Beyond Development: A Consultant’s story

Like lots of high school kids, I had to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. At 17, it felt like I had to choose what I’d be doing forever. I have always been encouraged to take the safe bet, to swim near the poolside, to choose a field I can easily fit in. But, if you tell me I need to do the same job daily for the rest of my life, then it’d better be great. So that was the age of taking my first high-impact risk. I chose a field not so friendly to women. I worked hard for almost a year and got accepted from the preadmission contest into the Faculty of Informatics at Babes-Bolyai University in 11th grade. It felt pretty cool.

Years passed, and my first year of university was hit by pandemic. Besides the many ways isolation affected everyone personally, it also made finding a job hard for beginners like me. Once again, I found myself drawn to the safe choices: positions such as Java or .NET Developer seemed the sure thing every student was looking for.

While applying for internships, I found out about Robotic process automation (RPA) and a company called Automatify. If you’re wondering what RPA is, I can give you a short introduction – no need to switch tabs now. RPA is the use of software to automate repetitive, rule-based tasks, mimicking human actions within digital systems. Imagine a tireless digital assistant sitting at your computer, diligently copying data from one system to another, filling out forms, paying your bills, all without needing a coffee break or a vacation, while you get the chance to focus on tasks that require creativity, problem-solving, and strategic thinking like … how to top the last team event you organized at laser tag.

So, I took a risk again and bet on a technology that was at a relatively early stage in its development. I applied for an internship position at Automatify. Taking into consideration I am a consultant at Automatify right now, you can figure out what happened…

Actually, I failed. Twisting the knife, they sent me an e-mail to congratulate me for my result, which was “close to making it, but not quite”. Gee, thanks! However, this is not a story about failure and what we learn from it. That’s another blog post 😊.

I didn’t give up on RPA, and I joined another company as an intern for about half a year, before receiving a call from one of the recruiters at Automatify. Turns out that “being close to making it” actually mattered. We had a catch-up meeting, and I joined their team a month later as a Junior Developer.

Here I found a group of great people, amazing mentors who supported me and insisted on finishing my studies and getting a degree. I found it difficult at first to raise my hand whenever I had a question. I, like most women, tend to overthink too much. I always found it interesting how men are taught to be brave throughout childhood, to take risks and be rewarded for it, while women are educated to do everything perfect.

I remember having a demo meeting with a room full of men in leading positions: managers, budget owners, C-level and so on. I trembled even when presenting my name. After the call, Radu, my mentor, asked what happened. I told him how scared I was to be a woman in my twenties coaching men with more than 20 years of business experience how to do their jobs more efficiently. He interrupted me right there and told me I am not a “woman”… I am a professional.

I realized I don’t want to be dragged down by my own limiting beliefs. I started asking questions, getting more involved in business, asking for higher impact work. I soon got promoted to the Associate Consultant role. I couldn’t have imagined this when I was 17 and decided to follow the IT career path, that after only a few years in the field I will be in a leading position.

As Consultants, we work closely with companies’ leadership to understand their goals, challenges, and objectives, and then offer recommendations and strategies on how to use technology to improve their lives and their businesses. I don’t just build software; I try to understand the clients’ needs first. After a few calls of discovery, I then imagine the solution, articulate how this solution will change their working lives and how it will impact their bottom line. If my proposal gets approved, me and my team deliver it and help them integrate it in their daily work, managing it for the long run when it inevitably runs into roadblocks (sometimes it isn’t a feature, it’s a bug).

I am happy that I have a good and reliable technical background. This allows me to understand what is possible using our technologies and toolset. It also offers me control over the whole project’s lifecycle, making it possible to be a trustworthy advisor for the team in architectural decisions or support.

I work with my own team of 6 and I am also supporting them in their career growth. We like to create a relaxed working atmosphere and have created strong bonds, which transpires in our daily meetings but also in our after-work hangouts. We try to go out at least 2 times a month when we try new activities followed by a beer.

On a monthly basis I also present my business plans and customer strategy in front of the management team and take full responsibility for my actions, be it from a successful perspective or a less fortunate one. And most importantly, I feel I have the trust from my managers to do so.

I also enjoyed being a developer. My last robot developed before pivoting to the Consultant career path was very cool. It uses AI to read and understand police fines in hundreds of different formats and several languages for a global car-rental company. It then proceeds to search for the corresponding driver in several old, deprecated systems that don’t support modern technologies such as REST APIs. Finally, it reports back to the authorities to whom they need to send the fine.

I will not lie and say I was born for this. Frankly, I am proud of myself for overcoming the impostor syndrome that I am facing with any new challenge. I just stopped gravitating towards tasks that I knew I would be great at, because I understand now that failure is part of learning.

Studies show that men apply to a job if they are ~60% qualified, while women apply only if they are 100% sure they will be able to do it. We are extremely cautious.

However, a few years ago I joined a small start-up working with a technology I knew nothing about. Safe bet? Hell no, but God, I thank my young self now. She really knew she was at the age of taking risks.

Now the same company is working with an ever-increasing number of clients, using leading technologies worldwide: traditional RPA (UiPath/Automation Anywhere/Microsoft Power Automate), Power Apps, AI + Gen AI(GPT), Analytics Dashboards (PowerBI) and my journey of growth is just getting started.