Meet Olga, a dedicated professional who has spent years developing her career at Ericsson.
The career journey to become a Common Tools Program Manager
I started my career in telecommunications by joining Ericsson as a C/C++ developer in 2013. During my years in the company, I had a chance to try out many different roles, including developer, team leader, line manager, capability manager and program manager. Whenever it was clear that I had a good grasp on my role then my manager would give me more responsibilities, and that was something that I have always loved about working at Ericsson as it has given me the chance to learn and grow.
Diverse teams create greater business value
My motto is to ‘always do your best’, and I apply that to my work at Ericsson. I like to keep my eyes open in the industry and apply initiatives that I see others have tried. It’s not always easy and sometimes you need help from your colleagues, but it is doable.
For example, this summer we tried a different approach to the summer internship. Usually, we hire a couple of interns and put them into development teams. In the summer of 2022, however, we decided to hire a whole team of interns, seven university students from different universities in Hungary, some studying computer science, others electrical engineering, and even automotive engineering. It was a truly diverse group from the perspective of nationality with two being Hungarian and the others coming from Mexico, Pakistan, and India. We provided the team with a team leader, a product owner, and a short backlog of tasks for the eight weeks they were with us. It was an extra effort during the summer vacation period to always have someone the students could reach out to, but it turned out to be a success story. The team was able to contribute to our codebase already in the second week, and even better, four of them are staying with us after their internship, continuing as employees. I felt that having a diverse nationality team resulted in a lot of creativity and fresh views and contributed to the program's success.
Commitment to diversity
One of my main reasons for applying to Ericsson was the company culture. I heard lots of wonderful things about Ericsson, and they all turned out to be true. What I particularly love about working here is that it’s so diverse. At Ericsson, creating a diverse and inclusive organization is one of our core values, and this positively impacts our business. Imagine a team cooking activity where you cook paprikáskrumpli with Mongolian or Indian spices. It’s the same when working in a diverse team: great results.
ICT is fun
As a female working in ICT, I strongly encourage young girls to consider careers in this sector. And the advice I would give is that ICT is fun! If you study hard, be open and brave, and you will have limitless opportunities.