Teo Dawn Join us on a captivating journey as we talk with Teo Dawn, a 21-year-old Salesforce developer from the Yucatan, about his experiences. Teo recalls his early days with computers, being inspired by his older brother to pursue a career in software engineering, and how he won a scholarship through Rafael Hernandez’s nonprofit organization. Continuing his story, Teo shares his path to becoming a certified Salesforce developer. 

Listen as he delves into his Unity project, presented at Forcelandia, and his current internship experiences. In our chat with Teo, he also reveals his passion for music and how it has assisted him in his development career. He emphasizes the value of his piano skills in communicating tech topics to others, providing an unexpected bridge between the arts and technology. Make sure to tune in and discover more about Teo’s journey in the Salesforce world and beyond!

Show Highlights:

  • Teo’s journey from a childhood fascination with computers to becoming a Salesforce developer, including his scholarship from a nonprofit organization.
  • The guidance Teo received from his mentor Dr. Edgar Cambranes and the support from his brother.
  • Teo’s passion for piano and how it helped him bridge the gap between arts and technology, as well as communicate tech topics to others.
  • Teo’s current internship experiences and his future plans in the field of Salesforce development.

Links:

Episode Transcript

Teo Dawn:
“Okay, maybe it’s going to be an opportunity to learn.” I just went there and I started learning the basics about Salesforce. And then, Rafael has his nonprofit organization, which gives scholarships. I say, “Okay, I really would like to try that.”

Josh Birk:
That is Teo Dawn, a 21-year-old Salesforce developer down at the Yucatán. I’m Josh Birk, your host of the Salesforce Developer Podcast. Here on the podcast, you’ll hear stories and insights from developers for developers. Today, we sit down and talk with Teo. Now, if you’re a longtime listener of the show, you may be familiar with our past episodes with Angela Mahoney and Rafael Hernandez and talking about the work that they do down in Mexico. Well, Teo is one of the recipients of that program, and so we’re going to go through his story. But we are going to start, as we often do, with his early years.
What is your earliest memory with a computer?

Teo Dawn:
That’s a good question, and I have a really good one. I have not all my life been a computer person or a tech person, but I remember that when I was eight years old, I have three brothers. I mean, two brothers and a sister. We had back then this big, white monitor and these white box computers that were really old. Back then, I remember being with my brother and he told me something like, “Hey, check this out.” When I hear that, being a child, I’d say, “Well, maybe he’s telling me, ‘Do something with the computer.'”
So I make this noise like [inaudible 00:01:44]. Making that noise, it’s my first memory that I have with a computer. Because I don’t know, in my head, in my child head, I thought, “Okay, maybe I have to tell this to a computer.” I don’t know what I thought, but I thought I was making some kind of calculations or something like that. Yeah, that’s my very first memory.

Josh Birk:
Right. I love that. That’s awesome. Well, when did you start going from that, I’m not even going to try to make that sound, but when you go from the [inaudible 00:02:17] to wanting to get into software engineering and thinking it might be a career?

Teo Dawn:
Yeah, it was during the pandemic. In high school, I had subjects more related to biologics, chemistry, because maybe there was the possibility for me to become a doctor, a medical career or something like that. But there was many economic troubles that were pressing in my family. So I started considering, I was also really interested in music. I studied music for seven years, but I could not afford a career in music and classical music. My brother started talking with me and my mom and told me, “Hey, why don’t you just go into software engineering? You’re good at school, so maybe it’s going to be good for you. It’s affordable. You just need a computer.” I started thinking that maybe, yeah, that was the best option for me.
I was really scared at first because I didn’t know almost anything about computers. I couldn’t differentiate hardware and software. That’s something really basic and I didn’t know about that. Yeah, I also was scared about mathematics. My brother told me, “Nah, you’re going to be okay. I know you can handle this.” I say, “Okay, I’m going to try it.” I went into the university and I enrolled in this career. Yeah.

Josh Birk:
I love that. I’m assuming this is your older brother?

Teo Dawn:
Yeah. Yeah, it’s my older brother.

Josh Birk:
Yeah. Because that sounds like older-brother style advice. Like, “Nah, nah, nah, nah. Nah, not mathematics.”

Teo Dawn:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly how it was.

Josh Birk:
When did you first get introduced to the program that Raf, Angela, and Larry helped run?

Teo Dawn:
When I entered the university, I was in my first year and I heard about something that’s called Salesforce. It was something organized by the admin group here at Mérida. I knew that there was Rafael Hernandez, who is my current mentor, and he also have these classes about Salesforce here in the university. I saw that there was going to be, I don’t know, a challenge in something called Trailhead. I say, “Okay, maybe it’s going to be an opportunity to learn.” I just went there and I started learning the basics about Salesforce.
And then, Rafael has his nonprofit organization, which gives scholarships. I say, “Okay, I really would like to try that.” I enroll, I make my applications for his scholarship. At that time, I really needed it because it was the pandemic time, so we were struggling a little bit with buying stuff for the house. There was really stormy rains here at Yucatán, so we had to fix a lot of things here in the house. I say, “Yeah, this is going to help me a lot,” so I just send my application. I had to make a video for entering the scholarship.
After a month or so, Rafael sent me an email and he told me, “Hey, you’re in. Congratulations.” I was really happy. At that time, I also didn’t know much about Salesforce. But then, Rafael told me at half year, because this scholarship is for one year, so half year through, he told me, “Hey, what if I give you this course? It’s for the Platform Developer I certification.” Back then, I was in a job making Python scripts or web-related stuff with Python. I started to see that I was not going to be really happy with that path.
When I hear that Rafael told me this, I say just, “Okay. Yeah, give me that course and I will try to finish it.” And then, at that point, it’s when everything begin. He just sent me that message one day and I say, “Yeah, let’s try it,” and yeah, that happened.

Josh Birk:
Nice. Nice.

Teo Dawn:
After that, I met Angela and Larry at one of the end courses. Because at the end of each semester, they make this call, the graduation of the Salesforce groups. So then, I meet Angela and Larry, but it was because I started going into Salesforce.

Josh Birk:
Got it. For the uninitiated, that’s Angela Mahoney and Larry Latimer. We’ve had Rafael on the show. We’ve had Angela on the show. We’re trying to get Larry on the show. Larry, if you’re listening to this, there’s probably something in your inbox from me.
Anyway, I remember from my interview with Rafael and my conversations with him that he wants this to be a broad education. What kind of skills outside of Salesforce were you focusing on at this time?

Teo Dawn:
What kind of skills out Salesforce? Like soft skills or something like that?

Josh Birk:
Yeah, like soft skills.

Teo Dawn:
Yeah, I really-

Josh Birk:
Like presentation skills, interview skills, that kind of stuff.

Teo Dawn:
Yeah, I keep developing those skills. I would say that when I go into his scholarship, there was this thing about reading a book each month. The books were in English, so I also see as an opportunity to develop more of my English skills. So I say, “That’s cool. That’s going to help me.” Each month, we had to read a book, make a presentation about the book, what we understood, the key points of the book. How is this going to help us through our life? There were many books. For example, managing your time, talking with people, managing your soft skills about getting the things done, sales, organizing your time. Things like that.
Yeah, I would say that I learned a lot about that. I also learned a lot about managing my time because before, I was really messy. When I met Rafael, I remember that the first time, literally the meeting, the first meeting, and I get late to that meeting. He told me, “Hey, what happened there?” I was like, “Damn it, what did I just do?” Yeah, I started trying to work on myself, on those things. Those are skills that I keep developing, but I think I have had a great advance on those.

Josh Birk:
Well, I’m going to put a footnote in here because you are, and you’re going to be episode 192 or something like that, and you’re the first guest I’ve ever had to request to record on a weekend. Because you are a quarterback in your weekdays so well. Yes, congratulations. I think you’re doing very good on the time management side of things.
How would you describe your English before you started getting into college and this program?

Teo Dawn:
I was 14, maybe 13 and 15, and my mother really wanted me to start learning English. She enrolled me into this course, I don’t remember the school name, but yeah. Then, I started to learn English. But I was a teenager so I maybe didn’t get that much importance to it, I would say. I was good, but I wasn’t the best ones. But after the pandemic, I started to see that all my English skills were maybe rusty. Also, I take English in my high school. But I think that helped me a lot because I was already embracing a lot of things.
I knew a lot of expressions. I knew a lot about how to talk, giving answers, things like that. When I entered university, I started seeing that everything was in English. I just went to YouTube for maybe a course on programming and everything was in English, or at least some of the best courses was in English, so I started hearing a lot other people. Before that, I didn’t have skills for understanding what the people were saying.
After going into university, I would say that all these skills got really … I don’t know how to say it, but I really developed other level, knowing by heart all these things. Yeah, I would say I improved a lot of my English. Before that, I could not even talk like this with a person or taking a conversation, a normal conversation with someone else. Yeah, I would say that going into that scholarship helped me a lot.

Josh Birk:
Nice. Well, I got to say, your English is [Spanish 00:11:23]. It’s very, very good. I think a lot of us lost some of our language skills during the pandemic, so not entirely shocked there.
What are some of the things that you like about developing on Salesforce, on the Salesforce platform?

Teo Dawn:
Yeah. Before going into Salesforce, I learned a lot of things. And when I entered Salesforce, I realized that all these skills that I had developed through one year-and-a-half when going into university, I was also going to use them. I started seeing things related to other languages inside Salesforce, and I really liked that because I didn’t have to learn all from the beginning. I started seeing things that I really like about Salesforce, for example, having the queues in Apex.
I say, “Hey, I have never used a queue before in a program because I haven’t had the opportunity to do it.” But seeing fully an already finished program that you could just start using in the Salesforce CRM? Having that opportunity gives you a lot of ideas about, how could you implement things that you already know and things that you might apply in the future? Yeah, that’s one of the things that I really like about it.
Also seeing, for example, in the part of programming, the line web components, I started seeing that it’s already based on web standards. I knew that things that I learned about, for example, React frameworks or UI was going to use it inside Salesforce, and I really liked that it was based on web standards. Everything that I had done there, everything that I knew back, well, I was going to use it.
Also, one of the things that I like about Salesforce is the fact that it’s a ready-to-use platform. I started thinking a lot about those requirements that they were trying to aim. I see the Salesforce platform like it’s built on top of all these requirements about what should be a CRM. I really like to work on something that it’s built, or I really like to think about reverse engineering.
I really like to think about, “Hey, how did they do this,” or, “Why did they took this decision to do it in this way?” Yeah, there are those things that I really like much about this platform.

Josh Birk:
Nice. Nice. Now, at 21, you already have how many certificates?

Teo Dawn:
Four. Four certificates.

Josh Birk:
Which four do you have?

Teo Dawn:
I have the Associate one. I have the Platform Developer I, the JavaScript, and the Platform Developer II.

Josh Birk:
Platform Developer II? Congratulations.

Teo Dawn:
Thank you.

Josh Birk:
What was it like preparing for those?

Teo Dawn:
Yeah. I think for me, the hardest one was the first one. Maybe for many people it’s not so. But it was because, well, as I already told you, Rafael told me, “Hey, why don’t you go for these certificates?” I say, “Yeah, let’s do it.” I started learning from this course. And then, I realized that I already knew things about the platform, but I had to learn really well those things about the platform. Getting to know, for example, the Flow Builder, it was also this time where there was being changes. For example, what’s this called? The Process Builder was going to be take out of the platform, so I had to learn a little bit about this. But I also knew that it wasn’t going to be used anymore, so it was difficult to choose.
I mainly decided to focus on those things that I knew was going to be used in the platform. It was really hard because there was a lot of topics. I get a good grade, but I would say that I also was get lucky on some questions. There was experience that helped me to try figuring out what could be the answer for some questions, so I would say that helped me a lot. Yeah, I would say that one was the hardest one. After that, as I already told you, for example, the JavaScript one, I already knew things about JavaScript. I had already worked with Python. So things like decorators, this kind of stuff, I would say those are topics that you would just use in certain cases, or maybe it’s already built in. yeah, I already knew those things when I get to the JavaScript one. I was like, “Okay, I just have to learn almost just the syntax for getting this one.” I did that and I get the JavaScript one.
The Platform Developer II, this one, it was hard. I made a lot of notes about it. Even, I think I have here my notebook and it’s completely full of annotations. I make drawings about it so I could understand. Yeah, I have maybe all the Trailhead things related to all the matters in Trailhead, but in my notebook. Yeah, that’s one difficult. I really like those topics a lot. For example, Apex, doing these kind of things. Yeah.

Josh Birk:
Yeah. Yeah, PD2 is a big mountain to climb. Do you have a cert in your sites right now, or are you taking a break? Are you taking a rest?

Teo Dawn:
I don’t know. Maybe I will take a break. But after I get the Platform Developer II, I was like, “Oh, I want more. I want more certifications.” But I think yeah, maybe I just have to calm down a little bit.

Josh Birk:
Nice. Nice.

Teo Dawn:
I don’t know, maybe Platform Builder or something like that would be good. Yeah.

Josh Birk:
Gotcha. Now, how active is the Salesforce community in the Yucatán?

Teo Dawn:
I will say it’s really active. Really, really active. I don’t have reference from other places, but I would say that it’s not a community that you see often in making questions in Trailhead or something like that. Maybe I started doing more of these by myself, but I see, for example, in those graduations that they call at the end of each semester, that always a lot of people goes there. I would say 100, maybe more.
I don’t know if there has been 200 people. At least, here in Yucatán, well, everyone likes to take their family to those things. Maybe if they don’t even know what Salesforce is, they will go. Yeah, they will take their grandmother. I remember that in my class, in my social class, there was a guy asking, “Hey, can I take my grandmother and my mother and my uncle?”

Josh Birk:
Oh my gosh. That’s awesome.

Teo Dawn:
Yeah, that’s good, I would say.

Josh Birk:
That is a special characteristic, I think. First of all, over 50 is usually large for a developer group. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s something like that, but that’s the first I’ve heard of a Salesforce user group being turned into a family occasion. That’s awesome.
Now, the first time we met was at Forcelandia in Portland. What was it like to prep for that trip?

Teo Dawn:
It was my first time going out of Mexico. I think it was also my second time in a plane, so I was scared. I was really scared about it. There’s always this feeling that’s in your head that tells you, “Hey, what if something happens?” I started talking with my parents, “I don’t know, I am not sure if I should be going so far away.” But yeah, my brother told me … I will mention my brother a lot here, who tell me, “Nah, you will be okay. Once you are there, you won’t want to get back here.” It was like a month-and-a-half thing because I didn’t have my visa. There was a lot of support from part of the university, from part of also one of my mentors, Dr. Edgar Cambranes.
He’s from here, at the university. He’s one of my teachers. Also, he helped me a lot. He told me a lot of advices of what could I do in the airport, what I was going to do when I get to Houston. Because I had to go first to Houston and then, take the flight to Portland. Yeah, they helped me a lot. They helped me a lot giving me the documents for showings into my visa to say, “Hey, I’m going to go to Forcelandia. It’s a Salesforce conference.” They will give me my visa. The planes, explained me everything, so it was really nice, I would say. I really like it.

Josh Birk:
I have to say, layovers suck. I always hate it myself when it’s not nonstop. Of course, international, it’s almost never nonstop. Yes, I can definitely see where that anxiety would be coming from.

Teo Dawn:
Yeah. And when-

Josh Birk:
Now, at Forcelandia … Yeah, go.

Teo Dawn:
No, sorry. Just to mention, when I was at the airport, it was a delay of two hours. So I go through all the airport in Houston. So I would say I know all the airport, but yeah, it was cool because I was getting just …

Josh Birk:
Nice. Nice. Now, at Forcelandia, you presented with Rafael a project that you were doing with VR in Unity. Tell me a little bit about the project itself. What were your goals there?

Teo Dawn:
Yeah. Once they told me that I had won the Grand Travel to go Forcelandia, Rafael told me, “Hey, we have this project.” It’s also just a proof of concept, but maybe I could start helping us because there was also this guy. It’s Christopher. It’s currently in the Hernandez Scholarship. He was working also. He had experience in Unity, so he helped me to put Unity in my computer because I had never used Unity before. But I had experienced Java and also building UI, so it was similar.
I started talking with Christopher. We talk about concentrate or just to try to do certain things or certain things really well. We think about, “Hey, why don’t we just take the avatar in here? We are going to show this information. Maybe this is going to work for maybe something larger one day.” I also try to do really well the design of the application. Our goals there was just to see what we can actually do with Unity. What information could we bring from Salesforce? What integrations could we use?
I also asked myself, is this actually going to be fun to use? I really was trying to do something good, I would say. Yeah, I really would have loved to keep working on that. Maybe we could do something with Rafael and some of the guys of the next scholarships in Hernandez, or maybe just continue with the project. Because it’s really nice. I think you learn a lot. You learn about Salesforce, you learn about things out of Salesforce, so it was really good. I think also, Christopher learned a lot.

Josh Birk:
Nice. Very nice. Now, speaking of your fear of travel, do you have any trips in the near future you’re planning? Are we going to see you at Dreamforce or at Forcelandia next year?

Teo Dawn:
I don’t know yet. I would love to go, yeah. But yeah, I don’t know yet. Maybe I have one year I have to go to finish the university, so maybe I’m just planning to finish university. I’m currently working in a Salesforce role, so I would like to develop a little bit more of my skills. Maybe I would love to maybe organize myself to go to Forcelandia again. I really would like to go to Forcelandia again, for sure.

Josh Birk:
It’s a very, very fun conference. Tell me a little bit about life right now. How is the current internship going?

Teo Dawn:
Oh, yeah. My current internship? It’s going really well. I have learned a lot of things. I have seen how they do the workflow through GitHub. I’m also doing a little bit of everything, I would say. I’m getting into Apex a little bit, a little bit into web components, making documentation. I would say that this was one of the things that I was looking for, for maybe a couple of months. I really wanted to get a hands-on project, try to learn about how they do the things. Because when you’re working with several people, there’s always some problems that start happening. Maybe you didn’t see or maybe you didn’t expect that problem to occur, but then there is, and you have to solve that. I would say that I am learning a lot about this.
There was a lot of knowledge that wasn’t being used, or it was knowledge that it was just getting rusty, so I really like to just do things. When Rafael told me about the project, that it was going to be shown in Forcelandia, I was like, “Yeah, let’s do it. It doesn’t matter if I have no experience in Unity, I will learn, or in C#.” Because I really wanted to do something like that.

Josh Birk:
Right. Nice.

Teo Dawn:
Yeah.

Josh Birk:
Now, Teo, I think you’ve got a great future ahead of you at your age. I don’t even think I thought about certificates and things like that. I was just happy to be able to code something. If somebody is young and has an interest in maybe getting into computers, and again, no wrong answers here, but do you have any piece of advice that you would give them based on your experience?

Teo Dawn:
Yeah, I have. It’s always really difficult to understand some technologies. For example, the first time someone talked to me about a thing called a server, I didn’t know it was just another computer, or a really powerful computer somewhere else. I didn’t knew a lot of these things. I always try to explain to people, I would say that the best option is to get to know someone else that is really good at explaining certain topics. I have always liked to try to divide a lot the problem into really minimal stuff and going there.
I really like to explain to people, for example, Git and GitHub, because it was something that it was so difficult for me at the first time I saw it. I remember seeing Git and when you change a branch in Git, your files change also and you can see it. I was like, “What? Who did this? This is so genius.” I would say that getting someone that talks, just talk a lot with the people, talk a lot with people that you can see when someone is good at explaining certain things. Not everyone is good at explaining everything, so I would say talk with a lot of people. Have a mentor. That helps a lot, I would say. Yeah.

Josh Birk:
That’s our show. Now, before we go, I did ask after Teo’s favorite nontechnical hobby. Well, as he mentioned early in the episode, it’s something he’s had a passion about for some time.

Teo Dawn:
Yeah, I mentioned you before that I studied piano. I studied piano for seven years. I play the piano now. In fact, I upload some videos to YouTube a week ago, just my improvisations in the piano. That’s my favorite thing in the world. I just love to play piano. For many years, I think about being a classical professional pianist. Currently, I am not into that part, but I really like to just go play the music. I really like to make improvisations. I really like to talk with people about music.
I think the music also helped me a lot because when I talk with people, I like to explain things about tech things. A lot about explaining things also is things that I also learned by just learning piano or playing piano. I know that, for example, giving analogies to people helps a lot, things like that. Yeah, that’s my favorite hobby.

Josh Birk:
I want to thank Teo for the great conversation and information. And as always, I want to thank you for listening. Now, if you want to learn more about the show, head on over to developer.salesforce.com/podcast where you can hear old episodes, see the show notes, and links to your favorite podcast service. Thanks, again, everybody, and we will talk to you next week.

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