Booker:
Wow. Six interviews over how long?

Monica Fidalgo:
One month and a half.

Alex Booker:
And then after the executive interview, how long did you wait to hear back about their decision to hire you?

Monica Fidalgo:
I think it was really fast, less than a week, but I heard that sometimes it takes longer.

Alex Booker:
How did you feel about your prospects? Were you feeling confident you would get the job offer? And yeah, tell me the story. Were you when you got the email or whatever, the phone call, and what happened?

Monica Fidalgo:
I still couldn't believe it, but I'm going to talk about something. At the same time, I got a counter proposal from the previous company and when I got the phone call from Cloudflare and they did a job offer, I was like, okay, that's an awesome job offer and I really wanted the job, but my previous company is doing a counteroffer, can you just step up? And yeah, they did. So I was like, oh, it's my first time just trying to counter proposal. I was sweating a lot.

Alex Booker:
Monica, let's go.

Monica Fidalgo:
Yeah, it was very empowering because I feel that sometimes men are more used to do this and I'm always trying to push my friends, especially women, to just stand up, just try to ask for more.

Alex Booker:
Why? Why is that so important to you?

Monica Fidalgo:
I like to empower women and I know that sometimes women can just be really quiet when it comes to finances and growing and all career stuff. So that was like, yes, now I can empower others.

Alex Booker:
Well done. That's great. Was that tactical, this counter-proposal? How did that come about?

Monica Fidalgo:
So from Cloudflare, I didn't got the offer yet, but I got the confirmation, yes, we want to proceed with you, we want to work at Cloudflare, but only by phone. So I already knew. I got to the previous company and I was totally honest, I said, "Hey, I'm getting this offer from Cloudflare, are you able to keep up?" And they tried. They did the counteroffer because they really wanted to keep me, but Cloudflare was my dream goal, but don't tell them that.

Alex Booker:
I'm sure they'll never hear. Yeah, Cloudflare is like you said, you wanted to work at a big tech company and something a bit out of your comfort zone. I think Cloudflare is a prestigious company to work at among developers. Was there an element of that? Did you care about the prestige and working at this company that everybody recognizes, or was it really more about just pushing yourself to be in a new environment where you can level up?

Monica Fidalgo:
It was a little bit of both things. So I already knew Cloudflare. I was also an investor. I already knew Cloudflare, so I started to buy some stocks.

Alex Booker:
Oh, cool.

Monica Fidalgo:
At the same time, I was trying to get more finance literacy in order to start investing and take care of my future, of course. And also I wanted to push out of my comfort zone. I'm always trying to learn and achieve a little more, so it was a mix of both things, yes.

Alex Booker:
I'm kind of reflecting on our conversation as the interview draws to a close, and I remember you talking about being in the hospital bad and you couldn't sort of count on other people to feel sorry for you or something. You had to take control of your own destiny there. And the same when it comes to applying to these jobs, you did the slightly uncomfortable thing, the slightly unsure thing. When you reached out to companies that weren't listing job ads, many people wouldn't do that, but you felt motivated enough to push through that discomfort. Even when you negotiated your salary rights at this new company, you kind of pushed through that discomfort. Have you always been that way or is it something you've kind of started to embrace as you've got older?

Monica Fidalgo:
I started to embrace after I got the accident, I guess. It was like, okay, I'm going to try this. If it doesn't work, that's okay. If I got a no as an answer, that's okay as well.

Alex Booker:
Can't hurt more than breaking your legs.

Monica Fidalgo:
The no is always granted, so you should aim for a yes. You should aim for something better or something that you want, something that you want to learn. Get out of your comfort zone. What's the worst thing that can happen? Is that thing doesn't happen, okay. But you have always another option. As people used to say, when a door closes, another one opens. If you get a no, sometimes it's because it's not for you. You need to just look for something else.
Or even what happened once with me, I got ghosted by a company when I was very, very junior, a company that I really wanted to work because it was created with cars. I have a passion for cars as well. But I looked at the company, I was at the conference and I saw their stand and I was like, one day I will be working at Mercedes. And yeah, that happened. So two years later I joined Mercedes-Benz.io. They have a technology hub here in Portugal in Lisbon, and I was like, yes, I got ghosted at the beginning, but I didn't quit. And yeah, I got the job two years later, but I still got the job.
So I read articles of people saying, Hey, I just applied at this company five times and I got to know what the first time, I got ghosted on my second time, I failed my third time on the coding challenge, for example. But they never quit because they have this goal of working at a specific company. You don't have time to be sorry for yourself or just complain. Yeah, they are just hiring people with this background or no, you just need to think, I will be able to accomplish my goal. And for that, I will be doing this, this, this, and this.
If you don't do anything, of course, you are not going anywhere. If you are just complaining, you are not getting anything. But if you just do a step-by-step, there are bad days, yes, of course, totally. There are days that you feel that, yeah, I'm so stupid, I don't know how to code. Maybe I should do something else. There are other days where you can see, hey, I have accomplished this. I wasn't able to do this before. You can even use a tool like Notion to track your growth, your accomplishments, the courses that you have done, the articles that you have written, the projects that you have pushed to GitHub, but you need to keep doing those things, and good things will come.

Alex Booker:
That's really powerful stuff. And I know that you're not only talking on a podcast like the one today, but you've been giving a few talks here and there, such as your recent one called Nevertheless, Don't Quit Coding. I will link it in the show notes if people want to check it out, but what I wanted to ask you is why do you feel like that's such an important piece of advice.

Monica Fidalgo:
Because being totally brutal on this, there are days that we feel bad, that we want, I don't know, to cry a little, and that's okay. That's totally part of the journey. And sometimes people don't mention that, don't share that, and we are on social network like LinkedIn just seeing, Hey, I was able to accomplish that, oh, I'm so happy because I got this, and you see, oh, I am a failure compared to all these people that are doing so many great things. I'm not near them.
Yeah, but you can't compare yourself like that because maybe they have different opportunities than you, maybe they have more time, maybe they have more money or help, or you need to just think, okay, where was I yesterday? Where am I today? What do I need to do to get where I want tomorrow? And just be kind and do breaks, please. When you are feeling bad, just go for a walk. Just stop coding. Just stop thinking about the job or the things that you want to accomplish. Just go read a book, take care of your dog. Dogs are amazing. I love my dog. My dog is my psychologist, by the way. Do other things. One thing that I started doing was, for example, box.

Alex Booker:
Packing stuff into boxes.

Monica Fidalgo:
No, fighting. That sometimes also helps. I wanted to just, I don't know, to shut up my mind sometimes because even after working, we are just coding in our heads. We are just doing our lunches and we are coding at the same time because we never stop thinking about some bug over or some feature that we want to do.

Alex Booker:
I know,

Monica Fidalgo:
But when you are fighting, you need to be fully aware or else you are going to get punched. So I got started with boxing lessons and now I switched to kickboxing. And that is also important to mention is that I started with boxing lessons because I thought because I have this small problem with my leg. I'm not going to be able to kick, but one day I just got there and I told to my master, Hey, today I want to learn kickboxing because I really need to. And yeah, I have been doing kickboxing and I'm quite happy. Of course, if I compare myself with others, I'm not able to just stretch my legs so far.

Alex Booker:
Not yet, anyway.

Monica Fidalgo:
But I'm already able to do some movements, so I'm already happy with that.

Alex Booker:
What a journey, right, from your accident to then kickboxing and changing career along the way. I really appreciate all your inspiring advice today, Monica, and I thank you for coming on the podcast.

Monica Fidalgo:
Thank you so much for inviting me.

Jan Arsenovic:
You've listened to the Scrimba podcast. If you've made it this far, please subscribe. You can find the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Check out the show notes for this episode's links and resources as well as time stamps that might make navigating or re-listening to this interview a bit easier. The show is hosted by Alex Booker and produced by me. I've been Jan Arsenovic, you can find both of our Twitter handles in the show notes as well. Once again, thanks for listening. Keep coding and we'll see you in the next one.