Being a part of Cloud Consulting at Deloitte is a great opportunity to shape the future of various cloud related topics – not only at Deloitte but also beyond.

You have been with Deloitte for almost four years now. What is your educational background and what brought you to Deloitte?
I have a bachelor’s degree in information technology and a master’s degree in distributed software systems. Towards the end of my master’s, at TU Darmstadt, I came across an ad for a job at the Deloitte Analytics Institute in Berlin. The nature of work at the Deloitte Analytics Institute sounded interesting, and so I applied. That’s how my journey began at Deloitte.

What makes work at Deloitte special?
While Deloitte is often associated with its consulting capabilities and people usually associate consultants with making presentations the whole day, that is certainly not what I do. At Deloitte, I got to work on a lot of exciting technology projects, where I actually spent most of my time coding and developing applications with actual end users. I enjoy that I get to wear the hat of a consultant sometimes, gathering requirements and solving problems with clients and sometimes I get to wear the hat of a software engineer – I get to experience the best of both worlds.

You are working in an environment where women are highly underrepresented. What do you think are the reasons?
There are many reasons, as various studies and surveys have described. I want to single out two. The first is that women don’t usually apply for jobs unless they feel they are 100% qualified. When advertising job openings, companies need to distinguish better between must-have and nice-to-have skills. Until they do, I would encourage women to apply for jobs even if they don’t seem like a 100% fit. Try to identify the must-have and nice-to-have criteria yourself, and go for it!

The second reason I want to mention has to do with the managers in charge of hiring. People generally tend to hire those like them, which can impact the gender ratio at the workplace. Accordingly, managers need to become more conscious of their biases and more willing to give chances to people who are not like themselves.

For whom could a career in Deloitte’s cloud team be just the right thing and why?
If you are a software engineer, infrastructure engineer, an administrator or architect and have experience with public clouds or are interested in working with them, you’ve come to the right place.

How would you encourage cloud experts to join Deloitte?
Cloud Transformation and Systems Engineering has a great mix of strategists, engineers, architects and managers and there is plenty to learn from the team and its projects. Being a part of Cloud Consulting at Deloitte is a great opportunity to shape the future of various cloud related topics – not only at Deloitte but also beyond. Deloitte has alliances with many of the leading public cloud providers. This benefits Deloitte and its employees in terms of projects and in terms of learning and development.

What is your area of expertise and what kind of projects are you working on?
My specialty is the end-to-end data lifecycle: from data ingestion and data preparation to data transmission and visualization. I started working with Hadoop on premise clusters, and now I’ve transitioned to Databricks on Microsoft Azure. I also enjoy API design and UI development. Some projects that I’ve worked on with Deloitte include recommendation systems hosted on the cloud, logistic distribution systems and automated code modernization.

What are the typical tasks of a solution manager?
As a senior solution engineer, I am involved in all phases of the project: requirements gathering, planning, architecture and development. My typical day usually involves writing and reviewing code, and participating in requirements and technology discussions with my team. I also help build best practices for coding and mentor the junior engineers.

What do you like most about your job and your team?
At Deloitte, I’ve gotten to work on a variety of projects and people over the past 3-plus years, and it has never been boring. Each day brings new challenges, and this I think is the thing I like the most about my job. Apart from that, I really love the freedom we are given to shape our workplace. From hiring new people to creating the learning curriculum, everyone can have a say and be heard. The team is also a lot of fun and is always ready to help.

Would you like to know more about career opportunities in Cloud Transformation? See our career page.