Marius joined Endava in Bucharest four and a half years ago as a Senior Developer. Since helping others grow has always been important to him, now he gets the chance to do just that by leading the career coaching activities for the development discipline while being a Career Coach himself. Marius encourages his colleagues to be active and involved in their professional path and to put everything they know in everything they do.

How did you join the company and what is your role now?

When I was asked to come for an interview I wasn't really looking for a new job, but I liked the people I talked to, so I decided to join the company. I started as a Senior Developer in an agile team. We were one of the multiple teams working on a suite of applications in the mortgage servicing industry. We were collaborating a lot. Doing code reviews and pair programming helped me both gain technical knowledge from the other team members and improve my communication skills.

After one year my career coach asked me if I wanted to be a career coach myself, and I accepted the challenge in a heartbeat.

From that moment on I've been growing together with the company, taking the role of an Account Development Discipline Lead, and now I am a Development Discipline Lead helping Francesco, the Head of Development in Bucharest with career coaching activities. From this role, I coordinate activities that enable the career coaches to help their people grow and deliver for clients. What's great is that I still get the chance to write code for the project I have been working on and I haven't shifted away from solving its technical challenges.

I am proud that over the years I was able to make a difference in multiple areas of the project. I worked both on the backend and the UI of the application, I wrote automated tests for the REST API and for the UI, I created scripts for automated deployment and did configurations for continuous integration and continuous deployment, I’ve collected requirements and written user stories. I am not an expert in all these areas, but I was still able to contribute to their success.

What do you like most about working at Endava?

Helping others has always been important to me. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said: `The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honourable, to be compassionate, and to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.’

I am a people-oriented person. That means I feel motivated in an environment where people matter. In Endava I found that type of environment. I've always had many people who have helped me overcome the challenges, like the Development Lead from my first project, the Client Engagement Manager or the leadership of the Development discipline. I myself was also able to help others overcome their fears and face challenges. Endava is constantly growing and that gives us all a chance to grow along with it. I was given many opportunities to learn and also to engage in activities related to the account I worked for and the development discipline in general.

How do you keep up with the latest technology trends?

I have been working on the same project for a few years so the technology has not really changed.  Therefore, in order to keep up to date with other technologies there are two steps that I take: first of all I constantly stay informed about the latest trends by reading articles and being active in the technical communities of practices in Endava or external technical groups. Secondly, I try the technologies that I find more interesting in personal projects.

When it comes to improving soft skills, there are two books that I recommend: Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman and Management 3.0 by Jurgen Appelo. They are great starting points to understand how we can improve the way we respond to the situations that are difficult to manage. They helped me focus my efforts on what I can do to solve the problems around me rather than on expecting solutions from the others.

What can you tell us about your life outside of work? 

I am a family guy. I spend a lot of time with my family (wife, 5 years old daughter and 2 years old son). I get a lot of my energy from them. We also have a garden outside the city where we spend most of our weekends and where we grow vegetables and fruits. It makes me want to become more organised and helps me better respond to unexpected situations. There is a lot of work to be done, but every small achievement makes it totally worth it.

I would also like to start making furniture. I believe in keeping a balance in everything I do.

I learned a lot about dealing with people from my daily challenges within my family. When my daughter was born, I bought many books on child psychology and I still feel overwhelmed when I need to explain to my son why wearing gloves and a winter hat in July is not a good idea!

All these lessons from my private life are easy to integrate into my work life. For example; learning to raise my children the best way I can make me also realise that it is not enough to have a great idea, or just to find out how to solve some issues. You also need to be able to communicate this to your family, team or even client. In order to do this, you need to understand not only the colleagues you work with but also your client's culture.

Let's say you were a new employee at Endava. What advice would you like to receive for the best kick-start?

Be flexible and don't be afraid to get involved in new activities. The world we live in is changing faster than ever before, and we should change together with it. Of course, we can learn from books and from others, but the best way to learn is from experience.