Lucio Botteri

I am Lucio Botteri. I am Italian. I come from Naples, Italy. And now I'm a Swift developer.

So my role is an engineer, software engineer in Apple, in Dublin.

And to say this, it's really... I still cannot believe it that I can say this because a very big part of my life I was doing totally something else. I tried different paths, different roles, and at a certain point in my life I really couldn't believe I could become any kind of engineer.

So now being able to work for one of the best company in the world, at least in my opinion, it's something still hard to believe.

My role is to build apps for iPhone, mostly, but also for iPad, macOS, Apple Watch, tvOS. So mostly like any kind of operating system made by Apple.

And my role is to build and maintain the apps also, you know, from the first scratch. So to think about what we want to do, make a lot of questions, a lot, a lot of questions, give a lot of answers and from a lot of answers find one that is the possibly the best one and continue to work on it.

Yeah, I always work in a team where we are... there is the let's say the front-end engineer, which is the engineer that works more close to the final user, so that builds the UI, the interface, the real interface of the app.

There's the back-end engineer that works with the data, to make sure that the correct data is given to the user.

There is the designer that actually builds the design so how the app should look.

And of course there is the manager who manages the whole project and also thinks about us not only as engineers but also as human beings. So making sure that every one of us is happy and works in the correct way, but is also, you know, not too much under pressure. So they're like a shield between us and who wants the job to be done, let's say.

The best thing for me is that I can be creative.

So you know, in my life I always wanted to do something creative. So I started making music, filmmaking, storytelling but I also kinda liked software engineer. So in the end I had to choose a path, but there is always some creativity that I need to bring with me.

And what I really like is that I can find a creative solution for a problem and I can give tools, new tools or better tools to people with some brilliant idea that I can have or I can build a very good idea with the team. I like it when we brainstorm, when we just try to go crazy with ideas in order to diverge and then converge to possibly the better one.

The hardest part of my job, I will say, and of a lot of jobs, it's continuity. Constancy, maybe in English. Sorry, it's not my first language.

So the hardest thing for me is to keep being present and show up always, also when you have a bad day. Of course, you have some days when you are tired, you would like to just rest, or maybe you don't feel creative that day, you know? You don't feel that you would like to go to the office or to go work.

And the hardest thing is to keep presence in the day, to say, like, okay, let's go, one step after the other. Start to put our shoes on, you know, start to walk and then make a good coffee, hear some good music, and go in the flow.

Yeah, that's the other part for me, to understand that when there is, you know, a bad day, it could be actually just a bad morning. So we can still have a good day after.

Or if it's a totally really a bad day, we can always ask for a day off.

Okay, it's very hard to be short on this answer.

But, you know, I tried a lot of stuff. I was into music production, I was into filmmaking.

And at a certain point I was 30 and I was working in London as a barista in a famous coffee company. And so I found myself making coffee all the whole day. And also things like cleaning the toilet in the end of the day.

And I was 30. And so, you know, at that point you think, okay, my life will be this one, or maybe I can improve a little bit.

But I was looking at developers that sit in my coffee shop. I was bringing them coffee and thinking about how I wish to be a developer, but I was sure that every door was closed for me.

I was really wrong. I was really wrong. Because actually now, 10 years later, I'm working in one of the best companies in the world for being a developer.

And of course, there was a path, it was not an easy path. But as soon as I saw that some door could be open, it's all about seeing the path. As soon as you see okay, there is a way to go there, even if it's a very hard way, as soon as you realise okay, there is a possibility.

For me, the door, the possibility was that I saw that the Apple Developer Academy was opening in Italy. So I studied so hard to be admitted in the test, back in 2016, and I did it.

The only regret that I have is that I wish that someone with more experience could speak to me when I was 20 or when I was 18 and say, listen, Lucio, there is a way. If you do this and this, you can do it.

Because at that time I was thinking, you know, you need to be recommended to do this job, you need to be graduated. I'm not graduated. I did the university up to the final exams, but then I stopped because I wanted to do something else. I wanted to go into filmmaking industry. My head was, my mind was, you know, just switching between things.

But it's important that in the end I finally took a decision and I was sure that that will be my future.

My advice is to find what you want to do.

I was thinking find what you're good in or what you're good at. But actually you still don't know what you're good at if you don't try.

So try. Try different path because you're young, you have the time, you have time to fail and try again. And that's very important. But you have to fail, you have to try. Maybe you succeed in the first attempt, and that's brilliant. But every failure is a lesson.

And it's very important to try different paths because one of my favourite quotes of Steve Jobs is you can only connect the dots looking backwards. So you have to put dots in your life, and then you will connect the dots and create a wonderful picture. But you have to put dots.

So in the end, after trying, I don't know, five, six, ten, twenty different things, you will see yourself. You will finally see the way. You will know where you have to go and you will go.

And then in that moment, the only advice that I can give you is just don't look back. Go, you know that is your way. There will be uneasy moments, difficult moments, hard moments, but the road will bring you to the top.