My functional family
6 months ago I left the eternal Cuban summer where I was born and came to Uruguay because my husband Pepe was offered a job here. We hoped it turned out to be a good thing, we wanted to see other places, test ourselves and our ability to make it in the “real world”. I had many great expectations and a handful of fears.
I was expecting all sorts of discrimination, discrimination for being a woman in a man’s industry, for been a foreigner, for not living up to the professional community expectations. Before leaving I had a lot of fears, was I going to find a job? Was I going to be exploited by the capitalists? At the same time, I was also worried about some more mundane issues like the weather, the language or the food. Now I am happy to say that I was wrong, very wrong.
I landed in Uruguay on a freezing July and the first thing that struck me was the weather, it was the most difficult thing to get used to, forcing myself to wear many layers of clothes (and it’s not even that cold 😨). The food is good and loved it from the first day, the language… well, let’s just say we don’t speak the same Spanish.
Uruguayans are in general very polite but also kind of taciturn people, imagine a Cuban girl full of energy dancing and talking very loud in an open office space, I bet these people thought on killing me a couple of times.
My professional life started full of surprises, Ingenious Softworks; the company my husband works for offered me an internship and everything after that offer was challenging but absolutely worthy. I was given an opportunity that changed my life both professionally and personally.
The work was (still is) very challenging, I felt overwhelmed most of the time but it is also very rewarding (most of the time). I was given the possibility to learn new technologies, to learn new things. The environment is full of transparency and friendship. Every day I feel welcomed, loved and cared about. I am surrounded by people that are always willing to help each other, to collaborate, to teach each other, and share ideas (Uruguayans really like to debate about everything). I have never been given or demanded more that I could handle. I have always been supported, heard and taken into account.
It has not been easy, though the work rhythm is very different from what I was used to, much faster and demanding. That, along with missing my family and friends stressed me a lot and put my nerves on the edge. I am still trying to handle those but I am happy to have followed this path and to be part of Ingenious Softworks.
We are a big functional family, even when we usually disagree about everything (did I mention that they like to argue?), we always manage to move forward and get the job done. At the end, I think everybody feels like belonging and that’s what keeps us moving
I’m happy here 😊 and feel I made the right decision.
Aside note: if you are considering moving to Uruguay or looking for a job here in the country drop us a line, the company is always looking for great people to join the team. We work with great technologies like ember, react, node & rails on pretty large scale projects for big industries like healthcare and education.
