Atlassian Support Engineer Rodrigo Martinez on why ACE's are the best place to start speaking

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Hi, Speaker Bench!

I'm excited to continue our Atlassian Speaker Bench series with my colleague @Rodrigo Martinez, whom you may know from posts in our community, such as Be gentle and kind to your users, and JAUS - Jira Admin Userscripts.

I'm excited for him to share how his path to the Atlassian Universe began with a gleam and how he uses his experience to live out Be the Change you Seek.

Hi Rodrigo! Tell us about yourself in a few sentences.

• I was born in Brazil on '82 and used to play D&D with my friends on the emergency stairways during class-breaks at school. 😂
• I graduated in Computer Science in '04 and worked as a developer (Java), then acted as Scrum Master, Release Coordinator then as Product Owner. On '15 I moved to another company and became an Atlassian Admin and it was wonderful. I was so excited to come up with solutions and easily implement them that I decided to focus on the “Atlassian universe” for my career.
• My hobbies include Scuba Diving (PADI Divemaster), drawing and playing games on the PC — RPG being my favorite, still. I started practicing bow shooting but moved to a town that does’t have an archery school. I’m very proficient at starting things and never finishing them. If procrastination was a thing, I’d have an extensive collection of trophies on it. 😛

What do you do at Atlassian? What has your path been into this role, and how do you use public speaking skills in your role?

I’m a Premier Support Engineer for Jira DC. I switched to the career of Support Engineer to work here! I now have the habit of providing screen-shares whenever possible and always keep my camera on. It helps to establish rapport to customers.

Have you always been good at public speaking or speaking in front of groups? Why or why not?

Yes, since I was a kid I liked presenting stuff to the classroom. Over the years a bit of anxiety and insecurity built up but the willingness to share is greater than them.

What are some experiences or roles you’ve had that have helped you grow in public speaking?

I acted as ITIL Release Coordinator when I was a developer and then as Product Owner. I always liked to explain the improvements we were doing to a broader audience. I liked participating in the Change Advisory Boards because it encouraged me to understand how the changes we were working on impacted the company and explain it all to people outside our context.

You recently spoke on user scripts at an Atlassian Community Event (ACE) in São Paulo. How did you get connected, and how did you prepare your topic for this talk?

I used to be a Leader on that User Group and know the current Leaders. The talk was very hands-on so I built some examples to show.

(View more at Augumented Browsing with Userscripts for POC, MVP, and beyond! and JAUS - Jira Admin Userscripts.)

Do you have any tips for those intimidated to speak at an ACE event?

Imagine there’s a couple of people who are new to the topic and are very excited to learn it from you. This helps me keep uplifted during the whole talk. Also, ACEs are full of people who either like Atlassian or the products, so you’re in a “familiar environment”.

Also, if you keep to your heart that you’re simply sharing what you’ve learned or came up with, it makes everything simpler and fluid. You don’t have to be an absolute expert at the topic you’re presenting — what matters is that you’re sharing the little you know!

What do you love about working at Atlassian? How has this influenced how you share knowledge, your drive, and passion at work? (e.g. KCS, values, etc?)

To me it’s all about the values and how they’re really lived up to day-by-day. This motivates me to contribute more. I was also a big fan of Atlassian and Jira before joining!

Do you have any speaking goals?

To keep sharing. It’s a great feeling when people reach out to you later to show something they did after learning from your talk!

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Thanks, Rodrigo! You can connect with him on LinkedIn, or leave your questions for him in the comments! 👇🏼

Interested in Userscripts? Check out JAUS - Jira Admin Userscripts and Augumented Browsing with Userscripts for POC, MVP, and beyond!

Inspired to speak at an Atlassian Community Event (ACE)? Connect with a local ACE to speak for our most enthusiasic and welcoming users, and you'll be entered into our monthly Speaker Bench challenge where you can win a ring light and mic Speaker Kit to help you prep for your talk 🙌🏼

[Patrícia Fortunato Montenegro]

It's fantastic, @Sharon Tan!

Nice to see my colleague contributing even more here. Great job, guys!

Have a lovely day! 🤩 🙏🏽

[Krishnakumar Kesavan]

Thank you for the awesome update @Sharon Tan