3 November 2025 was my first day at Mercado Libre. A few weeks earlier I had done the first job interview of my life, and I want to write down how it felt before memory turns it into something more heroic than it was.
Two interviews, no prior reference
The process was shorter than I feared. The first interview mixed two things: getting to know me as a person and asking technical questions and questions about my school projects. I talked about Data Sources, databases and what I had done at DataLab. The second was with the person who would then be one of my managers; today, after a change of area, I stayed with my current manager, Diego.
What I did not know at the time is that I was competing with other candidates from ITAM, UNAM and Tec. Learning that afterwards helped me understand that, if they chose me, it was for something concrete and not luck.
The nerves
I was very nervous. I had no reference for what an interview looks like from the inside: whether to talk a lot or a little, whether saying “I don’t know” is fine, whether asking questions signals interest or insecurity. What saved me was talking about things I had actually done. Whenever the conversation reached a real project the nerves dropped by themselves, because there was no role to play there.
What I would do differently
- Prepare three short project stories, each with a problem, a decision and a result. That is what gets asked in the end, however it is phrased.
- Say “I don’t know, but here is how I would find out” instead of circling the question.
- Ask about the team and the day-to-day. Today I work remotely with people in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, in Spanish, and I would have liked to know that earlier.
What I take with me
That the first interview of your life is won beforehand, by doing things you can talk about. And that nerves do not disappear: they become manageable when you have something true to tell.