Working at the same company for more than 20 years, continuously developing yourself, and never losing any enthusiasm for innovation? How that works is shown in this fascinating interview with Romano Roth, Chief of DevOps and Partner at Zühlke Group. In this Career Design Interview, Romano explains the role that a growth mindset, curiosity, self-reflection, and the company’s feedback culture play.
Interview: Claudia Scherrer
Source: myworklifedesign.ch
Put simply: by the company investing in me. From day one, I was supported, coached, and always shown perspectives for growth. For example, I had the opportunity to do an EMBA to find out whether I wanted to pursue a management career or a technical career. This helped me enormously to shape my career and made it possible to constantly evolve. For me, there is no reason to switch to another company.
I started right after university as a Junior Software Developer. At the time, I was quite overwhelmed by the size and complexity of my first project. The great thing was that I was extremely well supported by my colleagues from the first day. They took the time to explain things to me and gave me tasks that matched my skill level. This created a sense of belonging right from the start. That’s how I evolved, becoming an Advanced Software Engineer, then an Expert Software Engineer. First I focused heavily on technology and kept getting better at it. Then came the step toward becoming an architect. I dealt with architectures, working in teams, and leading teams. At some point, the time was right for the step toward becoming a consultant. The following questions, which are also close to my heart, have always occupied me: How can we automate something? How can we ensure quality? How can we deliver value continuously? That’s how I quickly came to the topic of CI/CD (Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment). And when the DevOps movement started, I jumped on it. Today I support companies in their DevOps or Agile transformations and am one of the organizers of the DevOps Meetups in Zurich and DevOpsDays Zurich. The DevOps topic is truly close to my heart. That’s why I make so many videos about it.
When my step toward Distinguished Consultant was coming up, I received dedicated coaching for stage presence. The trainer Sabine Stücheli recorded me on video to reflect on my appearances. She recommended that I regularly record myself for training purposes and experiment with voice, gestures, and so on. I did that and thought, “Hey, those actually turned out to be not bad videos…” I once uploaded a video to YouTube to see if it would lead anywhere. The response was extremely positive. This encouraged me to keep improving the quality of the videos and to continue using this channel to talk about my topics: YouTube
There are several factors. First, you have to bring genuine interest and curiosity. You have to be hungry for knowledge. Second, you need a change mindset. You shouldn’t be too fixated on one path and must be willing to constantly reflect on your stance and adjust it if necessary.
In addition to genuine interest and curiosity, you need a change mindset. You shouldn’t be too fixated on one path and must be willing to constantly reflect on your stance and adjust it if necessary.
That’s exactly the thing. What’s important is that you find out what suits you through conversations with others or through further training. For a certain time, UX was my topic. Along the way, I noticed that I find DevOps even more exciting. In five years, I might find something else more interesting again. It’s enormously important to maintain this flexibility and agility so that you can also change things. What I often do is a personal retrospective. About every 14 days, I reflect on what went well and what I could improve. I then implement the improvements. For a successful career, I consider it very important to continuously work on yourself, reflect, and improve.
What I often do is a personal retrospective. About every 14 days, I reflect on what went well and what I could improve. I then implement the improvements. For a successful career, I consider it very important to continuously work on yourself, reflect, and improve.
Yes, definitely. There have been situations again and again where I failed or something didn’t go the way it should. But then I didn’t hear, “You’re bad. You’re making mistakes,” but rather, “You’re just not at the skill level yet. You can do this or that to get there.” Thanks to this mindset in our company, good and open conversations arise in such situations. The feedback culture is something very important at Zühlke. Employees have a career coach. This is either the supervisor or, as in my case, since I’m in a self-organized team, a mentor. This way you have very good conversations and can reflect on self-image versus external perception.
What makes innovation projects and careers successful is continuous perseverance. The process is typically similar: you are at a certain starting point and you have a path. You roughly know where the goal is, but you don’t know what the path to the goal is. Accordingly, you take the first steps and head in some direction. The most important thing, in innovation projects as well as in careers, is to start and take the first steps. With that, you can also go in the wrong direction. Then you must be able to accept that and make a change. That’s part of agility. It’s important to reflect in short cycles. I would recommend two-week or monthly cycles. This way, you can introduce continuous reflection and continuous improvement.
That’s a good question. Currently, I find the topic of self-organization very exciting. Since last year, I’ve been on a self-organized team, and it’s absolutely great. You grow much more strongly together as a unit. The greatest moment is when you go and say, “We now have to discuss salaries together.” Then it becomes somewhat emotional. Everyone reveals their salary. At that point, you notice how everything changes, you grow into a real team, and trust is lifted to a whole new level. I think companies should go much more in the direction of self-organization, empowerment, and transparency.