How I became rich working at NDrive

This is the story of how a Tourism and Hospitality Academic landed a simple Quality Assurance job at a tech company and ended up travelling the World. Oh, and also became rich.

Ok, now that you passed the clickbait title, I can explain: This text tells the story of someone that pushed itself to an uncomfortable professional position that later became its biggest passion. Also, in that 12-year process, that person had the chance to travel to amazing places.

The beginning

After several years working for Tourism related companies, Economic crisis pushed me into professional muddy waters, or to put it clearly, unemployment. NDrive was looking for software testers to find bugs on its brand new GPS Navigation software, a huge step for a traditional folding map company. It was better than spending my days binge watching Californication. I took my leap of faith.

After only a few months the first real challenge came up: A very important client needed local technical support for hundreds of GPS units. Location: Brussels. I was going to travel, experience a new aviation company, a new Hotel chain with its own procedures, a new place to explore. So I embraced the opportunity with my Tourism and Hospitality heart.

It started.

The Brussels experience was a disappointment, but that’s not the point here. Bands like Panda Bear, Radiohead, The National and Justice had great albums in 2007, and were great travel companions, even when the Brussels sky remained grey for the whole week.

Travelling to Belgium was the start of a beautiful “journey”, that included a taxi stopping in the middle of the highway to let a farm worker cross in Morocco; the best fish soup I have ever tasted at a seaside restaurant in Casablanca; wandering the streets of Buenos Aires at night; seeing the only Moai outside of Easter Island (Google it) in Viña Del Mar, a coastal town in Chile; trying to flee traffic for 3 hours in São Paulo; and having dinner in a Serbian restaurant over the Danube, where at some point everyone leaves their table and start dancing hand-in-hand (cringe moment). It was all worth it.

After 12 years, It has been a wonderful experience, that made me immensely rich. A special type of wealth that no crisis can touch, and all thanks to the company that works its **s off everyday to help you on your journeys, too. All these experiences are engraved in each and every NDrive developer, manager and marketer, and you can sense that when using our products on your travels.

This is indeed a very special place to work, and I’m glad that I turned down the offer to teach Tourism Economics, back in 2007.

Just a small advice for the happy traveler: do not accept unofficial taxi rides at Belgrade Airport. Let’s just leave it this way.

Happy Trails.

Soeiro