software is used by companies to make the process of choosing important employee benefits more engaging and enjoyable. Director of Data Engineering Marina Malaguti’s love of engineering started in childhood, although it didn’t begin with a computer.My interest in engineering started when I received my first real gift from my father at nine years old: a broken pink analog watch. We fixed it together, and I fell in love with being challenged by a great problem.
"Take a computer class, a software class, a coding class — even if you don’t make a career out of it, it will give you a better understanding of how things work.”As a working mother, my biggest challenge has been juggling work and home. Fortunately, I have had managers who understand the challenges of a young family, and each time I went back to work after maternity leave, they gave me a lot of support.
"I love problem-solving and it’s an exciting process to develop new trading strategies, specifically with automation.”Seek out mentors and senior engineers within the firm and take any opportunity to learn from them. Have high standards for yourself and your work. Whenever you see things that can be improved, speak up and know your words can carry weight.is a Chicagoland-based company that offers banking, payment solutions and financial services to customers around the globe.
As we grew as a company, a data engineering role on the tech team opened up, and while I wanted to apply, I counted myself out of the running because I thought I didn’t have the necessary skills. Fortunately, another technical role opened up later, and I was regretful enough for not applying the first time around that this time I jumped at it — and I got the job! Because I felt like such an imposter in the role, I spent extra hours every week learning everything I could for the job.
While working with them, I realized that I enjoyed the research they were doing and the cybersecurity aspect of their jobs. I quickly began picking up various aspects of their job including research and analysis, until my company took notice and promoted me to the role of a full-time intelligence analyst. Now, after several years of working in cybersecurity, I’ve discovered that research engineering combines the right mix of my skill set and ambitions.