Our Meet the Hiring Manager series allows you to get to know the people who grow teams at VMware Bulgaria. You will learn about our hiring managers’ career paths and what they look for in candidates during the interview experience.
Meet Kristyan Yordanov, a seasoned R&D manager, whose team enables VMware Professional Services, Sales, Delivery, and Technical Account Management teams to be their best, delivering high-quality solutions to our customers with outstanding outcomes.
Tell us about your career journey to date?
My career journey began eight years ago as a software developer at a small Bulgarian company. Having just finished the second year of my Bachelor’s degree, I remember being very excited to become a full-stack engineer and quite eager to solve technical problems. At my second job, I was sent to Munich as a consultant to integrate the company product within a banking institution infrastructure. Although working abroad was a valuable experience for me, in general, I realized that in the long term, I would much rather stay in Bulgaria. Following that, I had quite a dynamic year when I started developing and selling a product of my own, meanwhile also doing freelance development for small Bulgarian self-funded startups. It was a productive period, filled with a lot of learning, new friendships/partnerships, and life experience. To be honest, I consider this time as a significant investment that continues to repay to this day forward. During that time, I also discovered another passion of mine – I started teaching software development to students at a few Bulgarian academies. The end of 2017, is when I joined VMware as a full stack developer. A few months later, I started moving step by step towards management, and last summer, I was officially promoted to an R&D Manager.
How is VMware different to any other tech company you have worked for?
Culture, culture and culture. Truly EPIC culture, which makes a big difference. A place where you can experience, participate, and influence pursuit of constant engineering and process excellence while working with talented and passionate professionals. Generally, it is an entirely different experience to work for Product-oriented companies. They tend to care much more for their employees’ development as professionals and individuals. VMware stands on top of all companies I came across so far. You can have it all – the company offers everything from a wide range of challenging career opportunities/teams/products to a life-work balance and yearly fund for training, courses, and degrees.
What has been the biggest lesson you have learned as you moved upwards in your career?
The biggest lesson for me was that that to grow in your career, you should build your skills incrementally – step by step, gradually extending your comfort zone. Aim to expand your mindset and awareness. Strive to be a professional that creates and makes use of partnerships. Own your work, own what you represent, own what you produce. Be responsible, proactive, and don’t stop learning.
Your team is hiring. Can you tell us more about your organization’s charter?
PS Platforms & Apps is an engineering team based in Sofia that develops and operates software products for our VMware Professional Services, Sales, Delivery, and Technical Account Management teams. Our goal is to transform the way these organizations deliver high-quality solutions to our customers around the globe. We are using the latest cutting-edge technologies like Java 11, Spring 5, and Angular 9. We are famous for our culture of collaboration and team spirit, one that works together in the face of all adversity. Continuous engineering innovation and process excellence are our DNA.
Wе аre building several SaaS products that are used by internal teams and VMware partners. All these applications streamline and/or automate different business processes.
As a team, we believe in full-stack development because it gives the flexibility of one person working on a wide range of problems related to different areas of the software. It enables the team to work on features end-to-end, see quick results, and stay inspired.
If someone reading this was coming to interview with you tomorrow for a role in your org, what interview tips would you give them?
Be bold, be yourself, and be curious. Don’t be afraid of saying the ‘wrong’ things – we would like to get to know who you are, rather than hear a ‘good’ template answer! Ask – after all, the interview is a two-way street.
Could you see yourself working on a team with a leader like Kristiyan? Check out the open roles in PS Platforms & Apps team:
Senior UI Automation Software Engineer
Senior Full- Stack Engineer
Software Engineering Manager
Full- Stack Engineer
