In every locker room of NBA (National Basketball Association) teams, one of the most important sports leagues in the world, there is a proactive person who connects the team members: The Glue Guy. Ours is Cătălin Parcioagă, and over the course of his 8 years here, he has been an intern, junior developer, full stack developer, team lead, and, more recently, holds the role of Technical Delivery Manager.
He is a very energetic and lively person, passionate about various fields, but primarily sports (more watching them than practicing – as he courageously admits). He doesn’t consider himself a tech geek, which is quite atypical: not necessarily being a technology enthusiast while working as a programmer in the IT industry 😊. At Connections, he is the person “responsible” for good vibes, the organizer or initiator of many outings with colleagues outside working hours, and the “instigator” in team-building activities.
His history with the team begins in the spring of 2016, when he first heard about Connections, being a second-year student at the Faculty of Automatic Control and Computers within the POLITEHNICA University of Bucharest. Every year, job fairs were organized in the faculty hall, and various IT companies were looking for new people to train in the field.
“At our university, it was very common for most students to work during the summer between their second and third year, so I followed the same path. I sent my CV to numerous companies, including Connections. I took a test with several programming problems, after which I was invited for a technical interview, which I took during the exam session, ironically, the day after I failed an exam. I was a bit upset because of the exam, so I went to the interview somewhat indifferent, but everything went excellently, including the human connection with those who would become my future colleagues. Yes, back then, interviews were face to face 😊,” Cătălin recounts.
Long story short, his journey started as an intern in July 2016, after an interview that went well. “Of course, it also helped that I found out they play football weekly and go out for beers – and they weren’t lying, we still keep some of those habits today,” Cătălin recalls.
He continued to work part-time during his third and fourth years of university, then moved to a full-time schedule. The entire experience laid the foundation for a beautiful story of growth and performance in IT. “Connections is a place where I’ve grown tremendously and, in many cases, grown together with the team, which we will continue to do,” he says enthusiastically.
After 8 years in IT, Cătălin fully appreciates the impact of technology, including what it brings to him personally.
“Certainly, one of the things that makes my life better is the ability to remotely control various devices in my home. Even though I don’t own an Alexa or a Google Nest, I can control my cleaning robot or air conditioner remotely. Life is clearly better when you come back from vacation to a freshly vacuumed floor and a perfectly regulated home temperature.
The second strong point is communication with close people and those I speak to less frequently; being able to do that anytime and anywhere will always have a significant impact, even if we’ve gotten so used to it that we take it for granted.
Technology has given me everything I have today and everything I will achieve in the future. It provided the platform for me to put my skills and all the things I’ve learned to work. I entered this field because I thought I wouldn’t be good at anything else, and here I saw that it’s such a vast domain with so many facets that it’s not just about the technical side or just about programming but much more. Some skills you acquire, and others you already had but didn’t know you had or didn’t know you would need in a technical field where the human side didn’t seem so important and where programmers were often seen as socially awkward individuals.
What have I discovered about myself at Connections? People matter a lot. I keep empathy with me at all times and try to have a personal connection with all the team members I work with so that we can communicate very openly in any situation, no matter how complex. And it works 😊”.
ABOUT DIGITALIZATION AND IT FEARS: A WHOLE HOLLYWOOD. LET’S SIT COMFORTABLY AND ENJOY WHAT IT OFFERS US
After 8 years in the industry and a steady professional evolution, Cătălin looks at the challenges in IT from multiple perspectives.
“You realize a topic is really hot when your grandparents ask you if you’re afraid you’ll lose your job soon because of Chat GPT. Yes, that’s the hottest topic: to what extent and how quickly programmers will be replaced by AI.
I would say it will happen sooner than we realize, but obviously not entirely. The number of programmers will shrink, but at the same time, I assume new positions will also emerge. On the other hand, there are many large companies where changes happen very slowly. Many of them are just transitioning from Excel to front-end/back-end platforms that allow simultaneous access by multiple users, let alone implementing projects with Chat GPT. AI is coming after the basic programmers who only know their piece and don’t understand the entire mechanism of a project, both from a technical standpoint and in terms of client relationships, management, and so on.”
Regarding digitalization, a constant topic on the global agenda, Cătălin sees it as “more than a character; it’s the whole of Hollywood: always in a broad dynamic that’s hard to keep up with, with new faces and trends constantly changing. But you have the certainty that it always proposes innovations and every time it’s increasingly scandalous with the new things it reveals to the market. We can only sit comfortably, let ourselves be surprised, and enjoy what it offers.”
MESSAGE FOR A BEGINNER IN IT
“Try to enter the field as quickly as possible without neglecting your studies. I know this might sound ignorant or hard to accept, but in the beginning, you shouldn’t worry too much about the salary. In 2016, I was willing to work pro bono just to get into the work mechanism and gather as much information as possible, trusting that the money would come with the right attitude towards growth and personal development in the career.
I started at Connections as a full-time intern on a salary that today might seem derisory, but it didn’t matter at that time and was irrelevant to my career growth. I believed then, and it was confirmed, and I still believe today that the most important thing is to find a place where you can develop both professionally and personally. I’m glad I found it.
The important thing is to find a place where you feel you can develop both personally and professionally.“