This is a somewhat overdue introductory post, but since I'll be meeting many of you at Steemfest in a few weeks and I have a few cool things lined up to launch until then, I feel it's time to properly introduce myself.
Hi! My name is Leonel Togniolli, and I'm from São Paulo, Brazil. I'm a software developer, married for almost twelve years, and a recent proud father of the cutest pair of twins.
Me and my kids. Photoshoot by Anna Grecco
I started studying Computer Science back in the year 2000, and was working professionally with software development in the same year. When I graduated in 2004, I had found myself as a specialist in Delphi development. Delphi may have a bad rep for its Rapid Development model, especially nowadays as it's been well past its prime, but behind its façade, it had a very interesting objected-oriented language and an incredibly well-designed runtime and visual component library. As someone who doesn't rest until he understands how things work, I was drawn to to its innards.
One day, while looking at pictures of the gorgeous building complex that was then headquarters of Borland at Scotts Valley, I decided I wanted to move to California and work there. And just like that, a couple years later, there I was.
First visit to Silicon Valley, 2007
Well, almost that easy. As you can imagine, being from Brazil doesn't help one to get noticed. Still, persistence, hard work, and participation in the community helped get connections and I got a contract as a remote developer for Developer Relations at Borland, first part time then quickly turned full time.
Once I proved myself, a year or so later the opportunity I was waiting for opened up in the core development team for the Delphi product, in the Database team. After a round of interviews, I was in, still as a remote contractor, one of the very few at the whole product at the time, and with a relocation plan for the future.
The relocation never came, with the turbulence of Delphi's future, Borland's CodeGear then Embarcadero shenanigans that are better told some other time. And with a number of visits to Silicon Valley, the foreign curiosity of moving was settling down, being replaced with a wanderlust of getting the know the world instead.
After a number of Delphi product launches where I got my face in the team picture that is hidden in the about box easter egg, I joined CI&T, a Brazilian multinational software development company as a Software Architect, where I've been for almost seven years now, nowadays in a senior management position where I help take care of our software architecture processes and team.
You'd think that working at the Delphi team would make me even more of a Delphi expert, but on such an immense product I had to be a .Net, Java, C, C++ expert, among others. At CI&T, the vast variety of projects I've been through made me very comfortable working on multiple platforms and with diverse technologies, picking up new things very quickly, but I specialize mostly on tools, backend and enterprise architecture.
At my current position, I'm not often hands down on code anymore, so tinkering with Steemit, crypto and blockchains is a good excuse to do more of it. One of the things I've been working on and hope to launch soon has to do with that.
Steemit is also a very good excuse to be able to do another thing that I like, which is to write. My interests, besides software development - which I only posted about once, unsuccessfully - are:
- Music 1 2 3 4
- Science Fiction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
- Travel & Photography 1 2 3 4 5
- Sports 1 2
- Tinkering with Steemit 1 2 3 4 5 6 6 7 8 9 10
- various other stuff 1 2
- and things I haven't started writing about yet, like gaming, tech, beer, wine and other things I'm forgetting.
Nowadays, when I'm not Steeming, I spend my time with my family which also includes Yuki, our mischievous two-year-old Shiba.
Yuki, about a month old
Yuki making a mess in the rain
Before having kids I enjoyed traveling, having visited lots of interesting places with my wife, so I have some interesting stories to share here about that. Now I'll probably wait a couple years before any big trips with the whole family, but I couldn't pass this opportunity of visiting Amsterdam again.
My first time at Amsterdam, 2011
So there's my short story. Lots more to talk about over a few beers at Steemfest or Steemit.Chat, and definitely on future posts.
If you are also going to Steemfest, feel free to reach out and introduce yourself! I'm really looking forward to meeting other Steemit personalities.
Follow me for the more things on the topics above, for tech stuff I'm bound to eventually write, and for the two announcements I have lined up anytime soon.
Nice to meet you!
Me and my family