Alexandra Rijnoveanu
Business Applications Architect
Microsoft
Milestones
My road in life took a while to figure out.
First, I had many summer jobs when I was in school, always working with customers.
Then I started working at a call centre during my final school year in Romania.
Then I moved to Budapest, Hungary, after I finished school and got a new job at a call centre.
Then I worked hard and got promoted twice during the 2 years I worked for that company.
Then I ran out of opportunities to grow, so I applied for a role at Microsoft and moved to the UK.
Then I continued to learn about different technology types and changed jobs internally a few times.
Keep following my journey
Education
High School
Colegiul National "Unirea", Brasov, Romania
Colegiul National "Unirea", Brasov, Romania
Career
Business Applications Architect
I use technology to drive positive changes in our world.
Career Roadmap
My work combines:
My work combines:
Business
Technology
Being Creative
Day to Day
A great day at work starts with collaboration - where I work there are many talented people but we are all different and we know we work better together. When we start a new engagement with a customer, we like to get together to find out how much we know about them already, based on previous experiences or research. We then identify how we can help them by leveraging existing information or spending some time in their offices, discovering ways to improve their world, with the help of tech.
Advice for Getting Started
Here's the first step for high school students
Try a part time job or volunteering in an environment that is customer facing, where you need to use technology / communication skills in order to provide solutions for different problems or challenges people may have. I had various summer jobs when I was in school, I was a waitress, a toothbrush street seller or I was helping organisations collect data for research during my summer holidays. In my final year of school I took a part time job in a call centre, it was so useful to start my career.
Recommended Education
My career is not related to what I studied. I'd recommend this path instead:
Hurdles
The Noise I Shed
From Society in General:
"You will never succeed, you are not good enough, nobody else has managed to do this, what makes you think it will be you? You don't deserve such a good job. You have to work at least 10 more years to get that role. You are too young to get paid well."
Challenges I Overcame
Financial
First-Generation Immigrant
