serious development :: y >= 2004.08 && y <= 2009.03

here is when I really got serious with development. Thaks to all my self-studying efforts while working, thanks to the sleepless and endless nights spent in front of a PC with a not-so-bright look on my face I managed to get a job as software developer in UPS. My career finally made the U-turn change I had been working so hard for over the previous three years.

I could finally prove I was to become a good programmer despite my lack of formal studies and unrelated background.

special project coordinator at UPS

at this point I was working as special project coordinator for UPS, my duties and department existed for internal needs only, however, other company's departments where sort of our clients. We had to quote and report time, quality of work and support, our costs would then be covered by the department we were working for. Basically a normal client/supplier scheme, with the supplier delivering a service at an agreed price and the client having to pay and justify the cost. The only thing we did not have was marketing and sales... basically a programmer paradise ;p)

however, the job in UPS was of paramount importance for my growth, not only as developer but also from a business process point of view. UPS is a huge world-wide company with the tendency to have an internal department for every need, as little outsourcing as possible (at least UPS in Europe did back then). I therefore came in contact with a wide varaiety of different business processes and intelligence.

one of my biggest achievements in UPS was the design and implementation of a system to autoreconcile invoices generated by UPS (with thousands of shipments) with the electronic self-billing files generated by DELL (the biggest UPS customer in Europe).

software developer at Advent Processing Solution

after working for a large corporation, and considering that UPS sells shipments, not software, I decided my next move should have been toward a smaller, local comany whose primary focus was to create software.

In February 2007 I got a position as a software developer for Advent Processing Solutions, a small, but well known, software solution provider, whose main target was the SME sector, although many of our clients were much larger companies with often complex integration requirements. One of the key focuses of this business was to provide integrated accounting and business software solutions.

The senior developer I was reporting to was a very skilled and experienced developer and was an immense source of knowledge and tips. I was lucky to work with incredibly good collegues, particularly as the boss was part of the development team, making this experience an extremely valuable and enriching one.

I worked there for almost three years. When I decided to leave my boss did not want to lose my skills, so the comany extended an offer to me, which allowed me to collaborate and work with them on a sub-contract basis...