Hey, my name is Felipe, but you can call me "Gouvea". I'm a 21-year-old who is passionate about life, animals, and exploring new places. I'm also a software engineer in my free time 😂. I've been working in software development for four years now.

I became a software engineer by accident. My first dream was actually to become a doctor. I have an uncle who’s a doctor, and I always saw him taking care of my grandmother. I thought that was such a special thing — a beautiful way to honor and care for a loved one. I wanted to do the same for my parents, just like my uncle did for my grandma. But my mom always told me I was born for computers. So, right before I started high school, she signed me up for an entrance exam for a technical school — without telling me until two days before the test! 😅

I went to the exam not knowing what to expect, and a month later, a neighbor called my mom to say I had passed, and we only had one hour left to go to the school and enroll (luckily, she had been checking the website and happened to see my name at the last minute). We rushed over, and I got in. I thought I was going to study basic IT stuff like Microsoft Office, Excel, PowerPoint, etc., but on my first day, we had a class on computer hardware, and then programming logic. It was intense, but I liked it. Within a few months, I was learning Java, MySQL, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.

By my second year, I was already able to build some cool things and even started selling Discord bots. That got me interested in web development, so I learned more about HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and started creating websites with EJS and selling them. Eventually, I wanted to take the next step, so I moved on to learning React in 2019, and now here I am, working in this ecosystem. Life is crazy, huh?

My professional career started with ReactJS when a company from São Paulo, 🇧🇷, reached out and offered me my first job. It was my first time working for a company rather than freelancing for individuals. I was nervous, but I learned a lot from the team and how things work in a professional setting.

Later, I received a new opportunity — and a challenge — to work with Vue.js. It was December 2022, and I accepted the challenge to start the new year learning a new framework. It was an amazing experience, and I learned so much from the people there. After that, I got my first chance to work for an international company from 🇵🇹, and I’ve been working with them ever since.

Now, what else can I say about myself? Honestly, I'm not sure what to add, so I'll just mention the basics: I have a cat named Manu. She’s the most beautiful, adorable, and cutest cat in the world. In my free time, I enjoy playing video games, hanging out with friends, taking photos of places I visit, and spending time with my family — I’m always with them.

My current favorite song is Walk of Life by Dire Straits. But I am also a big fan of Coldplay, Imagine Dragons, David Bowie and The Weeknd.