How did you get your job?

I moved to Lublin, Poland in 2018 as an Erasmus student. The course required me to find a six-month internship and so I began searching for companies. I found a role as a Data Engineer Intern at a company in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

I loved living and working in the Netherlands and decided I wanted to stay once my studies were completed. So I began applying for jobs in the area and received a couple of offers. I settled on a business called eVision (which later merged with Enablon) and began work as an Associate Software Developer in February 2021.

What worried you about taking on your first full-time job? How did you deal with it?

It was probably not knowing what corporate life would be like. Although I had completed several internships by the time I joined Enablon, I was worried about whether I’d be able to adapt to working in a large organisation. Would I be welcomed, would I fit in? Also I joined the company in the middle of lockdown and that also made it an anxious time.

I need not have worried! Everyone was so friendly and supportive throughout the onboarding process and I have always been included in everything we do.

What surprised you about your job?

I was amazed at how big and complex the product we work on is. Our team develops operational risk management software to the oil & gas, chemicals and pharma industries. It’s an incredible, complex product that requires people working in development, support and maintenance teams to collaborate all the time. It’s so impressive how everyone works together, we all know what we are doing and what we want to achieve.

What advice would you offer to someone who is starting to look for a job?

You need experiences. Be able to show a potential employer that you have lived in the real world. A great set of skills is important, but so is evidence that you have got some experience of working in a company. I found this useful because my internships helped me to understand how to deal correctly with managers and people with more experience than I had, which is a really good thing to learn.

What is the working environment like at Enablon?

Enablon is an incredibly flexible company to work for. I work from home and go into the office once or twice a week, but it is really the choice of the individual how they decide to work, whether from home or in the office.

Most working days begin with a stand up when team members discuss work tasks and tickets and talk about blockers which need to be fixed. The stand ups are particularly useful – so many of the team are there that usually someone knows the answer to someone else’s problem.

Then I focus on the work I agreed to do during the stand up, creating the documentation to support it and reaching out to the team when I need to.

How useful was your education in preparing for the job you do?

Of course my degrees have helped me to build the technical skills I need to do my job, but it was the internships that made the difference. One example is that at university we moved from one project to another, but at work there is a huge focus on testing so you spend a lot more time on projects in the real world. My internships were very useful because they helped me transfer from learning to working quickly.

What do you enjoy most about your job? What’s the company culture like?

I get involved in front-end, back-end, dev ops; I never get bored! I’m always being challenged and I never stop learning. Enablon is really good at innovation and I was part of the team that participated in Wolters Kluwer’s Innovation Week. During the event we were given the opportunity to work on something that could add value to the business.

We came up with the idea of centralising our different systems across work management, document management, GitHub and Dev Ops to build a tool that improved efficiency. It was a great learning experience and is a really good example of why I love working here!