From Coding to Rock Climbing — Welcome to the World of Kadi Laidoja, Lead Engineer at Pipedrive Tallinn

Coding and rock climbing — these two activities are a lot more similar than one could imagine. At least in the experience of Kadi Laidoja, who has cracked the code of one of the biggest challenges in life — there is nothing extreme about seemingly dangerous or unknown things if you understand the risks and have the necessary knowledge of how to do them.

Kadi’s journey to rock climbing was actually quite random. She had once tried it but didn’t think too much of it till one rainy day on her trip in Colombia. As the gray sky was pouring steadily, there was nothing else to do but stay at the hostel and start watching Netflix. It was then when she came across a movie about rock climbing and its history; A movie that would change Kadi’s view on the sport. She realized that there is a lot more to it than just the physical challenge: it requires both creative as well as rational thinking for truly succeeding in it (and not putting yourself in danger). Nature and wonderful views serve as an eye-catching bonus. When she returned home from her trip, it didn’t take long until she visited a local bouldering gym to give it another try.

Turning fear into a source of comfort

Unlike rock climbing, starting studies in IT was a firm choice for Kadi. She admits that she began pursuing a career in IT for pragmatic reasons, but discovered during her university studies that it is something that she really likes. “Honestly, I didn’t know too much about informatics and I had no previous experience in computer science. As I’m creative and good at mathematics, I figured that I have covered all presumptions for succeeding in the field. At first, I wasn’t sure if I had made the right decision, but then I started to like it,” explains Kadi. In the end, she received her Bachelor’s degree in information technology and later a Master’s degree in business IT.

Kadi believes that writing code and rock climbing are very similar in essence. The centric part of both activities is tackling a problem and then finding a solution to it. Programming is a challenging field, but so is rock climbing, partly because every new route requires attention for overcoming all the physical and technical challenges, and partly because of constantly outweighing your fears. Being afraid of falling is very human; It is something that probably stops most people from doing foolish things. But if you are 100% focused, know exactly what you are doing and can overcome your fears, it is possible to turn the fear into a satisfying feeling of being fully present in the moment. In that instant, nothing else matters and letting go of unnecessary day-to-day thoughts becomes so easy.

Indeed, writing code does not include any life-threatening moments of danger. But it does require full attention to finding a solution to an existing problem. Like rock climbing, it is a technical field — you have to not only have the right knowledge, but also the proper mindset. Losing focus might mean losing days of work — something that you can not always afford, especially if relationships with customers or team members are at stake.

Incubating new knowledge

Kadi joined Pipedrive Tallinn approximately 2.5 years ago and works as a lead engineer. Surprisingly, writing code is not the only thing that has occupied her work days during the past few months. “Pipedrive is constantly growing as a product and we are no longer a single tool, but a beneficial revenue platform for sales and marketing teams. The great part about working at Pipedrive is that teams get to execute all great ideas based on solid data and market needs. Our team had the idea of building a project management tool and won second place at an internal hackathon. Then we realized that we actually have a great idea, plus amazing team chemistry, and this is how I ended up working on this project instead of only writing code,” tells Kadi.

Kadi says that if she didn’t work as a lead engineer, she would probably pursue a career as a product manager. Now, thanks to joining the incubation with her team, Kadi gets to enjoy the best part of both worlds. This is exactly why she joined Pipedrive in the first place — building impactful products is one of her greatest passions and she wanted to be part of a larger team. Thanks to the incubation project, she now has had the chance to cooperate with the research team, make user interviews and collect background information and work with design prototyping.

“I have learned so much during this process. I love coding and becoming a specialist in this field is absolutely great. But I have enjoyed acquiring new knowledge in different areas of expertise. It has helped me understand the essence of different problems in a new way and thus find the best solutions for them. As a result, we can potentially create so much more value for our customers, and honestly, it is such a pleasure knowing that my work has such an impact.”

Team first

When asked what makes working at Pipedrive special, Kadi mentions people, company culture and the overall way of working among the very first things. “I love the balance between work and personal life at Pipedrive. I have experienced in my previous positions how it feels working so much that you are physically ill. This is probably the reason why I value a well-balanced work environment. But at the same time, I also love how our “team first” value is not just a promise on paper, but we actually follow this company value. No matter the project that I have ever worked on, I have always received help or good advice when asking for it,” describes Kadi.

The “team first” value is also something that Kadi experienced during her last rock climbing trip to Spain. For the very first time in her life, she tried multi-pitch climbing. While your partner would usually stay on the ground, providing a connection with the ground, on this trip she and her partner climbed up together following one another. Rock climbing between the earth and the sky, there was no physical connection with the ground and the feeling of exposure was thus a lot bigger than usual. It required immense concentration and constantly pushing herself to not think about the chances of falling, as Kadi recalls, but also cooperation with her partner and sticking to the grounded mutual trust between the two.

Unsurprisingly, coding and rock climbing are truly very similar in essence. A little bit of risk provides some adrenaline and pushes your boundaries, and this is what makes the task enjoyable — no matter if it is work, challenging yourself in nature, or something else. By the way, not too long ago Kadi also tried kite surfing for the first time in her life. Even though she feels that she still has a lot to learn for mastering this new hobby, one thing is for sure: there is nothing extreme in this life when you don’t give up and focus on what you are doing and how you are doing it.

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