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.
This week meet Milena Dushanova, R&D Manager at VMware Engineering Services (VES). She has spent more than 20 years in the IT industry and it all started with her writing Pascal code on a sheet of paper before even owning a computer. Now 20 years later, she has gained experience in different IT companies and has recently joined VMware. Her team is growing, find out what they do and how to prepare for an interview with her.
Tell us about your career journey to date?
I’m rather new to VMware. It has been just a year and a few months since I’m part of the VMware family, but it has been 20 years of IT experience for me overall.
The funny story is that I even didn’t have a computer before starting my IT career and most of my programming experience was writing Pascal code on a sheet of paper (at school/university). Up until then I was passionate only for Math, not knowing what to do with that.
At the year of 2000, companies in Sofia/Bulgaria were hiring young students in Math or informatics by only looking at their High school diploma or university marks.
So that’s how I got into IT. Then it took me some time until I realize what it is all about.I’ve spent most of my professional life (14 years) in a German company, growing from a junior Java developer to a Project Manager. After that I decided to move to the next level and switched to a purely management role, becoming a Resource Manager and not even having a JDK or JRE installed on my Mac for 3 whole years!And then I was lucky to become part of VMware where I’m happy to have found the balance between the technical and people management role.
How is VMware different to any other tech company you have worked for?
Most of the IT companies in Bulgaria haven’t still realized that the people are their major asset. Fortunately, what I have found at VMware is that each person is being greatly valued.
Therefore VMware is wealthy with many skillful people grouped in different communities outside their own teams.
All of my colleagues are extremely passionate for new or existing technologies and everyone has some specific knowledge to share and spread across the teams.I very much like the huge community called VMware and the feeling it gives to the people that are part of it – feeling for being important and valued.
What has been the biggest lesson you have learned as you moved upwards in your career?
The biggest lesson for me from the years in software development is that it does not matter when you have started, it is important to do what you do with your heart.In my experience I’ve seen people that have made a career switched from a totally different roles like nurse or taxi driver, photographer or physician, to IT. But being smart and passionate about IT development makes it totally possible.
Your team is hiring. Can you tell us more about your organization’s charter?
One of the projects that my team is focused on involves shifting Product development teams closer towards a true SaaS delivery model. There are many aspects involved in a Products SaaS transformation but one of the key areas is getting approval from the Legal and Security organizations to incorporate Open Source or Third-Party code into their projects.
Our team is a diverse working group from Palo Alto, Shanghai, and Sofia. We value clear and direct communication, healthy debate, and passionate execution. We are looking for strong analytical thinkers who can see the big picture and develop solutions to serve the other R&D teams’ needs. We want teammates that can see the idealized vision of what we are creating and imagine and implement strategic changes that will get us to where we need to be one building block at a time.
If someone reading this was coming to interview with you tomorrow for a role in your org, what interview tips would you give them?
First and foremost: Be yourself! At the interviews we’re also trying to be natural. It is important to understand most of all if we can work together with pleasure for both sides. Everything else can be learned along your VMware path.
