"Hi Aditi! You're a DevOps Engineer in one of Essent's teams, and you also act as Scrum Master for your team. Recently, you attended the TEQnation conference."
Q: "WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO GO?"
TEQnation is a large Dutch conference that focuses on technology, people, and culture. This variety, coupled with the opportunity to meet new people, made the conference appealing to me.
Q: "DID YOU ATTEND ALONE, OR WERE YOU JOINED BY COLLEAGUES?"
Essent, the largest energy supplier and one of the premier developer hubs in the Netherlands, sponsored our team's participation at TEQnation. This allowed us to host a booth, showcase our work, and discuss our innovative approaches across a range of technology stacks.
Our team was diverse, including front-end and back-end engineers, AWS and Data engineers, an integration engineer, an architect, a scrum master, and a release train engineer. We shared the stage with numerous other companies and were eager to share authentic stories about our work at Essent IT. We were all there to share our experiences and show that we are part of the vibrant IT ecosystem.
Q: "HOW DID YOU EXPERIENCE THE EVENT?"
This was my first time representing my company at such an event. It was a proud moment to share my stories as an ambassador of Essent.
The event buzzed with interactions, enthusiastic youngsters, and international professionals. My LinkedIn account received a flood of connection requests, and many expressed a keen interest in joining Essent as scrum masters, trainees, or engineers.
We successfully positioned Essent firmly on the IT map alongside other major IT companies. We are continuously a work-in-progress, improving ourselves, but the event reinforced my belief that we truly are a cool IT company. I could not be prouder. Technology is continually evolving, and we are committed to keeping pace. It's our mindset and our reputation as a tech company that make the real difference.
Q: "WHAT MADE ESSENT IT STAND OUT?"
Our booth attracted attention for our team's diversity. Many tech enthusiasts, especially expats, were surprised by our multi-lingual capabilities. They were intrigued by Essent's modern technology stack (Typescript, AWS Lambda, Apache Kafka), our commitment to empowering our employees, and our status as an equal opportunity employer where English is widely spoken, even in a historic Dutch company. I must admit, the solar energy power bank and the cool goodies we offered also helped attract attention 😀
While other companies brought along HR personnel, marketing people, and managers with only a few engineers, Essent stood out with a full team of engineers, ready to share their stories and learn from others' experiences.
Many of my colleagues enjoyed the speaker events, but I chose to stay at the booth to interact with the other attendees. This gave me the chance to further develop my people skills. Learning happens every day!
Q: "WHAT'S NEXT FOR YOU?"
At Essent I've recently had the privilege of assuming a new role as the lead of an agile release train. This presents a brand-new challenge filled with a wealth of learning opportunities.
As for conferences, our experience at TEQnation was profoundly enriching. A heartfelt thank you goes out to those who gave us the opportunity to attend, and who meticulously helped us prepare the booth. This event provided an opportunity for us to share our unwavering passion for technology and our love for Essent as an IT organization. I'm eagerly looking forward to the next one!