Bianca Paraschiv knows her team better than anyone else, but she still feels like there’s more to discover about the people she works with every day.

That’s why she tagged Catalin Baboi because she wants to dig even deeper inside his mind! Ready to start reading? Let’s go!

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

I like the entire people management side of things. It’s completely different from anything I’ve ever experienced so far, and I had the opportunity to work both in smaller and larger organizations.

The way things are done here, and the initiatives chosen for mindit.io people are different. It’s very thoughtful and in good taste. I like it. I enjoy all these actions a lot.

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

I used to do service desk before coming to mindit.io, and since joining the team I’ve definitely grown a lot on the technical side. I had the chance to learn about a lot of new tools and technologies, such as Docker, Elasticsearch, Ansible, with many more to come.

Also, I’m really focused on the learning side of the operations and the opportunities offered by mindit.io. I even participated in this year’s edition of the Data Science International Summer School, which was a really interesting event.

I think you can never learn enough, and that’s we I even signed up for mindit.io’s Mentorship program, and I can’t wait for it to start.

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

I’ve been planning a career change for quite some time. I knew that service desk wasn’t a job I was going to do for a long time so that’s why I started applying for different roles.

The hardest decision I had to make was right at the beginning. I actually began working for another company, I had just picked up my laptop from their headquarters and then I had the technical interview with Eugen Banculescu and Eduard Sorescu.

After the interview, I knew that mindit.io was the place for me, and with all due respect for the company I started working for just a couple of days before, I gave them back the work equipment and told them that I’m going to take a different path.

Since then, I have never looked back and I’m happy I chose mindit.io as my new “home”.

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

My ideal days start off with a coffee that has just a little bit of milk in it. I begin reading my emails and then I join our daily call where we organize ourselves for the day and decide which tasks we should do first and set our priorities.

Being able to work from anywhere allows me to do this type of job a lot better and more productively in my opinion. I think that working as part of a DevOps team can sometimes require you to be able to move around and separate yourself from your screen in order to think of a solution.

Even washing the dishes for 5 minutes can lead to an idea that would not have popped out (or at least not that fast) if you were to remain stuck on the same issue, with your eyes glued to the screen.

I think it’s necessary to take a step back from time to time so you can see the bigger picture.

5. What is your team like?

We’re a small team and that’s what makes us feel so united. I wouldn’t say we’re like family because of the small age range, but we’re extremely close and it’s safe to say that we work really well as a team and as friends.

We even have a new colleague that joined our group and instantly became one of us, one of the team. Being rather new to mindit.io myself (I started in May 2022), I still know what it’s like to be the new guy and what questions I had when I first started.

That’s why I think I’m able to help all the newcomers because I can relate to what questions and needs, they have at the beginning. I hope that all the materials and answers I give them will prove to be useful. They sure helped me a lot and fingers crossed; they’ll do the same for others as well!

6. Which benefits are your favorite and why?

The working schedule and the flexibility are my favorite benefits offered by mindit.io. I’m not a morning person at all, and I prefer to sleep in as much as possible before I start my workday. That’s just how I’m wired. That’s just me.

I’m thankful for being able to build my own schedule and to even take afternoons off if I don’t feel productive and just pick up later in the evening when I’m more charged. The trust you receive at mindit.io really empowers you to take full ownership of your role, and all you have to do is to make sure that your tasks are done. That sounds like a pretty sweet deal, right?

It’s definitely a workplace that suits my lifestyle and it allows me to be more productive by choosing when and how I work.

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

My advice would be to simply apply and come here without any preconceived ideas you may have about the usual workplace because those ideas are not what mindit.io is all about.

It’s unlike anything else I’ve experienced before, and I’m pretty sure you’ll feel the same. You can always look over the OPEN ROLES on our Careers page, and if you don’t see any opening that matches your profile, simply drop a line right here.

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

I always enjoyed the design-to-print side of building a newspaper, a magazine, or even a product, or website. I used to do that in high school, but I kind of lost track of the entire domain.

Still, I enjoy it to this day and whenever I see some newspapers, magazines, or designs that are not very well aligned, they immediately catch my eye.

I liked the fact that I got to learn some basic design principles and understand how to communicate and align content in order to communicate a message in the best way possible.

I think that’s what I would do if I weren’t so passionate about what I’m doing right now.

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

Most of all I enjoy playing games with my friends. We have a daily tradition where we gather in a CS lobby, and we play for a couple of hours.

My group of friends is scattered all over Europe, and we use German time (CET) to schedule our online “meetings”. It’s kind of frustrating when you see the younger generation being able to simply destroy you, even if we first played the game years ahead of them. But hey, that’s how we “relax”.

When it comes to TV shows, I’m currently into Succession, on HBO, which is sort of a corporate family-drama. I hope I don’t need to assure you that the mindit.io family is nothing like that.

In the summertime, or whenever I get the chance, I ride my bike. Since I got my driver's license, I’m also more confident with riding down bigger boulevards, even though Bucharest and the traffic here are not exactly bike-friendly. Not even close.

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

I’m definitely going to nominate my teammate Dorin Ciocian to be next on the list for the mindit chats series!

Dorin, my man, TAG, you’re it!