Where do you work and your role title?
Oracle – Solution Engineer
Get To Know Me
Favourite ice-cream flavour: Yogurt and sour cherry
Wrap up in the shortest sentence possible what your role means.
Playing with cutting edge technologies and helping customers to architect solutions and successfully adopt cloud technologies.
What is the interesting / challenging part of your work?
Having access to so many different customer scenarios, architectures and industries. This makes my work interesting everyday!
What attracted you to choose a STEM field?
Choosing a STEM field was a natural option for me as I liked math and really enjoyed computer science. The teachers I had in high school had a great positive impact on my view over the computer science field, and they really taught me HOW to think.
After the University, I got really lucky to find out about a summer school with a really nice program, which made up my mind on what role I would enjoy in the field, where to begin and how does “a day in the life of..” looks like.
How do you find navigating your career path as a woman in tech?
My career was not much influenced by the fact that I am a woman, but there were a lot of situations I was the only woman in a meeting. Although I can easily say in the country I work there are plenty of women working in IT. For example in the department that I work we are quite evenly split, but there were many times I realised that is not the case for all the other countries.
During my career I worked with customers or even colleagues residing in EMEA and APAC regions, quite a large territory, and there were many times when I observed an imbalance in proportions. I really think this comes from the way our education systems work and in some cases even how society sees this.
What is your biggest achievement that you are most proud of? How do you track and express your achievements in the workplace and beyond?
My biggest achievement is something that grows each day: the knowledge I gathered throughout the years and what I learn each and every day. I think with each solved challenge you get to express your work as well as personal achievements.
Who are your mentors or role models that helped you either directly or indirectly?
At this point I have 1-2 people in my company, which are role models to me because of –
1. The way my role models work
2. How much they know
3. How nicely they explain
4. The way my role models interact with other people
Top Tip – Look out for the above qualities in your mentors/role models!
How do you think women can be game-changers in time of crisis?
Team players are the ones that achieve the most.
Everyone brings a piece of the puzzle in solving bigger issues
Everyone approaches things in their own unique way as well as people come with a certain knowledge and understanding. You just have to listen to everyone and make the most out of it!
What are you doing to ensure you continue to grow and develop as a leader? Are there any technology resources that you would recommend?
It is very important to know the following so that you seek help from the right people, and above all be a team player and stay connected –
- Realise what you want to achieve to gain trust
- Know your part in it
- Be conscious of what you don’t know
The best and most important resources are the people!
It’s your day off. What do you do to relax?
I enjoy meeting with friends, going out and watching movies. 📽 Since the recent global pandemic stopped us from doing certain things, I rediscovered my childhood pleasure of doing puzzles.
What advice would you give to your 21 year old self?
Don’t worry about what you don’t know yet, be excited and curious. 💯
What makes you RARE?
My optimistic nature!
Want to know more about Diana? Connect with her on LinkedIn
SHEisRARE 