My Journey to diconium | Adrianna Csipo
Junior Project Manager
This time around with Adrianna, we shift into a discussion about Project Management.
Adrianna’s achievements don’t only include such Herculean feats as keeping friendships while playing Overcooked, but also a drive to constantly challenge herself to improve both professionally and in her private life.
Hi Adrianna, could you introduce yourself?
I’m Adrianna, a 27-year-old junior project manager at diconium and I work in the Stuttgart office.
I like to play Overcooked on PlayStation and board games with friends. On top of that, I used to do cardio kickbox, which was fun because you learn kicking, have a workout, but you don’t have to fight opponents. Now I’m trying to get into heavy lifting. I really like learning that you don’t know at all how much your body is capable. Not only that, but I had no clue I can lift way more than I weigh. I was completely mesmerized, and I think this is a good way to show yourself, how much more you can do, even things you might have not even dreamed of.
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What did you study or do before diconium?
My journey began when I was 18 and wanted to do a BA outside of Serbia. So, I applied both in Greece and Denmark. I chose the latter, where I did business and English studies. I also did a course in IT, but I didn’t like it. I felt lost in programming, but the tech part was interesting to me. For my MA, I wanted to go more into Academics. That’s why I moved to Munich, where my parents lived, for English studies. When I finished there, I did an internship as a research assistant in Canada for a professor at the University of Alberta. Together we finished a publication where I’m listed as a chapter author! I got to spend a lot of time playing games for studying purposes, like Dragon Age. We recorded the play session and studied the accents. It was also used for machine learning purposes. The recordings were fed to a machine learning algorithm, and it tried to learn the different accents from them. It was so fun because I also got a glimpse into machine learning and tech fields.
Then, I realized Academics wasn’t for me. I like writing and reading, but in general, I didn’t want to spend most of my life doing that. I wanted to act on my minor in Business, and I ended up in a tech startup as an intern in business development in Munich. The tech was very innovative, it was cool to see the people work on it. I still didn’t quite feel this role would fit me. My fiancé, who is a software developer, talked to me a lot about his job, which sounded fun, but I couldn’t code. I started exploring options, such as scrum master and project manager. I took all the courses I could to get a better idea and felt ‘I’m heading the right way’. Likewise, I like communicating with people, organizing work, and the tech part, so I thought it would be a good combination. At that point I was living in Munich, but then I got a job in my hometown in Serbia. I joined a smaller software development company as a project manager where I was able to learn a lot. Everyone was supportive, which also helped. Then my fiancé got a job at diconium in Germany. I also started looking for jobs there, and here we are now.
How did your interviewing process go?
The interviewer at diconium did an amazing job. It felt like a friendly exchange of experiences. I didn’t feel pressure. I already felt we were just colleagues talking. I met my boss, who was also awesome and laid back, and we had a friendly conversation as well. After that, I was hired and started working on the 15th of September 2021.
What do you think about your current role as Project Manager?
What I love is that in project managing there is a bit of everything included, like team and client communication, a bit of administration, organization, and thinking up solutions to problems.
Do you want to become a colleague of Adrianna at diconium? Take a look at our open jobs! 💜🚀 Jobs Project Management/ All vacancies
What are your responsibilities at diconium?
My responsibilities vary between projects, but mainly it goes something like: drafting an offer, setting up the project, the team, the resources, then documentation, invoicing. Currently, we are in the middle of the PI which is something of a sprint, but on a much bigger scale. Here I do reporting and budgeting — so resource allocation between various projects, and teams.
I’m also taking on another role part-time in Architecture. My job will be to organize penetration tests and different types of testing, which happen throughout the year, so my job will be to organize all of this.
You have been at diconium for around 6 months now. Were you surprised that you already have these opportunities, such as learning another role like Architecture?
Yes, I appreciate it, and I’m very excited about it. My bosses know what I have done and haven’t done. I’ve organized things on a smaller level, and this is a massive one. Here, there are a lot of different stakeholders and people who need to meet a certain deadline. I also won’t be alone, which is great at diconium. We really get support from different people. Of course, it’s my responsibility to do it, but you can always lean on different colleagues to ask: “Okay, I have this and that issue, what would you recommend?”. They are always helpful, which is great because you can’t learn if you don’t try it yourself. That’s what’s great about diconium.
In your opinion, what led you to get this opportunity?
Asking a million questions and not being afraid. In my previous job, I would go to my boss and say: “I have a question”. He always smiled and said: “Go ahead”. You must surround yourself with people who are appreciative and who will willingly answer all your questions and can joke about it. I always have a million questions and I learned to always ask, even if you think it’s dumb. It will always help you learn something new. Even if I’m 90% sure, that 10% might lead to a learning opportunity. If you don’t ask, nobody will bring the solution to you on a silver plate. You will just cause problems for yourself down the road if you don’t ask.
Would you say the company culture also supports this mindset?
For sure. It’s one of the best things about diconium. Transparency between people, no holding back knowledge. They will help you, even if they themselves don’t know the answer. They will refer you to people and resources, but you will get an answer. I have never, not one time, got a negative reaction or no response. Everyone is always amazing and very, very supportive.
What do you think the future holds for you at the company?
I think, in the future, I’d like to stay in the project management role. I’m currently working to achieve the intermediate level soon. I might want to try on the hat of the Product Owner at some point, but I’m not sure yet. I know diconium has options to help me get there for sure.
What could a developer do to make your job go smoother?
Well, the developer is always welcome and encouraged to log their time (laughs). I can’t really follow up on the budget if people haven’t logged their time. My job really depends on people saying how much time they spent so I know, okay, that part of the budget is gone. This way it’s easier to assess if we are still on track and react if not.
What would you say are the best aspects of working at diconium?
Hands down, the colleagues. The whole community that manifests this supportive culture. It’s definitely something I haven’t experienced in the past. Also, the values we have on the website are quite good. People are very mindful of each other’s time and abilities. Transparency is also a key for me, like the meetings we have on the company level. We get to ask questions, we get to see the numbers, the clients, and what’s happening in diconium.
Diconium does really well letting people improve, and I like that we have opportunities to contribute on our own with things like the Diconium Journeys series or the running experiments we have in our department. One of these experiments is on how to improve the onboarding and integration processes. Because diconium grew so fast, we saw that the integration of the newbies was lacking, and we were thinking about how to improve this. We, as employees, had the idea to make workshops, experiments with different kinds of gamification, and quizzes.
What tips do you have for people who are interested in joining diconium?
I’d say, definitely go for it. In my general experience, if you want to apply somewhere, just do it. You never know, you might be thinking “Oh, I don’t match exactly”, but the company might prioritize something else. So for sure, just apply. For me the most important is to work for a company where I see myself as a valuable team member and where my values match the company’s values.
What about the people who are just starting to learn about tech world roles?
During my transfer to the tech world, what really helped was looking up course materials on YouTube, Udemy, or wherever. When I was unfamiliar with a term, I googled it. If you really like tech but are unsure what you could do, start exploring what topics there are and go into the details. For job interviews, practice them by yourself in your room, because the more comfortable you feel with your words, the more relaxed you will feel at the interview.
Do you want to become a colleague of Adrianna at diconium? Take a look at our open jobs! 💜🚀 Jobs Project Management/ All vacancies
Any closing thoughts you have?
I think, along the lines of this interview, it would be that you definitely don’t know what your limits are. You can’t always comprehend, whether physically or mentally, what you are capable of doing or learning. It’s my main takeaway for this year. Whether you are unsure or afraid to try, you should go for it. Everything will fall into place once you set yourself to trying it out.
