Day in the life of… Marija K (Senior Project Manager)
Marija is a Senior Project Manager in the Supply Chain Tech Warehouse team in Berlin (Eurohub). She loves good food, talks with friends over coffee, deadlifts, human science books, travel, and all other trivial and ordinary pleasures.
My alarm clock goes off…
Almost never, only when I need to wake up early for a flight. I’m lucky to have a natural circadian rhythm that wakes me up every day between 5.30–6am. I start the day with some light mobility exercises, or a walk in the summertime, followed by a hearty breakfast during which I read a bit and by 7am I am ready to go online and start work.
I’m responsible for…
The end-to-end delivery of strategic projects and new features for our Eurohub Warehouse Platform in Berlin, Germany.
On one end I collaborate with our local Operations (Logistics) team and our 3PL (third-party logistics), Ceva, as well as other departments (SC Tech Central, SC Development), on assessing and setting the business priorities. On the other end, I lead the delivery with the support of our service provider, Knapp, where we have a dedicated team of engineers and developers, as well as our internal QA team and the Ceva IT team. In the middle I have the Business Analysts, both internal and external, who carry the weight of capturing, analysing, and transforming the business needs into technical requirements, acting as Product Owners and collaborating with Solution Architects and the BA community.
My team is the Supply Chain Tech — Warehouse Platform EU which also supports all warehouse monitoring and improvements, from system stability, stock integrity, service as well as problem management.
My typical day looks like…
With a coffee in hand, around 7am I am ready to dive into the first 90 minutes of distraction-free focused work. Often this is the only long non-interrupted block of time that I have so I make sure I tackle the most complex tasks and/or problem-solving. Luckily people at Asos have the flexibility around starting time, which works out for some of my colleagues that are at their best only after 9am.
The later part of the morning, as well as early afternoon, is dedicated to multiple daily stand-ups, regular team or project meetings as well as ad-hoc calls, both urgent and planned. I try to keep the last 90 minutes or so of the working day meeting-free, for follow-ups from the daily work, reassembling, and ticking off some easier and/or shorter tasks. If I am lucky, I manage to squeeze in a 30–45 mins walk over lunchtime instead of just taking my lunchbreak for a meal, during which I either listen to whichever book I am currently reading or process some of the situations at work and devise how to handle them.
My evenings have me…
Heading to the gym right after work for a training session. I am one of those lucky people that enjoy training a lot and look forward to it, and function much better mentally when my training is regular and of high quality. After training or on rest days I split my time between German classes, spending time with my partner, my sister, and my niece, or a walk with Audible when the sun is out for longer.
The best part of my job…
…are the people. I have been through a good amount of companies and have shared experiences in many conversations to know that ASOS attracts great people and offers the perfect working atmosphere focused on performance and output but underpinned by collaboration, support, growth, and development. I have been inspired and challenged by the people I work with, and am motivated to support and collaborate with them, fostering reciprocal growth.
One new thing I have learned in the last year…
How important work-life balance is. During my whole professional career, I tended to overwork, rarely taking a full weekend off, and often exceeding 10h working days. It resulted in great successes and fast career progression but also came at a cost. At ASOS, I was able to completely reset that and learned that success, delivery, and satisfaction at work do not have to come at the price of overworking and neglecting other things in life. In the right environment, I finally found my balance.
My one piece of advice for aspiring women in tech…
Train yourself to be assertive and less agreeable and keep pushing the boundaries. Society has different expectations of men and women with biases most are not even aware of, and we are even fearful about discussing this topic. Be comfortable with the uncomfortable.
Tech is a thrilling field with endless opportunities for women willing to grab them!
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