Gorgias

<p><i><strong>Denisa Bortanoiu is a&nbsp;Full-Stack Developer at Gorgias. 50inTech meets with a bright young woman who loves her job, but whose true passion is to relentlessly learn and keep her mind sharp.</strong></i></p><h1>Denisa Bortanoiu at Gorgias: A Perfect Match for a Curious Mind</h1><p>Has curiosity ever killed a cat? Maybe, maybe not… But in the case of Denisa Bortanoiu, curiosity was, from the start, a powerful inner drive for a full-stack developer whose greatest passion is to learn.</p><p>Denisa Bortanoiu was ‘a weird kid’. She enjoyed mathematics and savoured algorithms like a good chocolate cake. Growing up, in a small place in Romania, her mind was very math-centric and she wasn’t that interested in computers. Yet, she was a very bright student and this opened the doors to a reputable high school renowned… for its computer classes. There was a bit of a learning curve, but she slowly got more and more into it. And in fact, she discovered a real passion!</p><p>And when it came time to choose a professional path, she entered university in computer science: she had developed a great interest in the field; Moreover, in Romania, a career in IT promised good opportunities and a more than decent salary.</p><p>She was a hard worker from the start and combined her studies with paid work early on. She was thus able to acquire both theoretical and concrete knowledge in an accelerated manner.</p><p>She worked as a quality assurance engineer for her first two jobs, writing automated tests. With her inquisitive mind, she soon wanted to dig deeper, hunting for bugs, and trying to solve problems on her own. Code had puzzles and she loved cracking them!</p><p>Her curiosity and dedication were well received at her workplace, and the hierarchy there was very supportive and eager to help her grow. They gave her the opportunity to become a back-end engineer. She quickly acted as a scrum master and also partially took on a leading role, looking after the trainees and teaching them.</p><p>After a few years, she joined another company, where she learned front-end. With these new skills in hand, she was once again noticed and was offered the position of team leader. This seemed like a great opportunity for her: she’d been working there for three years, knew everyone, and had mastered the processes and operations. However, she truly loved writing code and she wanted to get back to that.</p><p>A year ago, she joined Gorgias as a full-stack developer. Denisa Bortanoiu talks with us about her work at Gorgias and the projects that make her proud.</p><h2>Straightforward and Open: The Gorgias Way&nbsp;</h2><p>I was looking for my next job, and suddenly I received an offer from a recruiter on LinkedIn. Although the hiring process itself took a while, I never felt like it was out of my reach. If anything, my mind immediately moved forward and was eager to learn more about the company.</p><h3>A Place of Open minds and Equity</h3><p>When I first saw the job description, I found it very straightforward and to the point. Also, the salary grids, the social benefits: everything was transparent. Gorgias has clear equity policies. That alone was amazing!</p><p>Once I started meeting people, it reinforced my first impression: there was an energy, a no-nonsense vibe and I liked everyone. I still do! The onboarding was well designed and greatly helped me become familiar with my colleagues and the company’s operations.</p><h3>A Good Place to Grow</h3><p>Not only are the people here warm and welcoming, but they love receiving and giving feedback. And since we can design the features we implement ourselves, I feel that I have already developed my skills a lot.</p><h2>A Day in the Life</h2><p>My job is pretty simple to describe: we’re a help desk for e-commerce stores. Suppose you’re a business and you decide to create a store on Shopify or any other platform: Gorgias will provide you with customer support features, from managing comments on social networks to handling emails, calls, text messages, etc. We’re the phone team.</p><h3>Working Full Remote</h3><p>It was crucial for me to be able to work&nbsp;fully from home, as Gorgias doesn’t have a branch in Romania.&nbsp;The company has set up&nbsp;different hubs. From the top of my mind, in Europe we have one in Lisbon, one in Paris, and one in Belgrade.</p><p>I went to the Paris headquarters as part of my onboarding. I enjoyed it a lot, the people there were so welcoming and warm! I don’t need to work in-office everyday, though. I’m independent and teleworking suits me well.</p><h3>A Problem Solver</h3><p>I love technical puzzles: finding the missing piece, exploring hypotheses. My team and I overcame some technical debt from the past and it was awesome! Clean data is good data: it’s crucial that we spend time and resources correcting past mistakes. This way we can pave the path for a better codebase.</p><p>Recently, I led a large project from start to finish. It was built around a voice statistics report about calls, and relied on the cooperation of several teams within Gorgias. It was a great opportunity to discover the new processes implemented by the company.</p><p>I’ve learned a lot about technologies like Kafka Connect or Clickhouse. There was also plenty of front-end work, which was great. The overall process felt like a big puzzle that we had to put together, and we saw progress every week. Looking back, it was a fun experience and I’m proud of our accomplishments and the part I played as project lead!</p><h2>The Way Ahead for Tech, Women… and I&nbsp;</h2><p>As a woman, I know that I have a place in the Tech universe.&nbsp;</p><h3>Being a Woman in Tech</h3><p>Whether at uni or in my previous positions, yes, we were outnumbered. Still, there were enough girls that I didn’t feel alone. In all honesty, other than the random weird remark, I have never felt discriminated against or treated differently because I’m a woman. In fact, I have always received a lot of help from my male colleagues.</p><h3>Asking Is a Skill</h3><p>Ask! This is the advice I wish I had heard a few years ago when I was starting out. Lack of communication and not asking questions are some of the major issues I have noticed, time and time again, with people I have mentored or coached in the past.</p><p>I can speak about this with authority because it has been one of my biggest struggles: finding the balance between doing stuff on my own and asking others for help. I think this comes from growing up in a system that sometimes seems unforgiving towards what it perceives as a weakness. But I’ve learned that it takes strength to ask: When you start a new job, or when you enter a field, there will be gaps in your knowledge and many things, you’re yet to master. Better not to waste your time and that of others. If something isn’t clear to you, it probably isn’t clear to someone else on the team.</p><p>A trick that I use, and which is very well received, is to go up to people and ask my question, while offering them options or solutions. When you give people options, you can both overcome problems. Because if you can come up with more than one option, then maybe this is your answer. Anyway, I like to provide solutions, for me, it’s entertainment!</p><h3>Clarity as a Compass</h3><p>You should be able to write mental notes to yourself, making lists in your head of what you’re supposed to do. When you can come back to the person at the end of your conversation and summarize clearly, you have defined a clear path, with a beginning and an end. In a way, it’s like cooking: you first crack the eggs, then mix them and finally cook them. The omelette is just the end result. We must start from a coherent hypothesis.</p><h3>Five Years from Now</h3><p>You can’t work at Gorgias without learning something new every day. I like it a lot, and leadership helps you set goals and progress. In five years, I don’t know where or what I will be. So far, my entire career has been built on changes, side quests, which somehow became the main ones. I didn’t hate being a team leader. I just wanted to further develop my expertise. At this point in my life, it made more sense, and it was also a lot more fun to go deeper into code. I wanted to continue learning.&nbsp;</p><p>But in the future, could I hold a management position again? Maybe. I can also imagine myself as an expert of sorts, a technical engineer, perhaps? What I do know is that the Tech industry will continue to change and evolve. In a few years, I might have a job that doesn’t even exist today.</p><p>I’m looking forward to what comes next. As long as it feeds my curiosity and keeps me on my toes, I know that I’ll be fine. Embracing the unknown has guided me thus far, and it’s a good skill to cultivate in life: prepare yourself to be surprised all the time. Makes life fun!</p><p><br>&nbsp;</p>

Denisa Bortanoiu at Gorgias: A Perfect Match

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