Meet our People of Solita. We have over 2000 employees in different locations with different skills and backgrounds – each with a story to share about what they do and what inspires them. This is Andrei, one of our Senior Integration Consultants in Sweden who has just celebrated his 10th anniversary at Solita.
Who are you and what is your role here at Solita?
Born the same year as the Romanian revolution, I spent the first 10 years of my life amongst the grey concrete jungles of Bucharest, which I later exchanged for the granite hills and sea breeze of Lysekil, a small town on the west coast of Sweden.
Nowadays, with a decade of system integration experience under my belt, working for Ferrologic, now Solita, since I left my university years at Chalmers, I have had the opportunity to work for many customers tackling a wide range of integration and digitalisation-related challenges.
I am also trying to balance work with the life of being a father of a 5-year-old daughter, and at the same time squeeze in time for some home renovation, car tinkering and gaming.
Tell us about a project where you felt you’ve evolved significantly during your time at Solita
My latest project for a leading home furniture retailer that I have been involved in for the past three years consists of many well-known challenges that a large-scale system landscape modernization effort brings but with its own unique flavours. The ongoing efforts to decommission a traditional on-prem middleware platform, building a robust and secure data product, while supporting running business has given me the opportunity to explore many roles which were new to me: Scrum Master, Team/Tech Lead, Service Delivery Manager, Architect, Project Manager, Requirements Analyst, all while trying to meet the expectations of my fellow Engineers, Engineering Manager and the Product Team.
What are the current trends and challenges in the integration space?
The pursuit of modernising old on-prem integration solutions and migrating them to the cloud, to avoid vendor lock-in, achieve cost savings, and have more agile and modern development cycles has led to the growth of cyber-related attacks. Hence cybersecurity needs to be considered at a much earlier phase in the integration development phase.
This has led to the birth of DevSecOps and other practices that emphasise security throughout the entire integration development lifecycle.
You’re now reaching 10 years at Solita – tell us about your top moments from these years!
- Having the opportunity to stay in all the different theme rooms at the Lego Hotel. Yes, including the princess room.
- Hanging on for dear life on the back of an Icelandic horse for ~ 60 minutes while trying to enjoy the unique surrounding nature.
- Sailing from port to port in the Mediterranean Sea during a 3-day sailing trip while performing various team-building activities.
- Learning how to kayak down a river in Austria while receiving a crash course in German cusswords from an angry tour guide.
- Beating all my fellow colleagues in Gothenburg in a Go-Cart Championship.
- Having a sip of the limited edition Solita Sour Beer in 2018.
- Attending the Info-Session “Solita Slack Culture” and learning all about Finnish Memes.
What do you like most about Solita?
Working for Solita has been a mix of having the stability and structure that a larger company brings while maintaining familiarity and inclusiveness within the smaller business units. Additionally, being part of a big enough office such as the Gothenburg office has provided plenty of opportunities to partake in monthly meetings, AWs, and other social gatherings that bring together old familiar faces but also plenty of new colleagues with various exciting cultural and technical backgrounds.
What are your favourite Slack channels?
#cats
#dogs
#gamerz
What do you do to unwind?
When I am not fully immersed in parental responsibilities, I try to keep myself busy with various home renovation projects, tinker with my car to keep it in top shape or find some PC game to immerse myself in.
Here’s to many more years of exciting challenges and memorable moments together! Are you the next Solitan? See our open positions.
