Q&A with Marianna, Business Analyst in Amsterdam — Backbase Careers
About Marianna
In a nutshell, I’m a bookaholic, a travel addict, an adventurer who’s always curious about people and different cultures. I love to hike and enjoy eating good food. I’m fascinated with the intricacies of the human brain, so I often read psychology books and practice meditation. I’m from Ukraine, but I’ve been living in The Netherlands since last year when I moved to work at Backbase.
Tell us about your job. What do you do at Backbase?
As a Business Analyst in the Product Implementation department, I help our clients, the banks in their digital transformation process. I facilitate business workshops during the project discovery phase, provide consultancy on approaches and processes, define business requirements together with the clients and deliver them to the implementation teams.
I act as a link between our clients and our teams, making sure the requirements are accurately translated into product features and experiences. Every project has its own set of unique challenges that must be overcome and it’s up to me to dive deep into our product features, analyze gaps and suggest solutions that work for everyone.
What brought you to Backbase?
I wanted to work in a multinational environment with a company that impacts the way businesses work all over the world. I’m proud to be able to do that at Backbase and see how we bring this huge digital transformation to such mature financial players. Even more, that we’re changing the way their customers are experiencing banking every day.
The fact that I also get to travel around the world while doing my job is a great extra perk.
How does your work contribute to Backbase’s mission to power the digital banking revolution?
I already knew Backbase before joining and was familiar with the level of professionalism that we put into how we present, explain and offer guidance to our clients. Now I’m convinced about it. We’re good at what we do and always strive to do it even better.
I’m lucky to work in a team where everyone is passionate about what we do and the value we bring to our clients and their customers.
What’s unique about Backbase’s culture?
It is a synergy of great professionals who understand the mission of the company, act as a team, share their experience and use best practices for fast market delivery.
At Backbase we know that no one is perfect. But we are not afraid to try different approaches, fail, succeed, learn and, in the end, add cool features to our product. Features that our customers love.
What’s the most challenging thing about your work?
My onboarding period was on fast-forward. I had about a month to learn everything about the product and prepare for my first client meeting. I survived 🙏😁
I would say, our biggest challenges come from being these ‘Agile mindset missionaries’. We show the value and guide our clients through the process of adopting not just Agile practices, but the whole Agile mindset. As expected, this comes with a lot of hard work.
How are you developing your skills at Backbase?
Backbase is a company where we value proper communication and knowledge-sharing. Every day brings something new and the learnings usually come from different people in different roles. It can be a team member on your project or your fellow from the same guild. It can be a workshop with colleagues or inspirational speeches from the CEO.
Since joining, I’ve definitely built up my presentation and communication skills. I need to talk, explain, convince a lot, so I’m learning how to get better at it.
What advice would you give to someone who’s interested in joining Backbase?
We’re all about work and play. But the fact is, you need to be quick on your feet here. You might be flying to a client site with a couple of days’ notice, so you need to be flexible and adjust to changing needs. Besides this, you need to own your stuff to be able to advise and convince very experienced people.
Don’t worry, happy hours and after-hours are a thing at Backbase. So plenty of opportunities to relax and have fun.
Do it and you will be amazed by how cool this journey can be.
Originally published at https://workatbackbase.com on January 20, 2020.
