When I joined Deel as a Software Engineer, I knew I was stepping into something big. A global HR and payroll platform operating in over 150 countries, processing payments and compliance across dozens of legal frameworks, serving thousands of companies and their employees worldwide. The scale was staggering, and so was the excitement of the challenge.
I remember my first weeks. Everything felt enormous. The domain was deep and unfamiliar: global payroll, gross-to-net calculations, compliance rules that varied by country, integrations layered on top of each other. I had a lot to learn, and the learning curve was steep. But that was exactly the kind of challenge I was looking for.
My first quarter was all about absorption. I was learning Deel's culture, its codebase, its way of working. I delivered my first projects during that time, features that helped automate payroll workflows and reduce manual effort for the teams managing gross-to-net reports. Each project taught me something new about the domain and about how Deel operates. I wasn't just writing code, I was learning a language, the language of global payroll, one business rule at a time.
As the months went on, something shifted. I moved from learning into owning. I took on a full-scale migration of an entire service's data layer, a solo effort that touched over ten thousand lines of code across dozens of endpoints and queries. Then came what I still consider my biggest project: a migration spanning nineteen tickets across multiple services, rebuilding how payroll events were managed to align with Deel's evolving infrastructure. It was complex, it was challenging, and it was exciting.
Later, I moved into the Payroll-Fintech Connectivity space, a new domain at the intersection of payroll and fintech. I was responsible for scaffolding and configuring a new microservice from scratch, one that would serve as the integration layer between these two worlds. I worked on performance improvements to support the onboarding of major clients, and tackled the early stages of migrating how invoices were generated across payroll experiences. The work was intense and deeply rewarding. I was no longer just delivering features, I was helping shape the foundations of something new.
Along the way, I leaned heavily into AI-assisted development, not as a crutch, but as a deliberate multiplier. I used it consistently and with intention: to accelerate iteration, increase review throughput, and reduce cognitive load on repetitive tasks, while keeping accountability on correctness and final decisions squarely on my shoulders. It became a core part of how I worked, and I believe it made me a better engineer, not a lazier one.
Beyond the code, Deel taught me things that will stay with me for a long time.
It taught me what real ownership looks like. At Deel, you own your work end-to-end. Not just writing code, but understanding the problem, the business context, the downstream effects, and being accountable for all of it.
It taught me that domain depth matters. You can't build great payroll software by treating it as a generic CRUD application. You need to understand compliance, regulations, business flows, and the real-world consequences of getting things wrong. I learned to bridge code and business, and that skill has become one of the things I value most about my time here.
It taught me the power of documentation as a learning tool. I adopted a documentation-driven approach to understanding complex systems, privately mapping out repositories, building architecture diagrams, writing design documents. It accelerated my own learning and helped me support others when they needed context.
And it taught me self-awareness. I tracked my own work, not for vanity, but as a tool for honest self-assessment. When I didn't finish a project on time, I owned it publicly. When my quality metrics improved, I set a harder target. That habit of looking at my own work with clear eyes is something Deel's culture reinforced, and I'm grateful for it.
Working from Brazil, I often held the fort during LATAM hours when most of the team was offline, supporting payroll operations and helping teammates independently. That experience taught me a quieter kind of reliability: being someone others could count on, even across time zones.
The People
This is the part that matters most.
Sefi, thank you for the trust, the guidance, and the space to grow. You gave me room to find my own way while always being there when I needed direction.
Anton, working alongside you on those intense performance sprints was one of the highlights of my time here. The collaboration was sharp, honest, and effective. I learned a lot from you.
Mauricio, Vitor, Andrei, Andrey, David, Yael, Felipe, Stanislav and to everyone that crossed my path at my time at Deel, each of you contributed to my experience in ways that mattered. Whether it was a code review, a conversation in Slack, a shared debugging session, or just a moment of conversation, it added up. These things always do.
I'm not going to say much about what's next. What I will say is that I'm excited about the road ahead and deeply grateful for the road behind.
Deel gave me almost a year of intense growth, meaningful work, and genuine human connection. I arrived as someone eager to learn, and I'm leaving as someone truly grateful for all the learning and experiences Deel offered me.
If our paths cross again, whether in code, in conversation, or in life, I'll be glad to see you.
Thank you, Deel. It's been a privilege.