Personal website of Fabio Lima, a product-minded full-stack software engineer specializing in .NET and Ruby on Rails. Builder by nature. Software engineer by craft. 2026-06-07T10:00:00-07:00 https://fabiolima.tech Fabio Lima https://fabiolima.tech/blog/building-a-career-as-a-product-minded-engineer/ 2026-06-07T10:00:00-07:00 2026-06-07T10:00:00-07:00 <p>I’m Fabio Lima, and this is the story of how I became a product-minded software engineer — a path that wasn’t exactly a straight line.</p> <h2 id="starting-as-a-builder">Starting as a builder</h2> <p>I’ve been building things since before I knew what software engineering was. In the late 1990s, at age 16, I saw someone working on a spreadsheet in a monochrome terminal and was hooked right there. I wanted to learn to build software that would help people do their work.</p> <p>That’s when I bought my first programming book, on Clipper Summer ‘87. I eventually started learning Linux a couple of years later — the concept of an operating system I could learn from, and open source on top of that, seemed way too interesting to ignore. I also discovered Borland Delphi and decided to learn it — especially for its bundled Interbase database, which was my first contact with a relational database. I went deep into Interbase, active on the forums as it forked into Firebird.</p> <p>By my early twenties, I was setting up Linux servers, configuring Apache and Sendmail, and designing and migrating databases for small businesses in Brazil. I was also founding companies: a cosmetics manufacturer with a franchise model, a wholesale distribution business serving 300 B2B customers. I was writing code when I could, but my title was never “engineer.” It was founder, CTO, IT manager, consultant.</p> <p>I didn’t have a CS degree or a mentor. I had curiosity, a dial-up connection, and a stubborn refusal to give up when something broke.</p> <h2 id="the-product-years">The product years</h2> <p>For fourteen years, I led product at a real estate development company in Fortaleza, Brazil. I managed the full lifecycle of construction projects — from feasibility analysis to launch — with a team of ten. It was during this period that I built my first Ruby on Rails application: an internal contract management system that replaced a tangle of spreadsheets and dramatically improved our team’s efficiency.</p> <p>That project crystallized something for me. I wasn’t just managing products; I was building software that solved real problems. The line between “product person” and “engineer” had blurred.</p> <h2 id="the-pivot">The pivot</h2> <p>In 2016, I moved from Brazil to Vancouver/Canada to study at Capilano University, deepen my understanding of the North American business environment, and improve my English. I had an eye toward making Canada my permanent home, and I eventually did — permanent resident in 2021, Canadian citizen in 2025. I earned a Post-Baccalaureate Diploma in North American Business Management in 2018, complementing my existing MBAs and Master’s degree.</p> <p>The actual career pivot came in 2019, when I joined PressReader — first as a Ruby on Rails engineer at EvidentPoint, then transitioning to .NET Core on the main platform.</p> <h2 id="what-product-minded-means-to-me">What “product-minded” means to me</h2> <p>Being product-minded isn’t about having an MBA (though I have two). It’s not about job titles. It’s about never losing sight of why you’re building something and who it’s for.</p> <p>When I work on a feature, I ask:</p> <ul> <li>What problem does this solve for the user?</li> <li>Is there a simpler way to achieve the same outcome?</li> <li>How do we measure success beyond “it shipped”?</li> </ul> <p>These questions come naturally after spending years on the other side of the table — as the person setting product strategy, managing budgets, and answering to stakeholders.</p> <h2 id="what-comes-next">What comes next</h2> <p>This blog is where I’ll share what I’ve been learning as a full-stack engineer working across .NET and Ruby on Rails. I’ll write about code, architecture, and the product thinking that connects them.</p> <p>If you’re another engineer who came to this career through an unconventional path, or if you’re curious about bridging the gap between technical and product thinking, I’d love to connect.</p> <p><em>— Fabio Lima</em></p>