Kinga Fil is a bit of an adrenaline junkie and used to do extreme sports like rock and mountain free climbing and parkour. Now she’s an avid rock climber, and enjoys road trips (when restrictions allow), hiking, and spending time in remote areas. Her ability to push herself has also helped her succeed in engineering – a typically male dominated industry. She’s now Senior DevOps Engineer at Deloitte, and we spoke with her about her almost three years there and how Deloitte support her to bring her whole self to work.
Succeeding as a woman in tech
Kinga’s role entails architecting solutions on Amazon Web Services (AWS), writing code to integrate AWS services and third-party systems, and migrating on-premises solutions to AWS. She also provides consulting services, advising clients on how they can improve and innovate in their business by utilizing cloud solutions.
Kinga started her career as an Automation Engineer in a different company, but felt she needed more opportunities. She joined Deloitte as a Junior DevOps Engineer and has progressed her career within Cloud Engineering. Kinga was excited about all the interesting projects and development opportunities at Deloitte, and the various transformation projects she’s been part of have given her the opportunity to learn and apply new technologies.
Her responsibilities have continued to increase, with opportunities to head up projects and provide guidance to Junior DevOps Engineers. Joining Deloitte, Kinga had fears she may not succeed, but they were unfounded!
“I think the biggest challenge for me was facing my fears and the impostor syndrome. I think a lot of people that start a new position feel like they might not be good enough. Thankfully thanks to a good support system I was able to face my challenges and succeed.”
The support at Deloitte has been crucial to Kinga’s success.
“As a woman that works in a mostly male-dominated industry, it is important to have a good support system at work that will encourage your growth. I feel supported by my co-workers; They care about me and my career development.”
Personal development at work
Kinga likes that Deloitte focuses on development. Deloitte puts a lot of emphasis on personal career growth and helping you achieve the outcome you are aiming towards. Kinga is the driver of her career at Deloitte and has plenty of support behind her to succeed.
“I like that my company supports our own personal development and encourages me to give back to the community – one of my co-workers started an initiative with the support of Dress for Success charity to create clothes and accessories auctions and to donate the money to support women in their professional job search. I was involved in that initiative myself and loved that my whole team was very supportive and helped whenever they could.”
Kinga also uses her colleagues as inspiration. Being surrounded by interesting, intelligent people shows her what is possible in her career.
“I think what inspires me the most is having exceptional people as my role models. Seeing their journey motivates me to work on myself and improve myself to one day be able to fulfill everything I want.”
Kinga wants to pass that on to other people as well, and enjoys teaching and sharing her knowledge. And because that’s what she enjoys doing, Deloitte have made sure that her career development plan reflects that desire alongside her technical development pathway.
Deloitte also has flexible working options under “DeloitteFlex” which helps employees to balance personal life with work. Deloitte cares about seeing you succeed at work but also in life outside of work!
Career tips to help you reach the stars
Kinga works with Cloud software, but in her career she’s really reaching for the stars. We asked for her top career tips that she could share, and she said to be the best version of yourself, and the opportunities will come.
- Be patient. “Don’t worry about any blocks or problems, you will get what you want with time – patience is key.”
- Build your network. “An important lesson is to build your safety-net of people – be it a mentor who can support you, your co-workers that can help you and you can help them back, or supervisors that support your journey. Having good people around can positively impact your future.”
- Create balance. “For me, it’s all about time management. I always make sure to plan ahead to make sure I set time aside for everything I would like to do. Thankfully Deloitte offers flexible working, meaning I can book out some time in my calendar and enjoy a walk and relax in between tasks at work or I know I can always plan my day in a flexible way.”
Looking forward, Kinga is on the road to be a Lead within Cloud Engineering. Her manager, and Deloitte as a company, will support her to achieve her goals.
