The Griffin Spotlight is back! As you know, in our Meet the Griffin Series, we present an outstanding employee we feel embodies Axway’s culture and is an excellent example of commitment, achievement, journey, motivation, and work ethic.
In September, we traveled across the globe to Singapore to meet with Ian Tan, South Asia’s Senior Director.
Today, we visit Bucharest, Romania, to meet Monica Avram, AI Suite R&D manager. Thank you, Monica, for your passion, your joy, and your confidence in people.
Monica Avram’s job
Monica has been a QA engineer at Axway for 10 years now. She recently took a new position as manager of an R&D team working on AI Suite.
Accounting Integration Suite (AI Suite) is a comprehensive, secure and proven solution for managing, automating, and optimizing the data transformation and integration process between business applications (back offices) and financial information systems.
Additionally, in her new role, Monica is also the Quality Referent for the AI Suite cross-team. Her job contributes to building a better version of herself, and she learns by constantly working with many Griffins from different areas or geographies.
“I like to think that my role is really about being the glue that keeps together a bunch of smart ladies and gents so that we can together deliver high-quality business solutions to our clients.”
Monica’s approach to the job
#Bettertogether!
Every person Monica works with contributes uniquely to the team’s success. This success results from trustful relationships and true team spirit.
“All my team members are all great at what they do, and they are all hard workers. But I strongly believe that what truly makes us awe-inspiring is our openness to help each other, to share our knowledge, and to have one’s back anytime, no strings attached.”
For her, this is where lies the team force: they all generously have each other’s back day in and day out.
“I do think the Whole is bigger than the Sum of its parts.”
Inspiration
People! Monica thrives on interacting with her colleagues and is always learning, not only about technical information, but also how to be a better person every day. It’s all about taking chances and sometimes risks to grow.
“It’s about enjoying more the diving than the landing, actually, though we definitely always aim to land safe.”
Monica shares one of her best private memories to illustrate this above.
The best part of the job
For Monica, the best part of her job is that there is never a boring moment, and no one day is the same. There is always something to do: questions to answer, technical tasks to go for, brainstorming to organize, meetings to attend, Griffins to help, challenges to embark on, and so on!
Monica always aims to accomplish what she’s put her mind to do. And she feels lucky to be surrounded by people that are cut from the same cloth.
“What I like to bring to my job is determination, commitment, and strong ethics.”
What do you like most about working at Axway?
Monica believes she can have a life journey at Axway. Many of her colleagues have been here for a while, sometimes for over 15 years! They have changed roles, teams, even countries, and built a career that fulfills them.
She really appreciates the fact that Axway feels like a family, and Griffins are more like friends than simple colleagues.
“Personally, I am a lot more confidant, empathetic, courageous and wise, and I owe my colleagues a big share of this.”
Monica’s advice
“My team’s nickname is Warriors. And I feel this is a pretty way of portraying what you should aim for if you wish to build a career in Software Quality Assurance.”
For Monica to succeed in this line of work, you need to be a go-getter, ready to “fight” when things don’t work out as they should, willing to take up new challenges, and don’t be afraid to work hard to make success happen. She also recommends starting first by getting familiar with QA terminology and philosophy.
Philosophy for life
“Do more of what makes you happy.”
Monica’s philosophy is simple and explains how she apprehends life and her job.
Downtime
In her free time, Monica enjoys cooking, photography looping, watching movies, or going to the theatre. She is a fan of Tarantino’s work, and her dream is to watch one day a play on Broadway.
Thank you, Monica, for sharing your story and your trust in people. You are a true inspiration for personal growth.
Discover more Life at Axway stories.