Stefanie Müller acts as a developer and team manager customer app in the department Software Development. In this interview she introduces herself and talks about her job at PROMOS.

Interview

Hello Stefanie! Since when are you a part of the PROMOS team? Do you remember your job interview?

Stefanie: I´m here since 2005. I´ve applied to PROMOS because I was looking for a job after studying informatics and a friend of mine, who works here, has always lionised PROMOS. My job interview had been very positive. Everyone was very nice to me and I felt really good – as far as you can feel good at a job interview [laughs]. I´ve noticed that my superiors were just as interested as I was. That settled me down. Regarding the employment contract everything went by pretty quickly.

IT and development – that´s mostly all Greek to outsiders. Which basic characteristics and knowledge are actually required for your job?

Stefanie: A mathematical understanding definitely helps. But it´s not really complicated math. I know some people, who sucked at math but still had a very good understanding for algorithms and program sequences or just technical interest. A good mix of technical and mathematical knowledge helps for sure, but is not a must. Everyone can learn that.

When did you find your interest for this field and when did you decide to become a developer?

Stefanie: To be honest, I wasn´t really interested in it at the beginning. I was always prone to math, but studying pure math sounded too theoretical to me, because I always needed praxis. I always wanted to do something with it. And well, informatics is pretty much practical math and developers are always needed and looked for [laughs].

Are you interested in topics around technology in private as well?

Stefanie: Maybe I´m prone to technical things, but actually I´m more of an average customer regarding technology.

What do you do in your free time instead?

Stefanie: I love playing basketball. That´s my biggest and longest lasting hobby. I even play at a club. That´s a lot of fun and I hope I can keep doing that for a long time - health wise [knocks at the table three times and laughs].

Your job is often viewed as a job for men. Are you confronted with prejudgment sometimes?

Stefanie: It´s true that there are more men than women. In our development department we are three women and probably six times as many men. But there is no prejudgement.

Are you more the lone fighter or do you all work together as a team in projects?

Stefanie: It depends on the project. We usually develop software in cooperation with a consultant. Only sometimes I work completely on my own. At huge projects there are sometimes even multiple developers in a team. It´s not like I always sit in front of my computer by myself all day [laughs].

In the development department we´ve got a weekly ritual. Every Friday at 11 am we are having a small “developer breakfast”. The mix of private and professional talks is nice about that – it´s pretty much a productive break and nice to do on a Friday anyways. I liked that especially at the beginning to get to know the other developers. I´ve got a family-feeling here at PROMOS in general. Everyone is one team and there are nor many levels in the hierarchy, neither hundreds of different department leaders. You can go to everyone if you´ve got a question, without being looked at weird. A lot of fun are also our annual Christmas and summer parties. The team spirit is everywhere in this company!

Thank you Stefanie, for giving us an insight into your working days.

Stefanie: No problem!