Bogdan Manea joined Stefanini in the summer of last year as a Senior Software Engineer, before being promoted to Team Lead just a year into his role. We caught up with Bogdan to discuss his experience at Stefanini, including his rapid progression and the chance to build his own team and develop his soft skills.
Our <Stories in brackets> series spotlights our Application Delivery Center colleagues, giving them the space to share their career journey and learnings. Bogdan’s interview is the second in the series, which discovers the human stories behind the lines of code and paints a picture of what life at Stefanini involves.
Why did you choose to join Stefanini?
I was really excited to join Stefanini because I could see there were great opportunities to experience multiple projects, teams and technologies.
The office and the location also appealed to me, as well as the people, who were all warm and open and made me feel really welcome. This has only become more apparent since I’ve joined and become part of a really collaborative environment in which everyone’s contribution is always appreciated.
How have you evolved professionally within the company so far?
I joined Stefanini as a Senior Software Developer, but after a year I was offered a Team Lead position. I have been involved in interviewing candidates for other Stefanini teams and I was also able to select members for my future team. I feel really fortunate that I’ve been given such a great opportunity to grow and develop my soft skills.
I also really appreciate the fact that I’ve had the chance to propose new ideas here and people have taken my suggestions into consideration. Being surrounded by colleagues who were able to see the potential in me has definitely been key to me progressing faster than I expected. I was planning to go for a leadership position in the future, but I didn’t expect it to happen this quickly at Stefanini.
What are the most important things you have learned here?
The most important things that I learned are encapsulated in “Stefanini’s 7 attitudes” which describe our company values.
These have shown me that having an entrepreneurial mindset is a must, as is respecting the client, believing in people and being humble. I learned how important it is to establish strong relationships in which the client sees you as a consultant, which means you can help explain technical issues and make high-impact improvements in their workflow or architecture setup.
Stefanini’s values have always made a lot of sense to me because they were reinforced by seeing my colleagues demonstrating them in the workplace daily. I am proud to say that I also adhere to our values and try to demonstrate them every day.
What do you like most about working at Stefanini?
There’s a lot to like about working at Stefanini, including the transparency within the company, the trust I receive from management and the flexibility offered to me by the client.
The transparency here means that the management team provide us with all the information about the company direction and the new roles that are opening within the business.
What advice would you give to a new Stefanini employee?
New Stefanini employees should adopt an entrepreneurial mindset. Most of the time you will have to “dig” to come up with solutions yourself. You will also have to find and suggest the necessary process improvements for the projects you are part of.
It’s also important to remember that growing professionally won’t happen by itself. Stefanini offers a really supportive environment but, ultimately, you are the one responsible for your own development.
What advice would you give to other Stefanini colleagues when it comes to building a success story here?
It’s important to always listen and be humble enough to learn. You shouldn’t try to steer conversations in the direction of your predetermined solution or try to enforce a point of view just because it fits with your technical qualifications. There is always a side of the story you don’t know about and you should be prepared to adapt to the current context.
The best way to progress is to have a growth mindset. As long as you are humble enough, you will be able to have a growth mindset, to develop yourself and to learn from every experience.
Want to be our next success story? At Stefanini, we’re always interested in hearing from talented candidates across all levels of experience. You can browse our current EMEA vacancies, here.
