Why Matheus Goncalves is so Passionate About Salesforce

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Matheus Goncalves, a Senior Salesforce Developer at eVestment.

Join us to hear about how Salesforce brought Matheus from Brazil to Atlanta, his philosophy of combining troubleshooting with learning, and how he approaches the Admin side of Salesforce as a Senior Dev.

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Matheus Goncalves.

How Matheus Had to Fake It to Make It

Matheus got his start on Salesforce when his manager at a tech company asked him if he could work with it, and then started talking up his great in-house Salesforce Dev. “I had to learn really quick, so Trailhead was my savior.”

Beyond that, the Dev community blew him away with their support: “The sense of community we have is completely different than any other technology I work with.” Moving from Brazil to Atlanta to start a job as a Senior Salesforce Developer, Matheus has many more badges, super badges, and certifications under his belt and his future is looking bright.

Turning Challenges into Opportunities with Trailhead

At Matheus’ office, “Trailhead fever is in the air,” and there’s a healthy competition going to see who can get the most badges and points by the end of the year. It’s a major difference maker compared to other platforms, because “when you get a badge you get a sense of fulfillment that you don’t get with other learning platforms.”

As he’s gone along, Matheus has started collecting several super badges, including Apex, Integration, and Security. He has a unique approach to combining his learning journey with bumps that come up in his everyday work: “Every time I face a challenge related to Salesforce, I search for a Trailhead related to that.”

Growing with the Community

In Atlanta, community members take part in Salesforce Saturdays, which are casual events members can attend to discuss issues related to Salesforce and help each other out with common problems. When it comes to reaching out to other Devs online, Matheus likes to keep active on StackExchange and Twitter.

Matheus is looking forward to Salesforce DX because it will simplify the process of developing new solutions on the platform and reduce the time you need for deployment. “A lot of amazing things that we’ve been waiting for, Salesforce DX is going to provide.” Instead of going out and partying after the event, Matheus spent four hours the night before this interview just talking with others at Trailhead DX about all the changes that are coming down the line.

Why Technology is About Creativity

Matheus got started on a really old computer his dad brought home one day, and one of the ways he learned English was from programming books. For him, programming is “the empirical meaning of creating things,” you are making something new that does what you want it to do. You design it, you implement it, and you need to use your creativity to make it work.

This is why Matheus is so passionate about Salesforce — it enables people without coding skills can get so much done. “I love declarative development because you can provide non-developers a possibility to improve the application, improve the system, and be helpful.” His approach as a Dev is that if he needs to do something, he always checks first to see if it’s possible to go with a declarative solution first.

For more insights, make sure to follow Matheus on Twitter (@toadgeek).

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