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My Spartan story: Ioana Nicolae
From flying planes, to working as an SRE for a big four consultancy. Scroll to read Ioana Teodora Nicolae's story...
From flying planes, to working as an SRE for a big four consultancy. Scroll to read Ioana Teodora Nicolae's story...
Back in Romania - where I’m from - the educational system has you study all subjects in high school; from music and psychology to maths and computer science.
Computer science wasn’t really my strongest point - or at least I wasn't as good at it as maths and physics! This is why after graduating from high school, my path followed Aviation Technology and Management.
In my first year of University I did 10 hours of flight training and I completely fell in love with the industry. It seemed pretty clear to me at that point that I would either try to become a pilot or air traffic controller. Then Covid happened.
The industry was hit very hard and a lot of experienced pilots and air traffic controllers were jobless, and I was left completely lost. But if there’s one thing I learned from this whole experience, it was to be resilient, and that’s when Sparta came in. They offered me an incredible opportunity to work as an SRE (Site Reliability Engineer).
It was one of the biggest challenges as I had no prior coding experience and wouldn’t have even considered myself a tech savvy person, but I'm always up for a challenge and decided to give it a try. I actually have actually really enjoyed how dynamic and mentally rewarding the role is!
What I want to show through my story is; women can not only make it in STEM, but can just as successfully switch paths into tech too.
Natasha Fasanotti has always had an interest in technology, pursuing a degree in Computer Science to turn her passion into a career. But when it came to leaving university and picking a path - the options were overwhelming, unclear, and Natasha wanted to find an opportunity that could help her specialise in something that utilised her skills through and through. Joining Sparta Global in February this year, Natasha upskilled in test automation and is now an integral part of a mult-Spartan project team operating in the public sector.
When Ekaterina (Kat) McNeill began her Psychology studies at University, she wouldn’t have predicted a future working in Data and a successful career kickstart working in the public sector – but that’s exactly what Kat has achieved. In fact, her line manager told us how Kat got to grips with complex code with little to no documentation, worked out how to access data that was previously thought inaccessible, and modelled it through a workflow. Her skills have already made an impact on site and we can’t wait to see what Kat does next…
After initially forging a career in Mechanical Engineering, Bradley Woods found himself searching for an opportunity to change careers and pursue an interest in technology. With a firm determination to find training opportunities in DevOps, Bradley joined the Sparta Academy in early 2023 and quickly secured his first role working in the public sector. Nominated for Spartan of the Month for his “dedication and hard work” that have been “instrumental in the smooth execution of high-profile project”, we spoke to Bradley about his time in tech.