Original subtitles

Hi, my name is Juan.

I'm a visual designer at Google.

I come from the Dominican Republic,

especially from a small town in DR,

where I don't have access to Internet.

My passion for computer and Internet was very, very high,

that every day after

school when I get home, I take my CPU,

and put it on my head,

and walk more or less one mile,

to connect to this small lab,

because this was the only location in

my town where I can get access to Internet.

The first thing that I do when I went to

the lab was open Google Search.com,

and just find tutorial about how to use Photoshop,

how to use the software

that people in that time used for design.

I remember that that was very fun to me.

I am an immigrant, I remember I moved

to United States like 10 years ago,

and I can't find job in design, because first struggle,

I cannot speak English. Even now, probably,

you need to use subtitles to understand me well,

because even now I cannot speak

English very well. But I try.

As immigrants when we come

from our country to United States,

the first idea that we have in mind

is just apply in fast food.

I remember back 10 years ago when I moved to Connecticut,

I went to multiple fast food places,

and I never get a job,

and my first job experience in the United States,

was cleaning toilet in a hotel.

I really loved that job.

I never imagined that, years later,

I'm gonna start my first career in design.

How I get from working for a hotel,

doing housekeeping work, into Google is interesting.

It's a crazy and interesting journey.

I applied to other design studios,

and I learned a lot doing drafts

of rough designs for digital agencies.

And after a couple years working in the industry,

I just studied by myself,

using Google Search to find how you Photoshop,

how you use internet,

how you freehand, and all the design software.

After that, I remember that a friend suggests me,

hey, I think you should work for Google,

you have the potential to work for Google.

But at that time,

I don't believe that I can work for Google,

because I never went to college.

All the design things that I know,

I learned by myself.

He recommends me, I didn't get the job,

I didn't pass the second call from the interview process.

Years later the recruiter contact me

because they think that

I could be a good fit for the company.

I received an email,

"Hello from Google," and that was

really interesting because in the beginning,

I thought that was a spam,

but I decided to open because I'm curious.

When I read the email,

where the recruiter says, "Hey,

we believe that now you

could be a good fit for the company,

and we want to have a call with you.

Do you still want to work for Google?"

Of course, I was very nervous,

I can't believe that I was reading that email,

that Google wants to have a call with me.

I feel very important,

and of course, after 10 minutes,

after I take a deeper breath,

I decide to answer the email,

and I answer, and the recruiter was very humble.

They made me feel important,

they was very friendly with me,

and this interaction made me feel more confident.

Then I move to the second step of the interview,

with a visual designer,

where that person was asking me questions

about how I design,

what is my design process?

They tried to understand how I work.

And the next step was,

"Go to the office,

and have a interview in person with eight people."

That was very intimidating to me, again,

especially that I don't speak

English, but I prepare myself.

I have a problem with my language,

but I know that I was good in

my design, I feel confident with that.

What I did, I did amazing presentation

with a lot of interaction,

because I want to show them all my potential,

and then I received the call that they want to hire me.

I'd really like to share this because

sometimes we don't believe that we can go far, and me,

that I came from a village,

or a small town, in the Caribbean without

Internet access and now working for Google,

is something that made me feel proud.