Navigating Career Growth and Transformation: My Evolution from Engineer to Team Lead at Continental
My journey in Continental started as an engineer in 2016 through the Engineering Trainee Program. For 3 months I had the opportunity to deepen my knowledge of programming, electronics, but also to find out new information related to the automotive world. After finishing the Engineering Trainee Program, I had the chance to be recruited for the ADAS department, where I got the job of System Integration and Verification Engineer. In 2019 I moved on the role of System Engineer. In 2019 I moved on to the role of System Engineer, later working in the role of System Lead Engineer within the same department until 2021. During this time I encountered a lot of challenges and lessons.
When I started my adventure in Continental, I didn’t have a clearly defined goal, but everything started to make sense when I interacted with my team, with my HR colleagues through the Continental Ambassadors program and later with the project team. Even though it didn’t happen overnight, it helped me get a better version of myself. The fear of making mistakes was one of the first challenges. The approach I inherited from college/high school prevents me from learning other skills that I now consider valuable. I got over this challenge relatively easily because the leadership part of Continental helped me understand that it is very important to make mistakes, but to not make the same mistake twice in the same way and most importantly when problems arise we should not keep them to ourselves but on the contrary, share with the team because only this way we can take actions. It’s all about collegiality and collaboration.
I left the company to see how well I was going to do in another environment, but also to explore other opportunities. Back then, I wouldn’t have thought there were opportunities in other Continental departments. However, the experience outside the company helped me grow a lot, I became more mature, more valuable, and I also learned to apply the good things in the current team.
My future plans are well established. I want to perform as well as possible in the projects I am involved in and to be a good example for my colleagues. I also want to be part of the management team to be able to help other colleagues reach their full potential and at the same time – to feel good at work.
In the end I would like to say something to the people that are thinking leaving the company. First thing first, I would recommend them to do their research before making the decision to leave the company, because as I said above, there are plenty of opportunities within Continental Sibiu (regardless of the department you are in). Secondly, at least for me, the financial part is less important, important is the environment in which you work and the team that surrounds you daily. Hence the reason for my return, I preferred to return to Continental in the AN department because of the people here!
