Chemical Engineer graduate, TETRIX semifinalist, and Women in Digital participant – my journey to landing a position at VTEX
I made a decision to get a degree in Chemical Engineering when I finished high school, being still at a very young age. But halfway through the degree, I began to wonder if I was in the right field. I chose to continue, still feeling uncertain of what to do and searching for an experience to understand the market. Then, I got an internship in an factory where I stayed for a year, and it only confirmed that that was not my path.
Searching for other fields and opportunities, I applied for a marketing internship, something completely different from my degree. I got the opportunity, and I began to learn about the field on my own and from the company. It was at this company that I heard about VTEX for the first time because they were partners.
I researched the company and saw that the TETRIX program was open – an initiative whose mission is to inspire young college students to explore a digital career and gives the winner the chance to learn about the best digital commerce operations in the world. I enrolled in the program in 2019, and even believing that I would not have much of a chance, I accepted the challenge and became a semifinalist. I even went to Rio de Janeiro to compete for the award.
At the end of the TETRIX, I returned to my life in Porto Alegre, and I began to follow VTEX’s social networks. That was how I found out about Women in Digital (WiD), the company’s program for accelerating women in digital commerce careers, and I signed up to participate.
One of the things I liked most about the program was precisely the opportunity to learn a little about everything in the digital commerce universe. For me, it was something that really made a difference because I knew the digital marketing field, but I didn’t know about the processes that came before it, such as logistics, orders, and marketplace. Now, I have a good general picture.
I felt the impact of this learning experience in my professional life. I knew the terms, I could create strategies more easily, and I realized that having that knowledge and knowing how to pass it on to other people really made a difference, regardless of whether or not I have a degree in this field.
The fact that it is a program made by women for women was also very important to me. In Engineering, we have little women representation, and in tech, we have even less. WiD gives you the feeling of being represented. It makes a big difference if you know that the women teaching you have faced and still face bias. You can see these women, network with them, and realize that you are not alone in this field.
It is very important that a company like VTEX has this initiative because it reinforces the importance of female inclusion in spaces like technology – which today are mostly occupied by men – influencing not only cultural change but also company growth.
In addition to being able to participate in TETRIX in 2019 and in Women in Digital in 2020, now I am also part of the VTEX team as an International Business Developer. VTEX works a lot with the autonomy of each staff member, there’s also the trust that we all have in one another within the company.
VTEX’s trust culture won me over, and today I am among the women in tech, showing that we can change this scenario.
Want to join the team? Go to: https://careers.vtex.com/
