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Career development involves not only moving up the career ladder but also ways to expand your expertise horizontally — even changing your job profile. It is about having room for mindset transformation, as your values, interests, and goals may change drastically over time.
How do you know if you are ready for a career change? What are the green and red flags for it? Each case is individual, as there are no identical career paths. We asked one of the career switchers within Intellias, Olena Khodonovych, to share her experience of going from AQA to Delivery Coordination.
The biggest challenge for me was making a decision. Before my career switch, I worked as an AQA engineer on automotive projects for several companies, including Intellias. My tasks were related to the system, and I liked it. Even now, I notice everywhere what I can fix. But at some point, I felt that I needed more communication with people. I started visiting the office more often to socialize.
In 2022, at the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, two people from my team went to defend our country, and I partially replaced them. This experience was a significant turning point that made me realize I was more interested in communicating with people than with applications.
1. Take time to discover your superpowers
I studied psychology and public speaking previously. Back then, I realized that my superpower was telling stories in a way that people listen to me. Plus, I occasionally held team meetings as a scrum master and got positive feedback from colleagues. I was burnt out just before the switch, so I even took a sabbatical. During this time, I was taking scrum master courses, as I found my interest in them.
2. Find a mentor
My transition started even before the launch of Fuel50 (Intellias mentorship program), where you can find a mentor simply in a search bar. I looked for a mentor on my own and asked my manager. First, there was an interview where my mentor assessed what I had already done and what I needed to improve. We followed the plan and covered specific gaps and topics. After that, we had one more skill check, where my mentor evaluated the acquired skills.
3. Ask many questions
Since I’ve already had some coordinator experience, I had many questions. I wanted to hear all about other experiences to compare with mine. You can read many books and take many courses, but when you have open questions in practice and have to find answers for tomorrow, it is fantastic to have someone who can give you advice.
4. Figure out your goals and what you can do now
When working on a project, propose an initiative to your manager, share your career goals, and ask what you can do on that project to learn something or what courses to take. No manager will mind. After that, ask if there are any available vacancies. But the main thing is to have motivation, a little experience, and understanding. Do you really want it?
5. Transfer your skills
I’m a creative person, and AQA was also a creative activity for me. I have to figure out the weak point of the given product, where something could have gone wrong and can be improved. This is my life skill that helps in various situations. For example, once, I determined that my fridge’s contacts would burn out simply by the noise, and in a few days, it would be unrepairable. This skill helps me to listen carefully to people and understand who will perform well and who will not survive on the project.
At Intellias, we strive to grow leaders and professionals within the company. Growth Mindset is a talent development strategy that includes tools, programs, and initiatives to create opportunities and ease promotion for Intellias members.
With Fuel50, a professional development platform, each Intellias specialist can manage their career clearly and concisely. It helps them to understand their skill gaps, define a target role, set goals, and connect with a mentor.
Firstly, team members must self-evaluate their skill level. This can be done with interactive tests, determining growth drivers, values, and working style, and analyzing their current career wants and needs. Based on the current profile and self-evaluation, the system suggests options for a potential next career step and a target role. Fuel50 also shows the gap analysis, a detailed comparison of the current skill level and the level required for the role.
After setting a target role, the IntelliMentorship journey begins. It involves a 9-12-month cooperation of a mentee and a senior engineer/expert to level up the mentee’s skills on the way to promotion. A specialist can find and choose their mentor from the list, using filters to find exactly that person who would help their growth. And vice versa, a specialist can apply to become a mentor.
The mentor co-creates a development plan with a mentee and encourages them to keep track of their learning journey. The mentor helps close skill gaps and iteratively evaluates skills. This process is called Ongoing Skill Check.
If specialists know their skills fit the required level, they can apply for promotion without mentorship. One-time Skill Check service is there to evaluate the level of all required skills in one session.
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