About me

I am an innovator always looking for opportunities, for ideas, for new products. I think in solutions and I create learning experiences.
My experience is a mix and match of various fields: I am a product manager but also a programmer and a tester.
In my day to day activities, I combine different working styles: there are times when I work as a freelancer, and other times, as an entrepreneur.
Sometimes I am a trainer but most of the time I am a learner. I always like to learn something new.

Current

I am currently the Strategic Advisor and one of the Board Members of Digital Nation and I am delivering various programming, testing and agile trainings or consultancy for or in partnership with different companies, see What I do section for examples of my consultancy activity.

Education

2008 - Master of Business

After obtaining my Bachelor’s Degree, I continued with a Master of Business and Projects at Bucharest University of Economic Studies, which I finished in 2008.

2006 - Faculty - Bachelor of Science

I attended the University Politehnica of Bucharest, Faculty of Automatic Control and Computers and obtained my Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Information Technology in 2006.

2001 - High School - Computer Science Based

During my highschool years, I followed an intensive program of computer science with focus on programming.

IT Experience

1997 - 2001

During highschool, I started do to more complex programming projects. There are two worth mentioning: the first one is a Physics engine programmed in Pascal with a Graphical Interface build up from scratch. The second one is a students management platform which I took over from the student who built it and kept updated to the newest regulations. This was programmed in Fox Pro 2.6.

2001 - 2006: Freelancer & Entrepreneur

During faculty, I did a lot of freelance projects. Here are some examples: I built a small ERP named Business Contracts in PHP with MySQL and deployed on premise. I was part of the team who implemented an Internet Cafe Management Software which ran in multiple internet cafes in Bucharest and UK. I built an application management platform for the National Agency for Disabled People – the platform was also built in PHP with PostgreSQL, with various partsimplemented in Java.
In summary I programmed mostly in: PHP, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Java.

2006 - 2008: Software Engineer & Team Leader

As a developer I was part of a team who researched how to use Javascript as a frontend for creating a Website builder. At the same time, I was a Python programmer for the international backend provisioning of Hostway Next Generation Platform. I was also working in Ruby on Rails, as part of the team who developed the ordering application of Hostway Next Generation Platform.
During this phase, I programmed mostly in: Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, Python

2008 - 2013: Research and Development Manager

During this time I was leading the Research and Development programming division of Hostway Romania. My main areas of responsibilities included:
1. Project management (agile) and technical product manager for implementation of an enterprise platform to automate flow of delivering products to customers. The platform automated all steps from the moment a visitor enters the website until the moment he/she starts using the actual product on our servers. This included hosting products for the local and global market: Dedicated Servers, Virtual Dedicated Server based on VMWare technology, Wordpress automatization, Shared Hosting Services, Email Applications, User Interfaces and so on.
3. Inter-departmental communication inside Hostway Romania and international communication with the other Hostway Corporation R&D centers
3. The hiring and training new employees, as well as the professional development of the other R&D team members.
My team worked with edge technologies in an agile environment using various programming languages and frameworks: Ruby on Rails, PHP, Python, JavaScript. We worked both on national and international software platforms.

2013 - present: IT Consultancy

Currently, I am providing a wide range of IT services as a consultant for various companies. These services are mostly focused on: 1. Working with teams to identify and solve technical challenges in Web space
2. Implementing Web Solutions for internal and external needs or opportunities (Ex: Innovation Platform, Recruiting Platform, Event Platform, Services Registration ...)

Training and Teaching Experience

2007 - present: TRAINING and WORKSHOPS in IT

I am organizing a wide range of learning experiences (trainings, workshops, mentorship and coaching), most of them focused on helping tech teams become efficient.
I am delivering testing workshops (web & web automation, mobile & mobile automation), programming workshops (ruby and python), agile methodologies workshops along with people management, team buildings and change management.

2013 - present: ANIS and ISTQB

I am a certified ISTQB Trainer for ISTQB Foundation Level, CMAP Mobile App Testing Foundation Level, ISTQB Agile Tester Foundation level and deliver these trainings

2013 - 2017: DevAcademy Co-founder and Learning Architect

As a part of DevAcademy’s team (now DigitalNation.ro), as well asthrough with my work as co-founder, I helped create our learning experience. We offered 6 months learning tracks, led by mentors, to a wide audience (programmers - backend; frontend and mobile; product managers; graphic designers).

Innovation, Culture and People

2013 - present

I have been collaborating with various companies on changing cultures or improving team work.
I created an environment to foster innovation at METRO SYSTEMS by building an innovation team, organizing events and working directly with people to help them work on their own innovative projects.

How other people might describe me

Visit the recommendations section to see what other people are saying about me or about my work.