Two and a half years ago I was preparing to return in Romania and hadn’t already started looking for a job. It may seem made up but Cegeka was one of the companies where I was thinking to apply for a position and, luckily, for me and for them, I was contacted just when I was thinking to start applying. Even more, the job description contained Java 8, DDD, Agile, Angular, everything I was interested in working with after only reading and watching talks and video conferences about for some time while working on less challenging projects. I joined a distributed team of 8 people out of which 6 in Bucharest and 2 in Brussels which were already working very well together.
As a developer I tend to focus more on learning about new technologies, architecture and technical aspects. Technical skills are important but so are the soft skills. At Cegeka I participated at some very interesting soft skill trainings where I found lots of interesting things about me and my colleagues. The most interesting things I found during one of the exercises are how I like to communicate, how should I do it with people different than me and my core values: Growth, Exploration, Freedom, Fun. I think these values really represent me in general, not only as a developer. I always like to learn (Growth) about new things (Exploration) that I like (Freedom) and I also enjoy (Fun) while doing it. It’s even true that if I don’t like something I will try to finish it as soon as I can so I don’t keep doing it. So fun and freedom are really important to me.
I am not really a sporty person but for the last 3 months I have been hitting the gym 2 times a week every week (yay!) and I have found out that I like shooting the traditional (recurve) bow!
- What inspires you to become better in what you are doing?
Except the times when I consciously decide to learn something, I always like to understand how things work and this is what triggers my curiosity which in turn drives me to learn more about a certain subject.
- How does our culture get in line with your personal success/ goals?
One of my long term goals is to become a Technical Architect and that requires knowledge in multiple areas of development. At Cegeka I am able to get closer to my goal because, while working on the project, I am able to focus on different subjects of interest to me and also take ownership of new developments which I am later able to share with my teammates during knowledge sharing sessions or even other people in the company during guild meetings or workshops.
- What do you love about your job at Cegeka?
I love that I am able to exercise my curiosity, learn new things and grow while having fun with my colleagues. I also like that there’s always openness for discussion and there are no hard/absurd rules that are imposed on us even if we don’t like them.