Ruxandra, Senior Salesforce Developer, on Balancing Competitiveness and Sensitivity

11 December 202315 October 2014 | People

Today we invited a special guest: Ruxandra Oprea, Senior Salesforce Developer at GlobalLogic Romania. Ruxandra is an impressive colleague who excels in the very technical field of Salesforce while wearing the softer hat of mother & wife at home. She gives us a valuable life lesson about successfully combining competitiveness and sensitivity. 

Get a glimpse of #BehindTheCode. Find out how Ruxandra found an inspirational blend of passion and work in her professional Salesforce career. 

Hello, Ruxandra, and welcome to the BehindTheCode series stage. We are happy to have you as our guest. Please describe your career journey in our company.

Hello, thanks for your invitation. I am honored to be part of the #BehindTheCode series. Well, let’s start with the beginning. I have a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of Pitesti. In college, I worked as a Web Developer, up to a moment when life introduced me to Salesforce. I started with a Bootcamp program, and I really enjoyed Salesforce. I combined my Salesforce passion with the increasing demand for this technology. Salesforce certifications were the next steps to follow in my career path: hard work and patience, and more hard work and patience 😊. I was lucky enough to like what I was doing for a living. I still do after so many years. 

I started my activity in the company here about two years ago. Initially, I was a sub-contractor, but later I decided to become an employee. I was brought here via headhunting. Salesforce is a particular field; finding good and experienced people can be challenging. I did not plan to change my workplace then, but something about this company “spoke” to me 😊. I am happy I made this decision, and I am now part of the team as a Senior Salesforce Developer. 

We are glad to have you here and to work together. Please share with us your secret to achieving success in such a competitive environment. 

Success can come in many ways; I don’t know if I really have a secret 😊. What I can tell you is that determination really helps. You must know what you want and go for it. Perseverance, hard work, and patience. And don’t forget about passion. And then success follows. 

We are curious to know how you chose the IT field. Did you feel a “call” or just a coincidence? 

From a very young age, I got many hints that my career choice would be one focused on logic. My favorite games were Lego and Puzzle. My mind is very analytical, and I like challenges, solving problems, and finding solutions. I want to understand. Later, in the tenth grade, I saw a friend coding. That was when my passion for technology started. I also enjoyed movies and books featuring hackers; I was fascinated by their expertise and by the mystery around them 😊. 

Could you please describe a favorite project? 

One of my favorite projects was in the Automotive industry. It dealt with logistics; the final goal was to compute the best delivery/inspection to addresses and to schedule them according to the available slots. It also considered the final customer and the inspection. For instance: “My car had a scratch; I needed to get an inspection.” 

What was your favorite thing about this project? What about the most challenging one? 

The best things in this project were all team-related 😊. The relationships between our team members and the client were excellent. The atmosphere was very relaxed; we had our jokes. When we faced challenges (e. g., repeatedly changing the specifications), we used our sense of humor to take it easy and move on. 

The most challenging part was the deadlines, but we always found ways to meet them. 

Tell us more about the team. What was the vibe in there? 

Our team had six members. We were more like a family, and this feeling was wonderful. We felt at home; we worked, played, and made jokes. There was no wrong answer and no wrong question. We celebrated birthdays and had lots of fun together. We even had an unwritten law that said that while attending a wedding/baptism/party, we needed to send a picture of the starters on the WhatsApp team group 😊. Aren’t shared experiences the best? 

We mainly worked remotely, but we still enjoyed dinners together while visiting our clients. 

Ruxandra and her colleagues at a team event in Brasov.

Let’s talk now a little bit about Ruxandra as a person. What are your passions and hobbies? How do you spend your spare time?

First of all, I must tell you that I have a two-year-old boy, whom I am very proud of. As a mother, I spend most of my spare time with my little one and my family. I try to find a balance between my work and family. Sometimes, things get challenging. I’ve had meetings attended by my son and got plenty of hand waves while listening to the client’s requests 😊. It does not happen often, but it did, and we managed it successfully. 

As for passions and hobbies… [laughter] here, things get complicated. I grew up practicing kickboxing and skydiving with a parachute (guided by my father). Now I like watching cartoons with my son and doing manual work (adult coloring books, sewing on paintings). I guess I also have a competitive side and a sensitive one. They work together well both in my personal life and on the job. 

Recently, Fortech became part of GlobalLogic. What’s next in your career journey, and what do you expect? 

Salesforce has a particular dynamic, very different from that of other technologies. Because it is such a narrow specialization with an increasing market demand, there is already a Salesforce community that we are part of. I am now a Senior Salesforce Developer, aiming to become an Expert Level Salesforce Developer and, eventually, a Salesforce Architect. I am confident I will get there, since no project scares me. Even if I don’t have the answer to a specific question today, I know how to find it, and tomorrow I will have the best answer possible. I am looking forward to all challenges to come, and I am sure I will handle them professionally in GlobalLogic, too. 

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