From Digital Engineering Graduate to Senior Solutions Architect: Skyrocketing My Career at Vodafone

Being part of a large and agile company like Vodafone provides numerous career development opportunities; after joining Vodafone in February 2019 as a Digital Engineering Graduate, I was promoted to Software Engineer and then Solutions Architect – all in the space of three years!

During my graduate and software engineering roles I was responsible for end-to-end solution engineering, which included design analysis, coding, testing, performance improvements, deploying, go-live and monitoring. Now as a Solution Architect, I support engineers during the whole engineering process and I am also responsible for business requirement analysis, UX review and solution design.

Engineers at Vodafone work with best-in-class technologies and frameworks while experimenting with new ones and throughout my time at Vodafone, I have been able to grow my skillset immensely across various technologies and platforms. All of this was relatively new to me when I first started but embracing the broad ecosystem of technologies (such as Java, Spring Boot, Oracle and MongoDB, Kubernetes, Docker and AWS, React Native) has helped me grow and develop faster than I ever could have imagined.

We are the customers of the products we build

I have had the opportunity to work on many new products and services during my time at Vodafone, but for me, the most exciting ones are around digital transformation. I have worked on Online Payments transformation, which allows the customer to purchase everything we offer online with a single click, aiming to cultivate digital behaviour by educating the digital mindset, and also supported the team on MyVodafone app revamp from Native to React Native.

We knew that the shift from Native to React Native would bring performance improvement and codebase reusability, and this was our chance to prove it. Four months of hard work and dedication paid off when we finally launched the new version of the app.

This project was particularly challenging because it was accomplished during a tough time when we all worked online due to COVID-19, yet we demonstrated that we can get things done when we collaborate in new ways together.  

Jumping from one project to another where the team and technologies change comes with its challenges, but with the right mindset and a keen desire to learn and grow, you have the opportunity to take part in projects that have a huge impact on the customer and their day-to-day activities. The finish line often seems unreachable at first, but with our teamwork, persistence and focus it makes everything work and look like magic!

Genuine care, flexibility and a growth mindset

Here at Vodafone, teamwork is very important. As long as you are willing to learn and collaborate, everyone will support you to grow. By having a freedom and responsibility mindset, you are truly able to explore what suits you to deliver at your best.

Vodafone has helped me explore various roles and gain experience in coding, solution design, architecture, service operations, agile, product management, UI/UX and more.

As a team and individually, we are encouraged to explore and learn new technologies as well as enhance our soft skills and emotional intelligence. This makes working at Vodafone a unique experience, as it shapes your personality in many ways.

With the flexibility that is offered to engineers and the attention given to employee wellbeing, I feel like I work for a company that really cares for its people.  I also appreciate Vodafone’s contributions to social causes which have a great impact on the community that I live in.