Tiago Sampaio

main ai engineering career

$ git log --reverse --author=“Tiago Sampaio” --stat

Hi, I’m Tiago. A kid from Carapicuíba who bet his career on Magento in 2009.

Today I lead Magento and Adobe Commerce projects for a US agency, working from Brazil. Getting here took a scholarship, a very buggy first online store, one disastrous interview and a lot of English.

This is that story, oldest commit first. If you’re a developer wondering whether a career like this is possible from where you are, I wrote it with you in mind.

Read my story
Get in touch

author.png

HEAD -> main

Tiago Sampaio

Tiago SampaioAdobe Commerce & Magento 2 Expert

At a glance

  • magento.since15+ years building software
  • certificationsACE + CeligoAdobe Certified Expert and Celigo Builder Core, plus Magento MFD · MCD · MCD Plus
  • tech.leadSaraivaOne of the biggest Magento projects in the world
  • role.todayLead Developerat Classy Llama, a US Magento agency
  • homeFather & husbandThe reason I keep going

git log --reverse

The story, in nine commits

Every career has an initial commit. Mine starts with a sentence I believed for years.

ch.01 · rootoriginCarapicuíba, BR

Where I come from

I grew up in Carapicuíba, in São Paulo, in a poor and humble family. It’s the kind of place where you learn to be practical early, and where I picked up a sentence that followed me for years: dreams are for the lucky ones.

The first crack in it came right after high school. I got a scholarship and became the first person in my entire family to go to college. Not the first in my house. The first, period.

There was one more thing that didn’t fit the script. Since I was a kid I translated songs and random phrases into English, just for fun. Other kids had hobbies; I had a dictionary. And quietly I had a dream that sounded ridiculous even inside my own head: working internationally, maybe even for a company in the United States.

I didn’t know it yet, but that hobby was training the most important skill of my career.

commit init: dreams aren’t only for the lucky ones

ch.02thesis2005 → 2008

The thesis bet

I studied Business Administration while working at Tech Data, not exactly the classic road into software. In my final year I still had no thesis topic, so I made a bold offer to a friend: I’d build him an online store in exchange for using it as my case study.

He said yes. Only then did it hit me that I knew nothing about the web. No HTML, no CSS, no JavaScript. That weekend I found a book on e-commerce with ASP and HTML, and I wrote the whole store by hand, page by page. Four months and a lot of lost hair later, it was ready.

“It was unbelievable. It was… honestly, a pile of crap.”

I almost gave up. Instead I fixed enough bugs to convince the professors on the panel, and I learned the two things I still rely on: you can learn anything when someone is waiting for the result, and shipping something imperfect beats never shipping at all.

commit fix: enough bugs to convince the panel

ch.03magento →

Choosing Magento

Right after graduating, in 2009, I found Magento and chose it. I couldn’t stop thinking about that ASP store: with Magento, four months of hard work on a basic app would have been one lighter month on a far better project. More hair, too.

There was one problem. There was no official Magento documentation back then, so I learned from blogs written abroad, in English, reading, testing and breaking things. The kid with the dictionary finally had a use for it. My Magento and my English grew up together.

I started as a freelancer, and by late 2011 Magento was my full-time job. Around 2012 I started this blog, in Portuguese, and people started getting to know me. Between 2012 and 2013 I earned three Magento certifications. For the first time, the sentence sounded a little less true.

Magento Certified Front End Developer badge Magento Certified Developer badge Magento Certified Developer Plus badge
3 × Magento 1 certified

commit feat: pick one platform and go deep

ch.04 · tagsaraiva →

git tag -a v3.0 · chapter 4 · the big one

v3.0 — Saraiva

At e-smart, the main Magento partner in Latin America, I grew from developer to the person leading its Magento team. Then came the project that changed the scale of everything.

case-study/saraiva.md

tag: v3.0

Technical Leader · Magento · at e-smart

Livraria Saraiva: one of the biggest Magento projects in the world

Big in every way that hurts: traffic, catalogue, customers, sales per hour. I was the Technical Leader of the Magento project.

Seven months of hard work. Delivered on time, with every requirement.

git show --stat

  • Led the development team
  • Owned the sales-rule and performance customisations
  • Worked directly with the Magento engineers who came to Brazil

duration7 months

deadlineOn time

requirementsAll of them

stageImagine

Presented at Magento Imagine in Las Vegas as the biggest Magento case of the year.

git show saraiva --full

Saraiva was one of the largest Magento stores anywhere: huge traffic, a huge catalogue and a lot of sales every hour. My job was to lead the team that built it and to own the hardest customisations, the sales rules and the performance work that kept the store standing under that load.

Magento’s own engineers came to Brazil and we worked side by side. Seven months later we shipped on time, with every requirement in place, and the project went on stage at Imagine.

Read the full story: Livraria Saraiva on Magento, the project that changed my career

Standing behind a project presented on a stage in Las Vegas, I stopped asking whether I was good enough for this work. If you’re wondering where my obsession with performance and promotion logic comes from: now you know.

commit perf: ship the big one, on time

ch.05teach & scale →

Teaching what I learned

I had learned Magento from strangers on the internet who took the time to write things down. It felt only fair to become one of them.

In 2015 I launched Curso Magento, video lessons on professional Magento development, including preparation for the exams I had sweated through myself. In 2016 I released API Plus as open source, and founded my own company, MagedIn Technology, which still runs today.

Meanwhile I joined B2W Digital, Brazil’s largest e-commerce group, and kept climbing. On paper, everything was going up.

commit docs: share what I learned the hard way

ch.06 · resethard reset →

The hard reset

Here’s the part people usually leave out of an About page.

In 2018 I became Technology Manager at B2W. It was the natural next step. By 2020, with the pandemic and everyone fully remote, I was no longer happy. I could list ten reasons not to show up to stand-up. I was close to burnout, and I knew it.

So I made a decision that looked like going backwards: leave management and go back to writing code. People still ask me why. The honest answer is one word: passion.

While I was making up my mind, I interviewed for an IT-manager job in Germany. It was the most disastrous interview of my career. It took me weeks to recover, and the old sentence came back louder than ever: dreams are for the lucky ones.

What got me moving again was Rocky Balboa’s advice: what counts is how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. So I took the hit, and I kept moving.

commit fix: stop doubting myself

ch.07 · taginternational → today

git tag -a v5.0 · chapter 7 · the biggest jump

v5.0 — Going international

After the reset I stopped asking which job paid more and started asking which one pointed in the right direction, the one the kid with the dictionary had been pointing at all along.

case-study/going-international.md

tag: v5.0

Technical Lead · Magento 2 / Adobe Commerce · US market

From managing a team in Brazil to leading US projects, in English

In 2020 I left a Technology Manager role at B2W Digital, one of Brazil’s biggest retailers, to become a developer again. Why? One word: passion.

The boy from Carapicuíba who translated songs for fun now leads US projects in English.

São Paulo, BRSpringfield, MO

route: remote · McFadyen Digital → GRAYBOX → Classy Llama

git show --stat

  • Left a Technology Manager role to code again
  • Survived one disastrous interview
  • Three US companies in 16 months
  • Lead within a month at Classy Llama
  • comfort zone (deleted, not missed)

fromTechnology Manager, Brazil

toTechnical Lead, US agency

time to Lead~1 month

at Classy Llamasince

Working in English every day for US clients since .

git show international --full

In August 2020 I joined my first US company, McFadyen Digital, as Magento Technical Lead — not for more money, but for the right direction. For months my brain was fried by English: meetings, calls, jokes I understood three seconds too late. In April 2021 I became Magento Technical Architect at GRAYBOX in Portland, Oregon, and in December 2021 I joined Classy Llama in Springfield, Missouri. About a month later, in January 2022, I was promoted to Technical Lead.

Today I’m Lead Developer and Senior Magento 2 / Adobe Commerce Engineer at Classy Llama, leading key projects and mentoring developers, from Brazil. Every hard week along the way had the same reason behind it: my wife and my daughter.

And in May 2026, the developer who failed that interview became an Adobe Certified Expert.

Adobe Certified Expert badge
Adobe Certified Expert ·

commit merge: the kid’s dream into main

ch.08 · merge blogwriting →

Why I write now

In 2023, after years away, I came back to this blog, this time in English, the language I once translated songs into and later learned Magento from. It felt like closing a loop.

In 2025 I started writing about more than code: the developer career itself, messy parts included, and AI, which is changing how all of us work. So the blog became a git log of its own, with three branches: Magento & Engineering, Developer Career, and AI.

The goal hasn’t changed since 2012: share what I learn so the next developer has an easier time than I did.

commit feat: keep shipping, keep sharing

HEAD -> mainnow

What’s next

Lately most of my head space goes to one question: what does a good developer look like when AI agents write a big part of the code? My short answer: recall got cheap, judgment got expensive. The job moved up a level, to writing the task well, reviewing like a senior and owning the result. I write about that on the AI branch.

And if you’re a developer from somewhere like Carapicuíba, doubting yourself, with an English that feels clumsy and a dream that sounds ridiculous inside your own head: I’ve been exactly there. Let’s have a coffee and talk about your next commit.

Dreams aren’t only for the lucky ones. Sometimes they’re for the stubborn ones.

commit refactor: from writing code to owning judgment

reference

The short version, for skimmers

Hiring manager? Merchant looking for a Magento expert? Here’s everything above, as a diff.

$ git show tiago

Author: Tiago Sampaio <[email protected]>
Role:   Lead Developer & Sr. Magento 2/Adobe Commerce Engineer @ Classy Llama · CEO & Founder, MagedIn Technology
Based:  Brazil · 15+ years building software
Since:  Magento,

certifications/

  • currentAdobe Certified Expert — Adobe Commerce Developer · active · verify
  • currentCeligo Builder Core · renewed · verify
  • Magento Front End Certified Developer
  • Magento Certified Developer
  • Magento Certified Developer Plus
  • Klaviyo Systems Integrator · 2022
  • Introduction to Celigo AI Studio · 2026
  • Scrum Foundation (SFPC) · 2020
  • DevOps Essentials (DEPC) · 2020

what-i-know-deeply/

Nothing scares me with Magento anymore. These are the areas I’ve customised the most:

  • Checkout
  • SalesRule
  • Catalog
  • Price customisations
  • Payment
  • Shipping
  • API
  • CatalogInventory
  • Customer
  • CMS
  • PayPal
  • Performance
Enterprise features
  • GiftCard
  • Reward
  • CustomerBalance
  • PageCache
  • Banner
  • Logging
  • …and more

education/

B.A. Business Administration, 2005–2008
Faculdade Fernão Dias · scholarship · first in my family to go to college

teaching & open-source/

  • Curso Magento () — free + premium video lessons, professional backend development and certification prep
  • API Plus () — open-source module: JSON instead of SOAP, header auth, cacheable responses

projects/

  • Livraria Saraivatech lead · e-smart
  • Grand Cru (wine club)e-smart
  • LIVO Eyewear (webcam try-on)e-smart
  • Porto Seguro · DressTo · Puket · Toninie-smart
  • Amsterdam Sauer · STR Ar Condicionadose-smart
  • Americanas.com Fast PurchaseB2W Digital
  • Kroton Educacional · Sephora BrazilB2W Digital
  • MiMercadoMcFadyen
  • Ammunition Depot · Brian Toley Racing · Smokey Mountain Knife WorksClassy Llama
  • Hering Web Store · PayPal Brasil
  • + hundreds more, small, medium and large

git log --companies

  • Classy Llama — Lead Developer & Sr. Magento 2/Adobe Commerce Engineer2021 → today
  • MagedIn Technology — CEO & Founder2016 → today
  • GRAYBOX — Magento Technical Architect2021
  • McFadyen Digital — Magento Technical Lead2020–2021
  • B2W Digital — Technology Manager; Software Development Manager2015–2020
  • e-smart — Software Development Manager, Sr. Solution Architect2012–2015
  • Shoes4you — PHP/Magento Architect2012
  • VBMagento — PHP/Magento Developer2011–2012
  • Itaiquara Alimentos — Analyst / Excel VBA Programmer2010–2011
  • Tech Data Brasil — Intern → Purchasing Assistant2005–2009
  • Os Studios — Founder

git branch -a

What I write about

Every post on this blog is a commit on one of three branches. Pick the one you came for.

origin/ai

AI

The newest branch: what I’m learning about AI as a working developer.

10 posts

git checkout ai

origin/engineering

Magento & Engineering

Practical Magento 2 and Adobe Commerce, from the basics to the complex stuff.

105 posts

git checkout engineering

origin/career

Developer Career

Honest notes on growing as a developer, beyond the code — international careers included.

12 posts

git checkout career

$ git push origin hello

You read all nine commits. Now it’s your turn.

for developers

Let’s have a coffee

Thinking about building an international career? I’ve been the developer doubting himself, the one with the fried English brain, and the one who bombed the interview. Let’s chat about it over a coffee.

Book a coffee chat

for everyone

Get in touch

A Magento question, an idea, or you just want to say hi? My inbox is open, and I’ll get back to you.

Send a message

[email protected] LinkedIn

A big hug,
Tiago