Discover the story of Inajá Morais, a former lawyer and event producer who now works with artificial intelligence at iFood — and dreams of being CEO of a unicorn
Throughout life, our trajectory is generally divided into three phases: one dedicated to education, another to work and the last to retirement. Inajá Morais, Data Scientist Jr. at iFood, is an example of those people who decided to subvert this order.
The beginning of his professional life until he fit into this pattern. 25 years ago, she graduated in Law, an area in which she worked for a decade, until she lost some of her charm with the profession.
From then on, his life became a succession of professional beginnings and new beginnings, until he started working with artificial intelligence on iFood. Who would have thought that a lawyer would one day career in tech after 40?
Between one profession and another, Inajá was also an event producer and worked as a ceremonialist in Sorocaba (SP), alongside a friend who had graduated with her and who also no longer worked in the area. “We jokingly said: 'Look, if you need it, then you can come back here and we'll do the separation too. There’s no problem, we’re also law professionals”, he laughs.
This partnership lasted a few years, until Inajá decided once again to change areas and became a cultural producer — a profession that she now combines with her work at iFood. “I produced events, clips, making of, commercials and I also joined a theater company, working behind the scenes”, he recalls. Until the pandemic came.
Contest? What nothing!
Physical distancing, concert halls and theaters closed… Work stopped. “I spent my days doing nothing, just on social media looking for something to do. In one of these, I saw an iFood post advertising vacancies to learn about machine learning and artificial intelligence and inviting people to register”, recalls Inajá.
It was a course technological education, O Let's go AI, an iFood program in partnership with Resilia Educação to train low-income people, preferably women and black people, in development backend. Inajá, woman, homosexual and black person, met the requirements — in addition to being interested in computing.
“Actually, when everything stopped, my idea was to take a competition in the area of Law”, he explains. But, as soon as he signed up and passed the preparatory course, another idea seemed more tempting. “I said: 'I'm going to be able to completely change my career in an area in which I have an absurd interest and which I didn't even imagine I could be a part of'. I thought that only people who were very young could understand this kind of thing.”
Inajá says that he is part of the group that had contact with computing “when everything here was bush”. In other words, when the current operating system was MS DOS, monitor screens displayed green characters, television was the main means of communication, cell phones were not even imagined and the internet, dial-up, had a speed that today the 5G achieved in a minimum fraction of time. “I was born analog and today I am completely digital. So I am a hybrid being: analog-digital”, says the Food Lover.
Relearning to learn
When she went to take the course, in 2021, Inajá knew nothing about programming. After six months of studying, starting work and taking refresher courses on the company's teaching platform, today she already knows a lot of things. “My development in 2022 is absurd. When I look back, I see that, a year ago, I was completely different from what I am now”, he says.
Anyone looking from the outside may think that this process of changing areas, almost at the final stage of the work phase of that pattern described at the beginning of the text, was easy. Only not.
“I had to learn how to learn in this new model where everything is online. The last time I had to study was in college, going to the library. At times, I thought I was going to give up”, he confesses.
In addition to adapting to the new way of studying, Inajá lost loved ones to Covid-19. In the same week, she says, 15 friends passed away, all victims of the disease. “The sense of community that exists in the technology area was essential for me not to give up.”
“I’m not afraid to try something new”
Over the course of her almost 47 years (which will be completed on 7/31), Inajá shows that her professional trajectory can indeed go beyond the norm. Education can happen in youth and maturity. Changes in area of activity come at any time.
“I'm not afraid to try something new. I left a super structured area, which is Law, to another uncertain one, which was event production. And then to another even more uncertain one, that of cultural production. Entering the world of technology was one more thing for me to put into my life”, he says.
Inajá was the oldest student at Vamo AI and this, she guarantees, did not affect her integration with colleagues. It didn't even make a difference in his hiring. In fact, perhaps I did, but in favor of diversity.
"I have some skills that perhaps younger people don't have. A worldview that makes a difference when I ask a question for the iFood database. Today we can extract infinite information from data if we ask the right questions. That’s where the data scientist’s skills lie,” he explains.
If Inajá believes that she is at a better level professionally than she was a year ago, she also has the same feeling on the personal side. “It was incredible because it generated an absurd change, in terms of quality of life. Here, I have psychological support, my work is valued and I receive fair pay. With this support, you work much better”, he says.
Not being afraid of new things made Inajá find a new profession, improve her quality of life, discover what and who she really loves (“I discovered I was gay at 38”), open up to people and, now, draw up ambitious plans for the second half of life.
“Imagine in a while you’ll interview me and I’m, I don’t know, surfing?”, he jokes. “At 50 I want to have a unicorn company. How will this happen? We don’t know, but that’s the plan”, plans the data analyst. In fact, she already has a plan, which involves investing in her development, learning and improving her technology skills.
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