“One big advantage of being in a scale-up is that you’re growing with the company”

Discover our Qonto Insiders of the month: Ana-Maria Bordianu, Lead Back-End, at Qonto.

1. What did you do before joining Qonto (your education, professional experience etc.)?

My background is mainly in Math and Engineering. I specialized in Math and Computer Science in my early studies while I was still in Romania, then I moved to the UK for my Bachelor in Computer Science at University of Essex. A little while later I moved to France for a Master at Ecole Centrale de Nantes.

I’ve worked as a developer since my undergrad studies, participating in university research projects. I worked for two years in China in different industries between my B.Sc. and Masters, which might be atypical, but it helped me get out of my shell, so to speak. In France, I’ve worked at Amadeus, the IT leader behind the tourism industry, then for a fresh start-up where R&D was the word of the day, every day. Afterwards I joined Ricardo, the e-commerce leader in Switzerland, where I got to grow more as an engineer and even lead a cross-functional team handling payments, bookkeeping and orders.

2. Why did you join Qonto?

I heard good things from a previous colleague who joined Qonto. I was looking to change jobs as my employer was facing financial restrictions due to the pandemic, and that was when Qonto reached out. Great timing!

During the recruitment process, I remember reading blog articles on The Qonto Way, on Value Engineering, and dive-ins, and I was like, “Why is this not used everywhere! It makes so much more sense!”. It clicked with me that unlike other companies I was interviewing with, it felt tangible, not just exaggerated marketing and self-promotion. Qonto was really delivering.

The very positive energy I was getting from the interviewers when going through the recruiting process also convinced me that it’s a great place to work.

3. How would you summarize the recruitment process?

Well organized and efficient! It was the most organized process I’ve experienced, and I remember being shocked at how quickly it went. Previous companies I worked for had processes that lasted more than a month, with 2 weeks on average between steps. With Qonto, most steps were scheduled in the same week and by Friday I had the offer.

• First, there’s an interview with a TAM (Talent Acquisition Manager) to talk about which position might be the best fit.
• Second, there is a DMI (Direct Manager Interview) with the future manager, in my case the Head of Backend, to discuss the teams, and what is the scope of their work.
• Third is a skill test exercise, to complete in a few hours, followed by a debrief. The debrief is with engineers that reviewed the solution, to go over the implementation and thought process behind the submission.
• Fourth was a team fit. Met with another Lead and discussed working at Qonto, what are the responsibilities and expectations for the position. It’s worth noting that a Lead at Qonto does both the job of a Tech Lead and of an Engineering Manager.
• Fifth was a team fit with a Product Manager to discuss the way product and tech work differently at Qonto.
• Sixth was meeting the CTO, to explain what you can bring to Qonto.
• Last was another DMI that outlined the position offer and what team to join .

It helped that during all these meetings, the conversations always went both ways. I had my time to ask all the questions I wanted to make sure Qonto was a good fit for me.

4. What stood out for you about the onboarding process?

It was very thorough. There are batches of new joiners every 2 weeks no matter the department, and the onboarding happens in the Paris office. There are a lot of meetings in the first week, and most of them cover Qonto as a whole: the different departments, the business, the product, the tech stacks, The Qonto Way, all of it. It’s exhilarating and exhausting at the same time. All the organizers are full of energy and enthusiastic about what they’re doing.

5. Tell us about what you do as a Lead Backend at Qonto.

My role is a mix of Tech Lead and Engineering Manager. I drive and ensure the delivery of my team’s projects while constantly coordinating with external providers, product, design, strategy and other stack teams within the cross-functional team. To do that, I need to make sure my team is working well and has the right skills, so interviewing is one way to ensure that, but developing the technical knowledge of my existing team members is essential.

My team is a key component for Qonto, as we handle all the Cards processes -both lifecycle and transactions. Making sure that the team masters its scope is key, and I’m regularly challenging the engineers to target areas of improvement.

Since I arrived at Qonto I’ve doubled the size of my team. I needed to do hiring interviews, improve the team onboarding process, improve the knowledge sharing between older and newer members and ensure knowledge preservation. I’ve also counseled the engineers to grow in their career and tech skills. One big advantage of being in a scale-up is that you’re growing with the company and always working on improving yourself.

6. What are the qualities required to be a successful team Lead ?

First and foremost, you need to be a good and experienced developer. You need to have “walked a mile in your engineers’ shoes” before you can lead them.

Secondly, there are many things to juggle, so some other top traits would be being well-organized, inquisitive and flexible.

Ultimately, as with all managerial roles, it’s the Lead’s responsibility to ensure the best environment for the team to work together and grow their skill set. It can be even more challenging to do that when everyone in the team is working remotely.

7. How would you summarize your day-to-day life as part of the Qonto Backend team?

1. Unblock and align. Daily syncs with the team, weekly meetings with other stakeholders to ensure delivery and visibility on common current and future projects.
2. Alert and react. Millions of cards, all working without any issue, only happens by ensuring that no bug or incident is visible by the client.
3. Continuous improvement. We have a great tool at Qonto called the PDCA, which helps us tackle the daily problems and improve on them.
4. Team support and collaboration. I measure and improve the team’s scope and technical knowledge, making sure that the engineers are pairing on different tasks, preparing presentations and workshops, and ensuring good documentation of the system.
5. Team growth. Participating in interviews to hire new engineers while also doing Gembas (1-on-1 coaching sessions) with existing team members.

8. What has been your biggest challenge as a Lead Backend?

Qonto likes to challenge itself with ambitious goals while still being right first time. I’ve been confronted with finding the balance to ensure that growth while also ensuring quality delivery. Keeping the team staffed adequately has been the most difficult, as there is a very high demand for IT engineers lately.

9. Improving the parity within Tech teams has been a challenge for several years now. Why? And would you have any advice to give to candidates/companies to achieve it?

I doubt it’s possible to have parity in tech companies as long as there is no parity in the educational system. As a clear example: we were 5 girls out of 100 in my first year of BSc. I found this disparity to be even more accentuated in western countries.

I cannot speak for others, because I was privileged since both by parents are engineers, so it seamed natural while growing up that if I have an interest in any tech field, my gender is not an obstacle. Then again, my younger cousins are now working in IT because they saw that I was doing it, and it made them think that they can too, so when they asked about it, I was glad to help them.

That said, having more women in tech that speak up about their experiences will break the western cliché that girls are not interested or good in tech. Companies should also stop redirecting girls that studied IT to do QA or PO. It’s been one of the most frequent cliché I’ve seen, and as a backend engineer, it upsets me.

A company I know is actively fighting for having more women in tech is Vinted. And I found their approach very interesting: since their client demographic is mostly female, they promote tech courses and campuses for women directly on their platform, with thousands of scholarships.

I think that Qonto is on the right track: it participates in projects to train young women in tech by partnering with Becomtech and also collaborates with the Ada Tech School.

10. Which of Qonto’s 4 values (Ambition, Mastery, Teamwork, Integrity) resonates with you the most and why?

Mastery for sure. Qonto is very ambitious, of course, but all people in Qonto are either masters of their craft, or aim to be. It’s invigorating to be in a company where “Continuous Improvement” is part of the DNA.

11. If you could speak to potential future Qonto candidates, what would you tell them?

• Inform yourself about the business before applying. We are a fintech, and as an engineer, you will be responsible for working with money; make sure that this is something you’re comfortable with. Read the blog articles, and what is Qonto’s business plan.
• Know the tech before applying. The information on the stacks and technologies we work on are on the job descriptions and blogs. Read through them if you have doubts on what you might encounter.
• Be flexible and open to new approaches. The Qonto Way is based on the Lean methodology, which is not common in most tech companies, so be open to it, especially if you’re coming from Agile. We aim to always improve, don’t be afraid to propose and use new technologies or tools.
• Be ready to work remotely. Most of our tech engineers work outside the office, and we’re fine with that; make sure you are too.
• Be ambitious. There are multiple projects happening at any given moment here, and as a result there are also multiple tech challenges that come with it. Keep learning and work to help surpass those challenges. Why not do it with Qonto?

12. Do you have a fun anecdote you would like to share about your time at Qonto?

My anecdote has to do with the size of the problems that can arise when working with money. In my previous company, the biggest potential loss case I faced was 60,000 CHf for a bank transfer gone AWOL with our payment provider. In my first month at Qonto, I got faced with a fraud attempt of 5 million euros. I got “baptized” fast by working on a big league project!