Meet Silke
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As a brand new young graduate with a computer science degree, Silke joined AE in 2017. After our apprenticeship, she started her first project at Remedus with great enthusiasm. Two years later, she ended up at Fluxys, where she still gives the best of herself every day. Find out what she has to say about AE.
Why AE?
When people ask me why I chose to start at AE, I can give them several reasons. From my first conversation it became clear how much AE focuses on a qualitative project approach, aiming to take the customer to a higher level. Exactly what I want to achieve as well. In that respect, it was an immediate match.
And the fact that AE employees are given the opportunity to continue to grow and learn also appealed to me. You don't just grow here by attending evening sessions and courses, but also by mapping out and shaping your career path together with your coach. AE'ers help each other is a motto that really lives within the organisation. That culture and the fact that you can count on a large network of AE'ers pulled me over the line as well.
The first project
Once on board, We went looking for my first client project together. And when I say together, I really mean together. AE supports you in various ways to achieve a perfect match with a project. With SKILLD for example, an internal tool that matches your competencies with customer needs. And with A-Team, a team of people with whom you can discuss your own interests and goals.
From the start, I strongly indicated that I wanted to work full stack and to get a taste of many different things. Remedus turned out to be a good match in that regard.
What exactly were you doing there?
I started working as a full stack developer and participated in the development of the Remecare website & application, a communication platform that helps doctors guide and follow up patients with a chronic illness. I ended up in a small technical team, which got me involved in all the steps of the development process. From writing and building code to setting up automatic tests to deploying code to production. I certainly succeeded in getting a taste of different things and evolved very quickly on a technical level.
It was very educational, but also challenging, for someone who’s fresh out of school. You immediately see the differences between the reality of a project versus the theory you see in class.
I was given a lot of responsibility rather quickly and sometimes that made me feel a bit insecure! Scary at times, but because I could always turn to my fellow AE'ers for questions and advice, I never felt like on my own. Together with them, I became more and more confident and found my place in the organisation.
Silke Verhaeghe
Time for a change
After two years at Remedus, I wanted to immerse myself in a completely different environment. I started at Fluxys as a full stack developer and got to to work on various interesting projects, such as automating regression testing, reworking complex legacy code to gradually converting and breaking down a monolith into microservices. And there’s a new major project on the way.
I am already working on a preliminary study in close collaboration with our business analysts. Because make no mistake: you’re not just a code monkey. There’s a lot of interaction with different employees and teams.
Making a difference
I try to make a difference as an AE consultant by not only applying the knowledge I gained during the many AE evening sessions and TrAEning Days, but also effectively passing it on to the customer.
