Barbara Fusinska
Strategic Cloud Engineer - Google

- What is your role at work?
I find out about my clients problems and then it’s my job, as the engineer, to help solve them using Google cloud.
- Has there been a turning point in your career?
There have been a few moments in my career when I realised that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. Whenever I talk to a customer and I talk about the technology or the way I can solve problems, I feel like I’m having real input and helping them. Because I’m very self-critical, I wouldn’t say I am an expert in the whole field but when I realise I’m an expert in whatever I am talking about at that moment, it’s amazing! I wish for everyone to feel that at some point, it’s like realising you are falling in love.
- Have you faced setbacks throughout your career?
My whole career has had a lot of struggles and this is normal in every career. We don’t always talk about this and a career path is often romanticised – probably by Hollywood movies – with the false idea that you’re always good at something and you will do it for the rest of your life. That’s not what it’s like, especially in tech, when things change so rapidly. You have to learn new things every day and you’re constantly faced with new challenges. We have to solve real problems and its a constant struggle.
- How do you feel about doing things differently?
I used to call myself the queen of the comfort zone until I just stopped being that person! I made the decision to move from Krakow, where I lived for 14 years, to London. London has a very big tech scene and yes, finding an apartment is tough, but finding a job in London is easy. I would say the struggle was more about it being a new country with a new language. The world is a big village and if you’re not doing things in different ways, if you aren’t constantly changing, you will stay in the same place and this means going backwards. You won’t find job satisfaction if you are just standing still.