Heloisa joined AWS in December 2018 and is a Solutions Architect working in the Demand Generation team in Iberia.
HereAtAWS:Tell us about your career journey. What brought you to your current role at AWS?
Heloisa: I originally graduated in Biotechnological engineering, my background is not in IT. In my last year of college I won a scholarship from the Brazilian government to study abroad at the University of Florida (USA). There I had the chance to work in a molecular genetics research and healthcare lab. I was working in a human gene therapy project to treat obesity when I had the realisation that lab and research was not for me.
Whilst I was there I had the opportunity to learn about IT workloads (for statistics and big data) and I loved it! I finished my internship, came back to Brazil and decided to start a completely new internship related to IT. During that time I experienced lots of different skills such as OS sysadmin, Infrastructure projects and connectivity projects. Towards the end of my course, I was involved in a project focused on the migration of the workloads to AWS- this is how I first learned about all the benefits of cloud. I started to study more about AWS services and tools and took my first certification after one month in the AWS project (SA associate).
After that, I chose to get a formal education in IT. I started a post graduation in Solutions Architecture in Sao Paulo and I loved it. Around the same time, I saw the opportunity to work at AWS as a Solutions Architect based in Madrid. I actually first saw the ad on social media! I applied straight away thinking I probably wouldn't get it, but thankfully I did and it took my life in such a great direction!
I decided to quit my job in Brazil and move to Spain! AWS offered me all the support I needed during the whole relocation process and now I couldn’t be happier here living in Madrid.
HereAtAWS:Can you explain in simple terms: your role, who your customers are, and how you help them?
Heloisa: I work as a Solutions Architect for demand generation across EMEA. My job is to help customers to migrate/deploy their workloads on AWS cloud the best way possible. I need to understand my customer needs and make sure AWS covers them all. In addition, I have to deliver training sessions to the DG community to widen and deepen their technical skills.
HereAtAWS: What skills do you need to succeed in your role?
Heloisa: A good knowledge about AWS services and general architecture concepts (regarding different types of application and workloads). I need to be able to establish a "language" of communication that works for both the commercial and technical community, since I deliver a lot of technical trainings to help with customer questions and scenarios.
However, I would say that adaptability is really the most important skill in my position. I have to be flexible and change context all the time. On the same day, I can be supporting customer’s cases in lots of different situations: IOT applications, startups, financial institutions, machine learning workloads etc. So, different companies, different people profiles, different technical conversations that I need to handle multiple times a day. I need to be prepared for that.
HereAtAWS: Have you had to learn any specific new skills for your role?
Heloisa: Yes, I think every day I learn a bit more. Definitely new technical knowledge about services I have never used before joining AWS (IoT and video streaming for example). I have definitely improved the way I deliver training and presentations to larger audiences and also the ability to explain technical concepts to non-tech people: I needed to adjust my speech to use examples, analogies and metaphors to take a tech concept and make it concrete, visual, and accessible for people with a different background to me.
HereAtAWS: What’s the most exciting part of your job?
Heloisa: Being able to interact with different customers, from different industries, in different types of applications and workloads! I see different stuff everyday, my job is never boring.
HereAtAWS:And what’s the most challenging part of your job?
Heloisa: The most exciting part of my job is also the most challenging one. I need to change context all the time and talk with customers about different AWS services. I need to keep myself updated to basically all AWS services. But I love this.
HereAtAWS:What advice would you give people joining AWS?
Heloisa: Don’t be afraid to be yourself and ask for help when you need it – I am surrounded by awesome people that I could rely on during my AWS journey. Use some time to continuously develop yourself and learn new skills.
HereAtAWS: What three words would you use to describe workdays at AWS?
Heloisa: Fascinating, fun and curious.
