Career choices, transitions and promotions in and out of tech - Agita Jaunzeme

Jan 10, 2025

Agita Jaunzeme, a versatile professional with a background in DevOps/DataOps engineering, education, and community building, shares her unique career trajectory. She discusses her transition from art school to tech, tackling burnout, and the value of mentorship. Agita highlights her NGO aimed at promoting inclusivity and gender equality while exploring the differences between volunteer and employee management. The conversation delves into the significance of community in tech and the challenges faced by expatriates, combined with insights on fostering collaboration and innovative problem-solving in the industry.

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ANECDOTE

From Art to Code

Agita's career began unconventionally, transitioning from art school to programming after discovering her knack for it.
Despite initial struggles finding design work, a computer science degree and C++ bootcamp paved her way into IT.

ANECDOTE

Accidental DevOps Journey

Agita's C++ bootcamp led to an internship at Accenture, where she unexpectedly landed in DevOps.
This unplanned move coincided with the field's growth, leading to promotions and leadership roles, but ultimately resulted in burnout.

ANECDOTE

Automation to Promotion

Tasked with a repetitive seven-page process, Agita automated it within three months.
This initiative, exceeding expectations, led to a promotion in under a year.

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In this podcast episode, we talked with Agita Jaunzeme about Career choices, transitions and promotions in and out of tech.

About the Speaker:

Agita has designed a career spanning DevOps/DataOps engineering, management, community building, education, and facilitation. She has worked on projects across corporate, startup, open source, and non-governmental sectors. Following her passion, she founded an NGO focusing on the inclusion of expats and locals in Porto. Embodying the values of innovation, automation, and continuous learning, Agita provides practical insights on promotions, career pivots, and aligning work with passion and purpose.

During this event, discussed their career journey, starting with their transition from art school to programming and later into DevOps, eventually taking on leadership roles. They explored the challenges of burnout and the importance of volunteering, founding an NGO to support inclusion, gender equality, and sustainability. The conversation also covered key topics like mentorship, the differences between data engineering and data science, and the dynamics of managing volunteers versus employees. Additionally, the guest shared insights on community management, developer relations, and the importance of product vision and team collaboration. 0:00 Introduction and Welcome 1:28 Guest Introduction: Agita’s Background and Career Highlights 3:05 Transition to Tech: From Art School to Programming 5:40 Exploring DevOps and Growing into Leadership Roles 7:24 Burnout, Volunteering, and Founding an NGO 11:00 Volunteering and Mentorship Initiatives 14:00 Discovering Programming Skills and Early Career Challenges 15:50 Automating Work Processes and Earning a Promotion 19:00 Transitioning from DevOps to Volunteering and Project Management 24:00 Managing Volunteers vs. Employees and Building Organizational Skills 31:07 Personality traits in engineering vs. data roles 33:14 Differences in focus between data engineers and data scientists 36:24 Transitioning from volunteering to corporate work 37:38 The role and responsibilities of a community manager 39:06 Community management vs. developer relations activities 41:01 Product vision and team collaboration 43:35 Starting an NGO and legal processes 46:13 NGO goals: inclusion, gender equality, and sustainability 49:02 Community meetups and activities 51:57 Living off-grid in a forest and sustainability 55:02 Unemployment party and brainstorming session 59:03 Unemployment party: the process and structure

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