Two months of an atypical onboarding at Akeneo
On the morning of September 19th, I was so impatient to make my first steps in the “tech” industry that I woke up at 4 in the morning! I knew it was really very early, but I could not sleep anymore, anticipating my first day in a new company. After going through each step of the recruitment process, I was ready to live dangerously, very far away from my comfort zone. I already knew that starting a new job as a data engineer at Akeneo was the challenge of my life. I can hear you from here! What is Akeneo? Well, Akeneo is simply a world-class company whose Product Information Management (PIM) system has proved valuable in unlocking business growth for the last nine years.
From journalism to data engineering
I have been longing for a career shift and this deep dive into the “tech” industry after working in the media industry as a journalist for more than 25 years. I was excited to join a new professional environment with many things to learn and new horizons to explore. Honestly, I was terrified to start discovering a new field at Akeneo. Will I succeed in transitioning smoothly from the media industry to the software industry? Have I made the right choice? What kind of data engineer do I want to be? Existential questions about this flavor have been haunting my days and nights since I arrived at Nantes, a nice city in the West of France where Akeneo has its headquarters.
New faces, new horizons, and new challenges
I did not show anything to my new colleagues, but I was shivering like a leaf amidst a strong tropical cyclone. Meeting familiar faces — namely the manager, the leader of the data squad, and the data engineer with whom I had my different interviews — somehow calmed my anxiety. Day 1 at Akeneo’s Nantes office started with a coffee break — yes, I know, it’s weird to have a break before starting work! This is Akeneo! — where I had the opportunity to meet the six other members of the data squad, also known as the Quokkas. These small wallabies of Western Australia have the reputation of being the world’s happiest animals. You can easily imagine that the perspective of working in such a team helped me shift in a more optimistic mood. I talked to my new teammates, especially a data engineer living his first day at Akeneo, just like me. It was a special day for the whole team, welcoming two new members.
First encounter with IT at Akeneo
There was some excitement in the air too: the following day, the seven of us were leaving Nantes for the United Kingdom to attend Big Data London 2022! Before London though, I had to complete day 1 with some technical and social tasks: configure my new laptop, install my development environment, share a meal with my teammates, and meet my Sempai — the mentor guiding and helping me, especially during my onboarding. I was feeling less nervous and, believe me, or not, at this point, I was ready for a confrontation with the Internal IT guys! A Linux Ubuntu update crashed my laptop, and I spent nearly two hours with a colleague from the IT department to have this issue fixed. You expected a dramatic encounter with the Internal IT representatives, didn’t you? You were wrong: the IT guy was so kind and helpful… even when I returned one week later with a laptop whose partitions had vanished during the weekend!
A structured onboarding process
Before leaving office on day 1, I had the appropriate instructions and documentation for my coming onboarding sessions and how I will spend the following eight weeks at Akeneo. It was the first time I discovered such a structured onboarding phase in my career. In my former companies — which were not “tech” companies but newsrooms, I stress this fact because it is important — new employees did not have eight weeks but two days to understand their new ecosystem! I gather the impression that no stone has been left unturned in the study and implementation of Akeneo’s onboarding track: not a single element comes about by chance. There is a whole system of test and learn over time behind the to-do list communicated to new Akeneo employees on their respective Notion page.
Here we are, London!
The following day, I seized the opportunity to talk to the Quokkas during the Nantes-Paris-London train trip. The three days at Big Data London were interesting from technical and human perspectives. I discovered upcoming technologies and modern data stacks, I met brilliant people, and attended interesting seminars. Big Data London was also helpful for team building: the seven of us had dinner together even though we were more or less in the same venue during the whole day. It was a great opportunity to know my colleagues in a different setting. The team activity suggested by one of our data analysts and chosen by the whole team was Beer and Bike. We had a great time cycling on the busy roads of London at 7 pm with a special vehicle and sipping a beer when we started to feel thirsty. Beer is the least common denominator of the data squad! This aligns with Akeneo values: humility, innovation, benevolence, openness, and… beer! When we left Big Data London, I felt I had been working with my new teammates for the last five years. Ending my first week with this impression, boosted me for the coming days. Back in London, I focused on the onboarding tasks assigned to me. I adopted a simple learning strategy: get used to the technical stack (Google Cloud, dbt, Metabase amongst others) and simultaneously try to understand the big picture. I had to be patient before analyzing and " playing” with specific parts of the company’s software.
Paradise island, Mallorca!
We were in the last days of September, and summer was over, but still, there was a scent of holidays floating in the air at Akeneo. Why? The whole Akeneo community was waiting for the venue of the Akeneo Fall Kudos (AFK) to be disclosed. AFK — which means Away From Keyboard — is a yearly event organized in Europe for all the company’s employees. Nothing would dampen the employees’ enthusiasm while waiting for the destination. At last, the big news was revealed: from October 10 to 14, more than 300 “Akeneans” would fly to Mallorca to work-play-eat-drink and enjoy! “Are you sure that this company is trustworthy? What kind of company sends its employees abroad to have fun?”: my in-laws were so disturbed by my new company that they conducted Google investigations to find out in which type of professional environment I had landed… It was also a unique opportunity for the company executives to gather employees from all around the world in a single place. Apart from sea, sand, and sun, the days spent in Mallorca were dedicated to team activities, motivational speeches, and the presentation of the company’s 3-year strategic plan. What I can say without disclosing any secret: Akeneo leaders have great expectations for the coming three years.
Multicultural wealth
For a new employee like me, this was a great experience: I met people from different backgrounds in a multicultural setting in Mallorca. It was intimidating for the first few hours, but I enjoyed talking to a maximum number of people during AFK. “He who is different from me does not impoverish me — he enriches me.” These words borrowed from the French writer and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry are true: I experienced it in Mallorca. I don’t know how LinkedIn algorithms work, but it is indisputable that my Social Selling Index has exploded in Mallorca with 97 new contacts in 5 days! This never happened to me in journalism, a field where I have a lot of contacts. I should admit that I felt some torpor and tiredness while landing in France after a hectic week in Mallorca. Nevertheless, the objective of learning to become a fully-fledged data engineer brought me back on track.
Keep learning and growing with Akeneo
At the time of writing, I have more or less covered all the onboarding sessions. I have completed the tasks associated with my onboarding path. These first eight weeks at Akeneo have been intense as concerns internal training. The merry-go-round of emotions was also in constant movement. At some point, it has been, and it is still difficult for me not to get overwhelmed with the bulk of information entering my brain. My onboarding has essentially been a collection of cool moments, but I have also felt my faith collapsing in certain circumstances. Sometimes, I stare at my laptop’s screen and ask myself whether it is normal that I don’t understand anything. There is no inner voice that answers my question. However, my manager and colleagues were beside me with kind words and encouraging smiles. Without their benevolence, I would not be here writing about my two incredible months at Akeneo. I am not telling you that I understand every aspect of Akeneo’s ecosystem after two months. Acquiring this knowledge will take much more time. My objective now is straightforward: I want to become a highly competent data engineer and continue to learn and grow with Akeneo, a modern company aiming for the stars.
