Madalina Samoila

Madalina Samoila

What did you study (at school, college or university)?
I went to a maths-programming intensive high school, then went to study Computer Science in the Polytechnic University of Bucharest. I dropped out after 1.5 years and taught myself programming and QA on the job. It wasn't easy, but now I am a Head of QA at 28, in an amazing company.

How did you get into technology?
I got my first PC at the age of 7 and had an overwhelming curiosity to explore everything in it. First I played with Microsoft Office, then Windows 95 in general, then Corel Draw and then I discovered programming and QBasic, and that's when it became pretty clear that was what I wanted to do. Any other career becomes boring and repetitive at some point, but after 10 years of working in Dev/QA there are always new things to learn, new things to do, new technologies. It's the most exciting career anyone can get!

What company do you work for?
Mendeley

What do you do at your current company?
Head of QA

What advice would you give to girls looking to get into a tech related career?
Never listen to what people say you should and shouldn't be able to do! follow your own interests and curiosity, as the only person in charge of your happiness is yourself.