The Author

My name is Hildeberto Mendonca, father of two amazing kids and husband of a wonderful woman. I’m a proactive, result-driven, disciplined professional with decades of experience on the IT industry. Across a variety of roles, I provide value through my skills in programming, software design, architecture, and training. I’m a highly flexible professional, in permanent state of learning, and driven towards exceeding expectations.

I have a Ph.D. in applied sciences on the field of electrical engineering. I took this degree as a challenge, which I achieved with great honour, but I decided to follow a different path from research to pursuit my passion for software engineering. The reason was simple: research has a long Time-To-Market cycle and I wanted to solve real world problems sooner, feeling myself useful as often as possible. But I have to recognize that my time as a scientist gave me three skills that I’m proud of:

  1. Resilience - I don’t quit, I have no fear, I do not hesitate. My Ph.D. was one of the hardest things I ever did. Everything else feels comfortable to deal with, which explains my permanent state of optimism.

  2. Reading and Writing - I’ve read and wrote so much that I feel immense pleasure during my reading and writing sessions. By the way, I strongly disagree with a statement in the agile manifesto that says: “Working software over comprehensive documentation”. All libraries and frameworks you use are heavily documented. Why wouldn’t your applications be too?

  3. Problem Solving Oriented - problems keep me motivated. Part of the solution for every problem is to influence our peers to feel the same.

Permanent Goals

Inspired by the book Deep Work, here are my permanent goals:

Personal Goals

  • Keep family in harmony by taking actions to improve union, resilience and health.
  • Educate kids intellectually, physically, economically and with humanitarian values.
  • Run an organized, simplified, and cost-efficient household.

Professional Goals

  • Craft well-written and organized programs that serves their purpose for a long time.
  • Make sure the organization has enough information about my work so they don’t become dependent on me.
  • Be well informed and educated to make the best technical decisions for every business context.
  • Be kind, professional, honest, and positive with everybody in the office.

Values

Inspired by military principles, here are my personal values:

  • Loyalty: Support the leadership and stand up for the fellow colleagues by believing and devoting myself to the team.

  • Duty: Fulfill my obligations and accomplish tasks as part of a team. Never take shortcuts that might undermine the integrity of the final product. Go a little further, endure a little longer, and look a tittle closer.

  • Respect: Treat people with respect and dignity while expecting them to do the same. Self-respect by putting forth my best effort and preserving mental and physical health.

  • Selfless Service: Put the welfare of the team and the company before my own without thoughts of recognition or gain.

  • Integrity: Do what is right, legally and morally. Do and say nothing that deceives others.

  • Personal Courage: Face fear and adversity, enduring mental and physical stress out of the comfort zone. Continue forward on the right path, especially if taking unpopular actions.

The Blog

In this blog I write about personal experiences and software engineering. I’ve been maintaining this since 2007, with ups and downs overtime. I don’t write as frequent as before, but I still invest time here.

Coincidentally, my most productive years were the ones of my Ph.D. Then it felt considerably down when I went back to the industry after finishing my studies.

My posts are long, but I do my best to keep your interest across the content. Sometimes, I write posts in the past to keep historical accuracy, but even though they are new they do not necessarily appear in the front page.

This is a static site managed by Jekyll, versioned by Git, and hosted by GitHub. I appreciate any feedback you may have. Please, create an issue in the website’s repository, describing what you think can be improved. Thank you for your visit!