Florin Ioanitescu

Walk us through your career path in ING 

I started working in ING Tech Romania 2 years ago, in the role of DevOps engineer in E-commerce. Now I am a proficient DevOps engineer working for Touch Point Platform, the platform that supports simplifying and standardizing ING’s banking applications and creating a modularly built system, free from constrains and limitations. It was (and still is) a fun and challenging journey and professionally I feel like I grew a lot, in a very organic, natural way. I evolved by being managed correctly, having a clear purpose in the team, having autonomy and mastery over what was laid out in front of me and by being challenged in an organized, professional manner, not in a hectic, “you’re a pro, deal with it” one. Moreover, whenever I felt stressed or under pressure, there was always someone to talk to, my manager(s) found time to listen and always lend a helping hand when I needed it. No wonder I feel grateful for this journey I’m having in Tech Romania.

How it’s Life @ ING? (especially from a learning experience point of view)

Pretty good so far. In these past couple of years, I learned what an important role HR plays (and kudos to the HR team & hiring managers for doing such an amazing work, I cannot emphasize this enough!) because daily I found myself surrounded mostly by like-minded people, with whom I can collaborate and see eye to eye both inside and outside the office.

I also learned to embrace new challenges and ask for them when I feel that I can do and help more, and that ING really helps (actively) in keeping a very healthy work/life balance 💻 🏖

Therefore, I feel like I’ve learned a lot and I also did my best to help other learn by holding Linux trainings, workshops on automation and DevOps tools and by holding a presentation at ING Tech Talk about Content Delivery Networks.

How would you explain your role as DevOps to a 7year-old?

It was Einstein who said, “If you can't explain it to a six-year-old, you don't understand it yourself.”, so I’d better do a good job 😃

I would say to him or her that “if you do the same thing manually, more than once and then you make something do it automatically, so you never have to do it again, then you’re a DevOps.” *laughs*.

If you were to recommend ING to a friend, what would you say about the organisation?

I have already recommended ING Tech Romania to a few of my friends. The cool thing is that I would just tell them the truth, that ING does a great job giving us mastery, purpose and autonomy and a good work/life balance, basically the most important intrinsic values which make me happy.

And, that we’re working with super cool people and technologies and you can play foosball or with a 3D printer when it`s safe to do it.

If you were to save the world with an app…

It would be something which would enable people to somehow communicate without an Internet or mobile network connection.

Let’s say you wrote your first SF book. What would you call it?

ImaginAItion or ImagiNation because we all could use some of Lennon’s “Imagine” in these dire times.