Tell us about your path to Mozilla.<\/b><\/p>\n
It was a long journey! I\u2019m originally from the Dominican Republic, and that\u2019s where I started my career. I studied software engineering in college and had always been especially interested in browsers. After school, I spent about six years working as a developer for the government. It was fine, but I dreamed of joining a big company where I could make more of an impact, and I knew I\u2019d likely have to move for an opportunity like that.<\/p>\n
So my wife and I started looking at what it would take to immigrate to different places, and we settled on Canada\u2014even though there are a lot of prerequisites. You have to have a high proficiency in English or French, and the exams are not only difficult but also pricey. Then, even if you\u2019re approved, you have to have enough savings for a long period of time after you arrive. My wife was teaching English, but I needed a lot of practice, plus we had to gather all of our documents. It took about a year and a half before we had everything in order.<\/p>\n
Even then, things didn\u2019t go well at first. I took the language test and failed. I took it again, but I only got the minimum score. Then I made it as far as an in-person interview with one company, but I didn\u2019t get the job. Not long after that, the government of Ontario invited us to apply to immigrate even though I hadn\u2019t scored highly on the test\u2014because they needed programmers\u2014and we were accepted.<\/p>\n
When we moved to Toronto, we\u2019d never even been here before, and my wife had to get her teaching license before she could work. So neither of us had a job yet, and our first couple of months were nerve-wracking. Then Mozilla reached out. I\u2019d applied for a senior engineering role, like the one I have now, and they asked if I would be interested in a lower-level position with the potential to grow. I really liked the company; I knew I\u2019d be able to have the kind of impact I wanted, to really help a lot of people. And I\u2019d seen how Mozilla was competing with much larger companies by operating in a different way\u2014focusing on protecting its users, rather than mining their information to make money. I accepted right away.<\/p>\n
![\"Arturo](\"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/files\/2021\/01\/arturo-MV-600x450.jpg\")
Arturo enjoying Mozilla’s headquarters.<\/p><\/div>\n
How do you collaborate at Mozilla?<\/b><\/p>\n
Within the Engineering team, we try to strike a balance between giving people the opportunity to gain expertise and giving ownership to the people who already have that experience. On a big project that touches a lot of the architecture and infrastructure, it\u2019s impossible for one person to understand every aspect\u2014there will always be areas some people know really well. And we do honor that, but we also really make an effort to bring other people along.<\/p>\n
Beyond our team, we interact a lot with product managers, who are gathering input from users across a lot of different outlets, including Reddit and Twitter, to help us plan. We work with designers to put everything together, too, as well as our UI\/UX, Quality Assurance, and Data Science teams. Collaborating across the company has taught me how to see things from multiple perspectives and how to communicate better. As an engineer, you may look at a project one way, but everyone has a different point of view. If you can translate what you\u2019re thinking to each other, it helps make sure everyone is getting the right messages.<\/p>\n
And our team also collaborates with people outside of Mozilla. What\u2019s amazing about being open source is that people are testing the app night and day. We get constant feedback on how we can improve\u2014and even how to prioritize our work, because people can see what we\u2019re working on during any given week. Sometimes, they\u2019ll even fix issues themselves. Getting that direct feedback, seeing exactly how we\u2019re helping people and how happy they are with our work, is the most rewarding part of my job.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s challenging about your work?<\/b><\/p>\n
Software developers live in a world of constant change. The technologies we use are definitely part of that\u2014something you created years ago, or in school, won\u2019t just exist forever without updates or improvements. We get a lot of support from Mozilla, though. The company reimburses us for classes and materials we need, and our team is good about publishing and updating documentation. We also have the flexibility to learn in the ways that are best for us. Personally, I try to spend part of every day reading up on something new.<\/p>\n
Mozilla has gone through some change on the organizational level recently, too, and that\u2019s always really tough. But I think part of the difficulty is really just fear of the unknown. If you accept that change is the norm, that makes it easier to realize that there are opportunities to learn and evolve from even the hardest challenges.<\/p>\n
What are you looking forward to right now?<\/b><\/p>\n
We recently migrated to a brand-new Firefox for Android app<\/a> that we created from scratch, and I\u2019m looking forward to building on that\u2014boosting performance, adding new features. We\u2019re expanding our add-on support right now, which is a huge project, and improving integrations with VPNs and other privacy apps. It\u2019s really just about continuing to do what Mozilla does best, which is protect our users.<\/p>\n On a personal level, I\u2019m looking forward to continuing to learn, whatever that means next. Whenever I\u2019ve been in my comfort zone for too long, it\u2019s like there\u2019s a voice in my head telling me I need to change. I think we often tune that voice out or wait too long to listen, because we\u2019re afraid to take a risk\u2014I waited a long time to come to Canada and Mozilla, for example. But once you make the leap, you realize failure and mistakes are nothing to be afraid of. They\u2019re how we grow. So I\u2019m looking forward to continuing that\u2014and hopefully, helping others grow, too.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Interested in working with Arturo and the rest of the Mozilla team? Check out our open roles<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Years before he joined the team, Arturo Mejia read about Mozilla\u2019s quest to build a better internet\u2014and dreamed of being a part of it. And he knew that would likely … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":405,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[318942,451108],"tags":[303553],"coauthors":[306191],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}