Get to know JuanaMelo, Sophos Technical Account Manager, Sophos Community contributor, and creator of JhMelo Tech (https://www.jhmelo.com/)

Hi Juana!

A bit of background...

Hi, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your role at Sophos?

I am an active person who loves outdoor activities, born in Brazil, and I immigrated to Canada in 2016. I am currently working as a technical account manager, mainly dealing with platinum Partners and Enterprise account in LATAM and North America.

What’s the story of your career so far? How did you get to where you are now?

I started my career in Brazil in 2010, as a service desk engineer, providing IT support to users of the Brazilian Federal Police, and was from this first experiencing  I realized that passionate I was about working with the security network. I went to college in the same period to study System Analysis with a major in Networking, which was a pretty challenging time, since I worked during the day and studies at night. It was tough, but at the same time was very rewarding every milestone achieved along the way.

I had the opportunity in the very earlier stage of my career to working in a cybersecurity multivendor reseller, where I had the chance to be exposed to many technologies, and deal with enterprise customers and either from the private and public sector. I have acquired a lot of experience with support, professional services, deployment projects all related to gateway security products.

All this experience made me very diligent to deal with customer needs, which made drive me to the role of Technical account manager. In 2016 I decided to pursue a new challenge in my life, was then when I move to Canada, coming with my background experiencing from y home country, I joined to Sophos initially as a technical support engineer, eventually moving to the escalation team, and currently working as Technical Account manager.

What first inspired you to get into IT and security?

I always had the curiosity to understand how this works, especially when it comes to technology and the aspect of security, and noticed that very few females were in this field, and this inspired me to break out even further.

What do you enjoy most about your role?

I like to interact with customers and partners and be part of the discussion of many different complex scenarios, every day I deal with a different challenge.

What’s something you’ve done during your time in the company that you’re proud of?

I am very proud that I had the chance to contribute to the LATAM training at the earliest stage of the operation, as well as to be part of the pod system mentoring L1 engineers.

Describe a typical day in your Sophos life.

My typical Sophos Life is pretty much being in Zoom meeting with customers, do some lab experiments to help the customer, and satisfy my curiosity, and chatting and laughing with my Sophos colleagues, these days mainly through Teams.

What’s the best advice you can give to someone who has just started their career?

The advice I give for those who are starting out, try to exercise your self-thought ability and self-learning, explore things on your own while the opportunities don't come. Do not wait for a job to acquire experience, build your own lab experiments, break, and fix, fail and learn from it. This way you will have a better chance to get good jobs and be remarkable right off the bat.

What would you do (for a career) if you were not doing this?

Even as an employee, I always had an entrepreneur mindset. I think I would be a proud owner of some sort of online business in the food industry or maybe security consultant.

On the Sophos Community...

What’s a fun fact about you that you could share to the community?

I love the idea of Jeep Overlanding and 4x4 adventures, although I have never been in one!

Have you posted any Recommended Read guides on the Community?

Yes. I have posted a couple of them.

• https://community.sophos.com/sophos-xg-firewall/f/recommended-reads/126817/troubleshoot-wmi-connectivity-issue-with-sophos-stas
• https://community.sophos.com/sophos-xg-firewall/f/recommended-reads/124025/how-to-set-a-site-to-site-ipsec-vpn-between-sophos-xg-and-teltonik
• https://community.sophos.com/sophos-xg-firewall/f/recommended-reads/124021/red-a-split-network-may-never-be-in-the-same-network-as-the-uplink-on-the-red-side
• https://community.sophos.com/sophos-xg-firewall/f/recommended-reads/117036/sophos-xg-case-study-how-to-troubleshoot-ipsec-vpn-with-multiples-sa-s-when-one-sa-goes-down-while-the-other-remains-active
• https://community.sophos.com/utm-firewall/f/recommended-reads/117205/sophos-utm-case-study-slow-internet-traffic-due-to-tcp-window-scaling-turned-off

Last few things...

What are your hobbies outside of work?

I love outdoor activities and hangout with friend around music and BBQ. Walking earlier morning listening relax music.

What’s one thing you’re really bad at?

Although I love to travel, I'm a terrible trip planner or even weekend getaways.

What’s one thing you’re really good at?

Cooking.

Three words to describe you.

Generous, persistent, and caring.

Do you have any secret talents?

I’m very good at connecting with people.

Tell us about where you live (and your journey getting there - if applicable).

I am living in Vancouver Canada, right in the heart of the city, downtown. For me, living in this city is a dream that came true, as I always wanted in living in a place surrounded by beautiful mountains.

What’s your favorite thing about where you live?

I like the variety of options for outdoor activities, and the fact that the city is so well prepared for cyclists and electric scooter enthusiasts like myself.

What’s your favorite restaurant/hang-out where you live?

My favorite place actually is to gather all my friends in my house for a BBQ and play music.

Any tips or interesting facts to share to people who want to visit?

I love being around people who don't have any judgment or any kind of prejudice against any race/ethnicity, belief, or even music style, etc...People who are willing to share their knowledge, with the sole purpose of helping others to grow, and not bragging about themselves.

Who’s your favorite artist?

I love any expression of art, and I don't have any specific artists since I appreciate so many flavors of art, every moment of my life some art expression had special meaning, because of this would be unfair to name only one.

Name 1 person living or dead – who would you have dinner with?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

You can also check out JuanaMelo's cybersecurity website, JhMelo Tech here.

Got questions for Juana? Say hi and connect here in the Sophos Community!