Sharing her passion for tech: Kathia’s employee story

At Adjust, we take pride in seeking out the best talent for our ever-growing team. When it comes to finding ideal engineers and developers for the tech department, we ensure that our hires are not only highly qualified and passionate but that they love sharing knowledge and learning.

Made up of more than 100 people, the Adjust tech team includes people from more than 33 nationalities, resulting in a dynamic, diverse, and creative working environment.

We sat down for a chat with Adjust’s Kathia Barahona, a Python Backend Engineer. Read on to hear about her experiences and insights into life at Adjust and, more broadly, working in the tech industry.

1. How did you develop your passion for technology, and where were you working before starting at Adjust?

I thought a lot about how I developed my passion for technology, which was quite ironic. I decided to pursue a Computer Engineering career for two key reasons: First, I love maths and physics, and second - because people said it was difficult. It was.

I’m always the person keeping up to date with the latest technologies and innovations, and that’s why I say that my true passion isn’t necessarily technology itself, but the ability to solve problems by using it.

My career path took a few turns before I began my journey as a Python Backend Engineer at Adjust. I started as a Fullstack Developer using Javascript, then decided to give a career in data science a shot. I realized this wasn’t quite for me, and opted to go back to what I enjoyed doing, returning to a developer position.

2. When did you start and why did you choose to join Adjust?

I started working at Adjust in December 2019. After learning about its dedication to employee development and wellbeing, I decided that it could be a match. I remember reading a couple of employee stories on the Adjust website, and realized that it’s a place where employees are encouraged to grow their skillsets. Also, outside of the current COVID-19 related restrictions, office dogs are welcome and encouraged at Adjust, and I love dogs.

3. What’s the most exciting thing about your role at Adjust?

It’s exciting to apply knowledge from my previous experience and utilize it within my team. Since I decided to change my career path, I thought that my prior skillset wouldn’t necessarily be useful going forward. It’s also allowed me to learn and improve new skills that are required daily. The current project I’m working on required me to improve soft skills like collaboration and communication with teammates and hard skills like improving code quality and implementing different technologies.

4. How has Adjust supported your growth?

It all started with the onboarding process, where new joiners learn all about the Adjust product and how each department works. Since then, it’s really depended on the challenges I’ve experienced when working on tasks. It’s particularly nice and supportive that if you don’t necessarily have the exact knowledge required for solving a specific task, you have the opportunity to use an educational budget and start learning.

Since joining Adjust, I’ve grown and developed in a myriad of ways - from improving my code quality to better understanding how the product works. This is largely due to the fact that my teammates are extremely supportive, and always provide meaningful feedback. I also feel that I’ve grown emotionally. During my first few weeks working at Adjust, I was able to express to my manager when I was feeling any kind of stress or concern. He was really sympathetic and mentored me brilliantly in terms of how to learn and adapt to a new team, and to believe in myself, my skills and my work.

5. How is your team adapting to the new work-from-home (WHF) situation?

I think that the WFH situation actually demonstrated some flaws that we had as a team. We realized that we weren’t as communicative as we necessarily thought. After this realization, we started organizing daily meetings to ensure that everyone was, and is, on the same page.

We now also participate in a weekly chat to discuss non-work related topics. This is particularly important for new team members as we want them to have the opportunity to get to know the rest of the team and vice versa.

When we finally return to the office, one of the first things I want to do is celebrate with some champagne! We’ve released several projects that we worked really hard on this year, and haven’t yet had the chance to properly celebrate.

What’s really helped me so far in learning is the freedom that I have to propose and implement new tools while being part of an amazing team that is always willing to guide and collaborate with you.

6. Describe Adjust in three words

Fun, diverse, supportive.

To find out more about working at Adjust, you can read our blog posts on how we’ve adapted to onboarding new team members while working from home.

You can also take a look at our current open positions and learn more about life at Adjust here. even if there is no position quite right for you, we’re always open to receiving applications from motivated and enthusiastic people. We look forward to hearing from you!