Leonardo | Brazil

“IT is not for me”

Leonardo was nine years old when his brother brought home a computer. He spent hours tinkering with the old machine, fascinated by how it worked. He thought about pursuing IT (which, in fact, his brother went into), but he didn’t think he could make the cut. “I never thought I was that smart, you know, I never thought I could study enough to get there,” Leonardo recalls. “I don’t think I’m able to join the IT team because it’s so hard.”

So he tried other paths. He tried becoming a chef, for example, but it didn’t work out. Then he landed a job at CVC, a travel agency, where he spent four years coordinating with airlines and airports. The pay barely covered basic expenses. “If you broke your tooth and you need to replace it, you probably need to make a second job to pay,” he explains.

Then COVID hit. CVC fired him in February 2020 as a result of the pandemic, leaving Leonardo unemployed and responsible for caring for his mother and grandmother, both at high-risk. “It was hard,” he told us. He wasn’t sure what lay ahead.

New Possibility Amid Hardship

During COVID, Leonardo faced an enormous struggle. He lost a very dear person in his life—his godfather. Meanwhile, he was caring for his other at-risk family members at home.

One day, Leonardo’s cousin (the son of his godfather) reached out with a message: “Hey, I heard about this program, it’s called Generation Brazil, Java Full Stack Developer.” Together, they decided to support one another and try the intensive coding bootcamp.

“Generation came in and said, hey, it’s possible,” Leonardo remembers. “You are smart. You can do it.”

But the struggles in his family felt overwhelming, especially after his brother landed in the ICU, where he spent over a month. Leonardo thought about quitting—it was just too much. But Generation encouraged him to stay on. “They said, like, no, you can [take care of your family] and you can also still be with us. Generation, grabbed my hand and said, hey, it’s okay. You’re just passing a hard time. We are here to support you.”

The New Leonardo

Leonardo graduated in February 2021. Within a month, he joined AB InBev as a developer. Today, he works as an IT analyst at Santander, earning nearly triple his old salary. There, he was recently promoted to Mid Developer.

The financial wins have been significant. “I can afford to pay for my mom’s medical care. I can save to buy a car,” he says. He’s also engaged now, and planning for the financial future of the children he will someday have.

But the deepest change is internal. “Generation brought me this new horizon,” Leonardo reflects. “It’s a whole new person before and after Generation.”