Today it is my 10th anniversary of starting my career at Atos Bydgoszcz. When I was 25years old I believed I will never spend more than 2 years in one company. Now I see how wrong I was. 🙂
To make the story short I want to say don’t regret those 10 years and it has been an amazing experience working in a company with so many talented people on board! Today I don’t want to talk about my career but tell you how it started and why is stayed in one company for so long.
When on the 4th grade of the Technical University the only knowledge I found might be useful was gained from the CCNA course… Looking at the job offers for Admin I was shocked… how come can they expect all those skills… It would take me years to get to that level… Fortunately, I got an internship in Madrid and got my hands on both network equipment and servers. I even had a chance to play with VMware! Amazing year at Metrovacesa company!
After a year, I came back to Poland, and lucky enough, once I got my Master’s degree I took a chance to participate in a free MCSA course… I have learned so much in 3 months… I decided to take the entire certification track and I was MCSA at the age of 25. 🙂
Still, when I was back in Madrid I remembered I was pinged by a company in Bydgoszcz if I want to work for them… At that time I googled the city and comparing it to Madrid I thought „no I will never move there”.
This time being in Poland I reviewed the offers again and said ok… let’s apply. I really want to start my career in IT. A couple of interviews and there I go! I was a member of Atos Origin Bydgoszcz Team! Second Line Support Engineer sounded so distinguished!
I started back in 2010 and joined as a Wintel/AD admin and was dropped into a massive contract with over 100 Domain Controllers… What a playground! I literally could not wait to wake up and go to the office!
It was great days working with the senior guys really showed me what hard works mean. I am sure I would not be where I am without them! Thanks! Robert, Dawid, Maciej, Tomasz! The Wintel Engineer times were great! Lots of stressful moments but they gave ma feeling of what IT Operations is!
Through those years I was changing the projects multiple times and finally ending up being Lead Architect for Cloud Engineering team. I met so many awesome people that affected who I am now! I cannot thank them enough!
Obviously, I have been offered to work outside of Atos multiple times (like all of us working in IT). This includes companies that I always dreamed of working for including VMware, Nutanix, Google… Was it a good decision to stay? Yes, it was for me. I always make a list of pros and cons of moving to a new employee which includes:
- Personal situation
- Career goals
- People I will work with
- Future opportunities
- Diversity of work
- Location
- Finances
- Work from home capabilities
As you see this list has priorities. As an example technology, I work with will be always more important than money! It is especially tempting when you are a junior employee and you get a good financial offer. I always use this list and I am really glad it kept me with Atos.
The most valuable tip I can give you today is: Don’t think about your career as a means of getting money. Invest in it and do what you love. When you are passionate about your work the money will come!
Also remember the company is people! It is people making the decisions not the company. Get a good manager and build relations with your team it is worth it!
Google Cloud Certified Fellow #5 