How did I come to join Covestro?
When I graduated from high school in 2008, I decided to study tourism and event management in Dortmund, as I loved traveling and organizing things. I quickly found out what really lies behind the curtain. While I still enjoyed organizing and planning, I moved away from tourism and started focusing more on business management. After doing a master’s degree in marketing, I got a project management job in an IT company. In hindsight, this was really lucky as it gave me my first experience of software development. For one thing, I discovered that I am better at it than I expected, and for another, I discovered that I enjoyed this work much more than anything I had done before.
Since I had only covered very basic IT skills in my studies to that point, I decided to start again from scratch. Well, maybe not quite from scratch, but certainly a couple of pay-grades below where I could have with my master’s degree. Why did I then choose Covestro? I wanted an employer who would support me in my desire to keep training, and would give me that opportunity, despite the life experience I had already gained. This was what I found with Covestro.
What does the work of a business informatics specialist involve at Covestro?
The WIN program is a combination of training in applications development and a degree in business informatics. The day-to-day work is therefore split between studying for university, attending vocational school and practical work in international teams at Covestro. But what do IT trainees do all day?
The work is diverse and exciting. The training includes placements with a total of six different departments. In my last department, I was jointly responsible for a project for the global replacement of ultrabooks. I was more or less thrown in at the deep end and had to work up the courage to contact people and countries I didn’t know and act as a competent contact person for them. It was a great experience, as it enabled me to see first hand the international interconnectedness of Covestro. In addition, I really enjoyed working with lots of different cultures in several time zones, which enabled me to bring my organizational talents to bear.