Brazil­ian IT Pro­fes­sion­al Thrives in Oulu: Fran­cis­co Carneiro’s Sto­ry

Fran­cis­co Carneiro, 30, has an intrigu­ing jour­ney that spans con­ti­nents and indus­tries. Orig­i­nal­ly from the North­east of Brazil, Fran­cis­co pur­sued his edu­ca­tion in busi­ness, com­plet­ing his degrees in Fin­land. Now he tells us about his unique approach to learn­ing Finnish and net­work­ing.

Cur­rent­ly, Fran­cis­co Carneiro holds mul­ti­ple roles, includ­ing Ecosys­tem Devel­op­ment Man­ag­er at Eclipse Foun­da­tion, one of Europe’s largest open-source com­mu­ni­ties. He also runs his own com­pa­ny, focus­ing on soft­ware projects.

He says Oulu has offered him numer­ous oppor­tu­ni­ties, allow­ing him to devel­op his career.

– Pro­fes­sion­al­ly, I have flour­ished here in a way that I don’t know how to put into words.

Per­son­al­ly, he has found here a sup­port­ive Brazil­ian com­mu­ni­ty, enhanc­ing his sense of belong­ing.

His role as the hon­orary con­sul of Brazil involves sup­port­ing the Brazil­ian embassy and com­mu­ni­ty in Oulu, which has seen sig­nif­i­cant growth due to the influx of Brazil­ian researchers.

– Here I got the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet with Brazil­ians. I would not have got­ten that any­where else in Fin­land. Before, I was miss­ing this con­tact with the Brazil­ian com­mu­ni­ty.

– Now I am able to get togeth­er with Brazil­ian peo­ple. When I go out, I am with a bunch of Brazil­ians. It feels like I am at home. I can speak my native lan­guage, Por­tuguese.

“How I Got My First Job?”

Francisco’s deci­sion to move to Fin­land was influ­enced by his stud­ies and his Finnish wife. Fran­cis­co met his wife in Brazil, and they decid­ed to move togeth­er to Fin­land.

Ini­tial­ly mov­ing to Tam­pere for his stud­ies, they lat­er relo­cat­ed to Oulu when both secured study places at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu.

“When I go out, I am with a bunch of Brazil­ians. It feels like I am at home.”

Before mov­ing to Oulu, Fran­cis­co had heard pos­i­tive things about the city, par­tic­u­lar­ly its strong IT scene, which piqued his inter­est.

– I remem­ber read­ing that Oulu was the sec­ond biggest clus­ter for IT-relat­ed invest­ment in Fin­land after Helsin­ki. So I got inter­est­ed, he recalls.

His first impres­sions of the city were favor­able. He describes Oulu as a dynam­ic city with a grow­ing num­ber of stu­dents and tourists.

Fran­cis­co also loves the work­ing cul­ture in Fin­land.

– We have a very flat hier­ar­chy. You do not call any­one boss or Mr. or Sir or any­thing like that. Nor­mal­ly, your boss is one phone call away, and you can make a joke to them. You can talk to them as if you are talk­ing to lit­er­al­ly any­body in the com­pa­ny. You have a very direct and open-door kind of pol­i­cy.

Fran­cis­co rec­om­mends attend­ing as many events as pos­si­ble to build a pro­fes­sion­al net­work.

– For exam­ple, the uni­ver­si­ty is a very good gate­way. If you are will­ing to build a net­work pro­fes­sion­al­ly, the uni­ver­si­ty has part­ner­ships with dif­fer­ent com­pa­nies. That is how I lit­er­al­ly got my first job in Fin­land.

– The uni­ver­si­ty did a con­sult­ing project for a com­pa­ny, and at the net­work­ing event I basi­cal­ly just said, ‘Hey, are you look­ing for some­one?’ They were like, ‘Yes, we are’. And then I got hired. So basi­cal­ly, look for any kinds of events. Just go out there and meet peo­ple.

“Oulu is very safe”

Fran­cis­co finds the local cul­ture fas­ci­nat­ing; par­tic­u­lar­ly the win­ter bicy­cling habit is unique.

– Every­one is bicy­cling in Oulu, even in the win­ter, which was very odd to me because I did not see that hap­pen­ing so much in Tam­pere, he notes.

He enjoys a bal­ance between city and nature, often hik­ing in the sur­round­ing areas and Lap­land. His favorite place in Oulu is Nal­likari beach.

– If the tem­per­a­ture is above +15 degrees, I am on the beach prac­ti­cal­ly every day.

Run­ning and ski­ing are Fran­cis­co’s main hob­bies, with plans to run a marathon this year in Oulu.

– Run­ning has become my main hob­by, and also ski­ing. Since I moved to Fin­land, my top pri­or­i­ty was to learn to ski. I real­ly appre­ci­ate the well-main­tained ski tracks here in Oulu, he explains.

– There are two types of ski­ing: cross-coun­try ski­ing and alpine ski­ing. Most Brazil­ians do not know about that. They think ski­ing is alpine ski­ing, going down slopes. Cross-coun­try ski­ing is not going down slopes or steep hills. It is more like replac­ing a walk, he elab­o­rates.

Fran­cis­co describes the local peo­ple as polite and friend­ly. As a fam­i­ly man with two chil­dren, Fran­cis­co appre­ci­ates Oulu’s fam­i­ly-friend­ly envi­ron­ment and excel­lent ser­vices.

– Oulu is a very safe city, and the ser­vices are amaz­ing, espe­cial­ly for fam­i­lies.

“Watched every sin­gle Kau­ris­mä­ki movie”

At home, Fran­cis­co speaks Por­tuguese to main­tain his chil­dren’s con­nec­tion to the lan­guage, while out­side, he uses Finnish.

His unique approach to learn­ing Finnish involved watch­ing Aki Kau­ris­mä­ki movies and lis­ten­ing to Finnish tan­go.

He found that watch­ing these movies with sub­ti­tles in Eng­lish and lat­er switch­ing to sub­ti­tles in Finnish helped him learn the Finnish lan­guage and under­stand the cul­ture.

Aki Kau­ris­mä­ki is a renowned Finnish film­mak­er known for his dis­tinc­tive style and por­tray­al of Finnish life. His movies often fea­ture slow-paced dia­logue, mak­ing them an excel­lent resource for learn­ing Finnish and under­stand­ing Finnish cul­ture.

– I am a big movie and Aki Kau­ris­mä­ki fan. I watched every sin­gle movie he ever made. I was lis­ten­ing to a lot of Finnish in the movies. This is a good tip for inter­na­tion­als who want to learn Finnish. Aki Kau­ris­mä­ki movies have Finnish spo­ken very slow­ly and cor­rect­ly, Fran­cis­co shares.

Text: Annakaisa Vääränie­mi

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