Tudor Ardelean wanted to make Alexandru Jipa take on a new challenge by tagging him to be the next one up on our mindit chats series.

Here’s what Alexandru had to say!

1. What's something that happened to you that can only happen here? What's a unique part about working here?

I started working in HoReCa, in the kitchen, as a waiter, and a bartender, making the switch to the electrical engineering industry. At first, I began by assembling basic components and after acquiring some experience, I was able to handle the entire assembling process by myself.

When I realized that the logic behind electrical engineering and programming is the same, I was mind blown. Everything is just 0 and 1. It’s the same logic. I wanted to make a change in my professional career and since in Iasi there is not much room to grow in electrical engineering, I chose programming, because this industry is booming in Iasi.

This is what’s unique about mindit.io. They offer you a chance to develop your professional skills, as long as you are not afraid to try, to learn from your mistakes, and to ask for help, whenever you needed.

After I started programming courses to make the move to the IT sector, I knew that it was going to be really hard at the beginning, and mindit.io made my transition to this complex field extremely enjoyable.

I wasn’t used to receiving so much support straight from the start, and this is one of the things that are deeply embedded in mindit.io’s DNA.

2. How have you grown professionally while on our team?  

I don’t have an exact answer to this question, but I think my colleagues could provide an overview of my growth since joining the team. One thing is sure, however, and that is the fact that I have a lot more confidence in my work and my colleagues trust me with more complex tasks. And that’s progress I guess, right?

I manage to catch a lot of things on the go, and although I’m not quite at the level I used to be at as an electrical engineer, I’m pretty sure I’m on my way of getting there, sooner rather than later.

At first, I found it difficult to understand and comprehend all the terms I was hearing in meetings, and I had to study the documentation a lot to get a clear overview of a task, or a project. Now everything moves a lot faster and I’m getting better and better at finding answers and solutions to the issues I encounter.

Feeling like you’re part of the team and receiving all the necessary support right from the beginning creates an optimum learning and development environment both on a personal and professional level.

3. What was the moment you knew you'd made the right decision to work here?  

I knew I had made the right decision because no matter how hard it may be to switch professions at the beginning, it’s all the more rewarding seeing how all the pieces fall into the right place.

After investing close to a year in learning and staying up till midnight most days trying to do my homework for the programming classes I was attending, there was no way I wouldn’t make this professional switch work for me.

I struggled at first when trying to complete a task because I wanted to understand the entire project. That’s when Ionut Vacariu, mindit.io Iasi General Manager, told me to take things one step at a time. I was used to thinking about everything in advance, and Ionut gave me some simple exercises to work on, and after I had completed all of them, he showed me how easily we can tie them all together.

That’s when I realized that this approach is extremely useful and effective in coding, and with Ionut and everybody’s help, I keep getting better at applying it on each task and project I’m involved in.

4. How would you describe an ideal day at work?  

When I get into a flow and I don’t even realize how time flies. That’s what a perfect day looks like in my book.

One morning, I started work without knowing exactly what tasks are top priorities, and after receiving the documentation, I entered into a “flow of creation” state if you will, and I kept working until I realized it was 3:30 PM and I hadn’t even eaten anything that day.

I went out to eat, and when I came back I started seeing all the issues and the problems I encountered, I immediately fixed them and just like that, my work for the day was done. I even had time to plan the next day.

Whenever I have such a productive day, I feel amazing at the end, and that’s how I would describe an ideal 9 hours “at the office”.

5. What is your team like?  

Everybody is really united here even when it comes to the littlest of things. Before joining mindit.io, I kept hearing IT industry rumors, like testers always blame backend developers, then backend developers blame frontend people, and so on, and so on.

At mindit.io, that couldn’t be further off from the truth. On the contrary. No matter who should solve the task, we figure it out so we can help each other in order to fix everything as fast and as efficiently as possible.

It’s all about getting the job done because at mindit.io we always deliver.

With my mindit.io Iasi office colleagues, we spend a lot of time together, we organize get-togethers, and Ionut is always trying to come up with new fun activities we can do at the office, or outside. This team really helped me a lot in my professional development, and I couldn’t be more grateful for being part of this unique group of individuals.

6. Which benefits are your favorite and why?

I like the large variety of events we have here. Team building parties, office events almost every other Thursday and the overall atmosphere we have at mindit.io is truly out of this world.

Right now, we have plans to go with the entire team to Comarnic, at our minditNomad home, and I’ll get to work while traveling by train, which is something I’ve never done before. Pretty excited to see how it goes.

I also heard that we have a big “ceaun” at Comarnic, and I can’t wait to cook some delicious food with it. The recipe is simple. Just add everything you like inside the ceaun, and let it cook. Voila! If that’s not fine dining, I don’t know what is.  

7. What advice would you give to anyone thinking about joining mindit.io?  

That’s a good question! I guess it depends on every person and their expectations, but as a general piece of advice, I would tell them to enjoy every task and to try to find what they like even if it may seem like some tasks are not that appealing, or interesting.

If you can apply this mindset, you’ll definitely find something new to learn which each and every single task you undertake.

Have a look at our Careers page, check out our OPEN ROLES, and apply today! If you’re thinking about starting fresh this year, look no further than mindit.io, because you might just find what you were searching for all along. I know I did.

8. If you could do anything else for a living, in an alternative universe, what would that be?  

In a parallel universe, I would do two things. Physical therapy for sports would be one because I’ve always been passionate about sports and the recovery side of things.

The second one would be to combine electrical engineering with programming. I would definitely need to learn a lot more about this sector, but I’m pretty sure that if I put my mind to it, in a year or so I could understand and implement some basic features.

9. What movie, book, or TV show would you recommend? How do you relax and unwind?  

I enjoy watching short documentaries about technical issues. After watching one of these documentaries, I managed to learn how to automize a semiautomatic silicon injection robot.

Completely out of my own curiosity, the robot I was using started performing probably 200% better than the other robots used by my colleagues who were only doing what they were taught in their initial training.

I love it when some piece of information triggers my curiosity, and any documentary in this regard is something I enjoy watching. Recently, I realized that I’m tired of comedies like “Dumb and Dumber” for example, because I feel that I’ve outgrew them.

I’d much rather watch documentaries, or TV shows about, let’s say crimes or investigations, but only fictional stories. When it comes to documenting real-life negative events, I can say that I’m not a fan, because I don’t believe in offering publicity to anti-heroes.

In my spare time, I love hiking and although I didn’t get the chance to climb up mountains lately, it’s still one of my passions. I used to go and climb Ceahlau and come back the same day. I also climbed up Moldoveanu, Romania’s highest peak, twice, but I’m not quite sure how much time I would need to climb it now, since I haven’t trained in quite some time.

VR games are also one of my favorite activities and I try to experiment with this virtual reality realm as much as possible to see what its limits are. When it comes to sports, I practically tried them all, except for football, which I never really liked.

10. Who would you tag next to be interviewed by us?  

My pick for the next mindit chats series is going to be Vlad Creanga! We started the programming courses at the same time, joined mindit.io together and we went on working on different projects. I think his perspective on things will be quite interesting.

Vlad, my man, TAG, you’re it!