1095 days at Cabify, and counting

:: 2026.02.06 — life, engineering-management

Today marks my third "Cabiversary".

When I started, I knew it would be a challenging journey, but even knowing that, I still can't believe how much I've learned.

So, this post is just a little moment of reflection. A small gift to my future self in the form of a reminder that I can step outside my comfort zone, feel like an impostor, and still make it.

Here are the milestones I never thought I'd reach.

Pass an Engineering Manager interview process. I moved from IC to management within my previous company, so I never experienced an interview process with business case and system design discussions.
Join a company as full remote Engineering Manager. Remote software engineering is one thing—remote management is another. Leading a team means deeply embracing the company culture, building trust without face-to-face interaction, and developing the communication and visibility skills that don't come naturally through a screen.
Learn how B2B works. Before Cabify I was in a B2C marketplace and I never worked in B2B. The most important learning is that in B2B, you don't have only end-users, you also have a bunch of stakeholders around you who are your users too. Your overall success is a combination of happy users and happy stakeholders.
Learn to manage my energy, not my time. Full remote isn't for everybody, can be draining, I had to adapt my lifestyle to make it work. It's not about the time that you spend working, it's about the energy you invest on work. Time is linear, energy is a function of your life's current context.
Partially learned Elixir. The majority of the company works in Elixir and Go, my team has mostly Elixir services. Despite I'm a manager and it's not expected that I code, I'm a tinkerer and I love knowing how things work. Not proficient, but comfortable navigating complex codebases.
Manage through a reorg.. I joined managing one of the 2 teams of the B2B group. After a top-down restructuring, I was in charge of managing the merged team. Basically, rebuilding it from the ruins of the previous situation and turning chaos into a functioning unit.
Lead the newly formed team to success. After 2 years of the merge, I was able to not only successfully stabilize the new team, but also prepare the foundation to then split it again for scaling by adding more people to the group (via hiring and internal moves).
Traveled as a slow nomad while working. I started at Cabify in 2023, I was in São Vicente (Cabo Verde) for 3 months. There I also got married with my wife, so it's a special place that feels like home ❣️. In 2024 we went for another 3 months in Argentina, thanks to half my team being there. Now, at the moment of writing, I'm back to São Vicente and I will stay 4 months. We are already thinking about Brazil for next fall/winter. All this while working.
I now speak Spanish. I've never studied it at school, I only knew a bit of Portuguese from travels (and because my wife teaches it). I started in my team speaking English, but then I found myself joining meetings with clients, speaking with stakeholders outside of engineering and other situations who needed that extra step. Staying in Argentina helped, and I actually fell in love with the culture there 🧉 3 years ago I guessed it. I now work completely in Spanish.

What's next?

I'm expanding my surface of impact—taking on new business areas beyond B2B while keeping the product engineering mindset.

I want to stay hands-on, keep tinkering, and master the balance between building teams and building products. More chaos to navigate, more problems to solve, more proof that discomfort leads somewhere worth going.

I also want to keep learning from my fellow managers who've been invaluable throughout this journey. And it's time to pay that back—supporting less experienced managers and ICs who want to move into management.