Camelia Suciu is the Solutions Engineering Director for EMEA with over 20 years of experience in the industry.
Can you share your journey into the tech industry and does it differ from the ‘traditional’ path?
My journey into tech has been fairly “traditional”; I have a Computer Science degree and started as a Software Engineer before I moved into technical leadership roles. Where my career has probably been less “traditional” is that I continued into very technical roles while a lot of women, even those who started with a technical degree, were often encouraged or pushed into what is seen as “more suitable” roles such as Project Management, quality assurance, or even pushed out of the tech industry altogether. For a large part of my career, I was the only woman engineer on the team or the only woman engineer in meetings or discussions with other engineers or other technical leaders.
What has motivated you in your career?
What motivated me to stay in engineering roles were two main things: I love technology and enjoy writing software to solve complex communications problems, and secondly, I saw that my talent and hard work resulted in solving real-life problems and making a difference. When I moved into technical leadership roles (Engineering Management) I stayed hands-on; I still code and design complex architectures. Coaching and mentoring less experienced engineers in my team as well as those who aspire to move into leadership positions is another responsibility of mine that I love – it’s very fulfilling to see my team reach their full potential, and it motivates me to continue to grow and develop as a leader.
Were there any challenges you faced in your career, and how did you overcome them?
The biggest challenges of my career have come from being a woman in a largely male-dominated industry – this was even more so the case over two decades ago when I started. Becoming a mum and parenting young children has also been difficult at times, as I wanted to continue my engineering role and work on equally complex projects. This meant lots of late nights, weekend work, and coding with a baby on my lap. What kept me going was seeing the difference my work and knowledge made and a sense of wanting to prove that I could do it all.
Why do you believe diverse skillsets are crucial for the success of AI initiatives? And how can different mindsets and perspectives improve the development and implementation of AI technologies?
Emerging technologies, like AI, are incredibly exciting developments with a lot of potential. But, to reach their full potential, tech organisations need the very best talent behind them. We need individuals with a range of skill sets, experiences, and perspectives to foster the level of innovation, creativity, problem-solving, and ideation needed to keep up momentum. And the correlation is clear – diversity fuels innovation and growth. This means diverse workforces will be fundamental to the success of AI initiatives and their development and implementation.
From an ethics and bias perspective, what generative AI delivers can only be as good as what content it is fed in the first place. On this basis, having diverse teams will help better identify biases in the data that feeds AI, which in turn helps mitigate cases where skewed or incomplete data could perpetuate discrimination and bias.
What role do non-technical skills play in building a successful tech team?
Coming from a more traditional tech background, I can’t deny the value of building up technical ability and having traditional qualifications – these have certainly been instrumental in my career as an engineer. However, hard skills alone cannot be responsible for digital transformation. The development of fast-moving and emerging technologies requires a host of ‘soft’ skills too – from agility, problem-solving, and critical and strategic thinking, to communication, analytical, organisational, leadership, and customer-facing skills. Having a balanced, well rounded team with different combinations of these complementary skill sets will ultimately foster success.
What advice would you give to someone with a non-traditional background who wants to enter the tech industry?
There is plenty of room within the tech industry for people with diverse, non-traditional backgrounds. Love of technology, creativity, and willingness to learn new things are a good start – and these attributes play a big role in the decision criteria whenever I have open positions in my team.
There is so much online content available that it’s now easier than ever to start learning to code, but I’d also encourage you to find an employer that is willing to invest in your training, too.
I know a lot of tech companies out there still use very rigid, technical “tests” in the interviewing process. I think that not only puts off a lot of talented candidates who may not be prepared to learn algorithms or coding syntax, but they may also miss diverse, creative talent.
