Profile
Manuela-Lidia Grindei
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About Me:
I live in London. I’m a backend engineer in the day and watch comedies in the evenings. I love volunteering, travelling, flowers and Black Forest cake!
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I am from Romania and moved to London 11 years ago. Since I came here, I loved visiting the gardens with spring flowers, the museums and the stately homes. I often go on day trips and so far my favourite cities are York and Bath, and my favourite castle are Arundel Castle and Castle Howard. Kew Gardens is my favourite place in London, and Vienna my favourite city in Europe. In my free time, I often volunteer for code clubs and mentor young people.
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My pronouns are:
she/her
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My Work:
I am working as a backend engineer in the banking sector, on a payments product that performs transactions between companies and their clients.
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The product I am working on is complex, split into more than 90 components, and is written in Java, which is a programming language similar to Python. The company is aiming to make it support a lot more transactions that it currently does as they anticipate many new clients joining in the near future. This will require a lot of work to redesign and improve the current system.
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My Typical Day:
I wake up at 8am and have breakfast (a cheese tomato omelette with salad and buttered toast, and a hot chocolate). I login to start work (from home) around 9am, and I typically split my time between coding and technical meetings. I have a 1h lunch break and then, in the afternoon, I keep working until 5-6pm, when I log off and relax.
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I wake up at 8am and have breakfast (a cheese tomato omelette with salad and buttered toast, and a hot chocolate). I login to start work (from home) around 9am, and I typically split my time between coding and meetings (these can be technical discussions with colleagues, regular check in calls with my manager, technical interviews, team meetings to organise ourselves etc). I have a 1h lunch break when I sometimes have lunch with my flatmates or friends, and sometimes go out for a walk in the area and do some shopping. In the afternoon, I keep working until 5-6pm, when I log off and relax. I love going out for a walk after work or meeting with friends.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
I would donate the money to the STEMAZING programme which I also volunteer for. It provides four amazing STEM workshops in schools and is actively mentoring women in STEM subjects.
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Education:
I was schooled in the public system in Romania. I graduated from the Highschool “Mihai Eminescu” in Iasi in 2003 as Valedictorian. Then I got admitted to the Faculty of Computer Science at the University “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” from Iasi, where I graduated in 2007 with my Bachelor degree. I studied 4 years there, out of which, the third one, I was an Erasmus student in Germany, at the University of Constance. I was admitted with a scholarship at the ENS de Cachan in France to do an honours master degree in Computer Science, jointly organized with ENS de Paris, Ecole Polytechnique and other French universities. I graduated in 2008 with a Master degree in Computer Science.
These studies were very useful in providing the much-needed coding knowledge to enable me to have a career as a programmer.
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Qualifications:
When I graduated highschool, I had to pass the Bacalaureat, which is similar to the A-levels in the UK. I had two oral examinations in Romanian and English, and four written tests in Romanian, Maths, Organic Chemistry and French.
Later on, I got a Bachelor and a Master’s degree in Computer Science in Romania, and France respectively.
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Work History:
I started my career in industry in Romania, where I worked as a full-stack developer for 3 years on projects for clients in the US and in the UK. I moved to London and specialised in Java development over the last 11 years. I worked for companies in gaming, media and finance, including JP Morgan Chase, MasterCard, Sky. Every role provided valuable experience on certain types of systems and enabled me to acquire new technical skills.
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Current Job:
Backend Engineer
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Employer:
NatWest Group
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
friendly foodie and developer
What did you want to be after you left school?
skater, gymnast, explorer, historian, doctor, economist, computer scientist
Were you ever in trouble at school?
no
If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?
translations
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Juanes
What's your favourite food?
Black Forest cake
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
Be healthy, be happy and be rich
Tell us a joke.
Pupil: Teacher, would you punish me for something I didn’t do? Teacher: Of course not. Pupil: Good, because I didn’t do my homework.
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