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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