My name is Angela Bemelmans-Kovalenko and I am DevOps Consultant at Devoteam Netherlands. Originally I am from Ukraine. In Ukraine, I studied Programming Engineering at the Cherkasy State University. After my graduation in October 2016, I came to the Netherlands as an Aupair. This was a good way to discover a new country, and to have a gap year to set my future goals and priorities in my professional and personal life. In September 2017 I went to Saxion University of Applied Sciences but after a few months, I decided to stop because the study was similar to the one I did in Ukraine. So I decided to find a job and to get more experience in IT. That was where I found Devoteam
From Trainee to DevOps Consultant
In July 2018 I started a DevOps traineeship at Devoteam. It was a great decision, during my traineeship I learned a lot of tools such as Git, Jenkins, Maven, Nexus, Ansible, Google Cloud, Red Hat Linux, and so on. During the first 6 months, I got 2 big internal assignments where I could use my knowledge, get more experience and meet lots of nice people.
After my traineeship, I got a couple of small DevOps projects where I could use my skills and after a couple of months, I got my first big Integration project where I worked for 1,5 years. It was a great time, it was a bit different than DevOps but I enjoyed it a lot and I learned a lot of new things.
Currently, I am preparing to get some new certificates and it’s time for a new project, where I can challenge myself.
What does an average working day look like for you?
Every day is different. During my study days, I am mostly busy with learning new things and preparing to get new certificates.
When I had an assignment, there were days where I could work the entire day alone, and other days I had lots of meetings, testing, and more.
My day usually starts at 7:30. I usually check my emails and drink a cup of coffee. In the morning I work the best. I have a lot of energy and I am very sharp. Around 10 o’clock I drink my second cup and go for a walk with my dog. I honestly think my dog is happy that I can work from home. At 16:00 I am done with work. It’s so nice to start to work early because I still have half of the day to myself.
Next to my job: hobbies and activities
I love cooking and I love to try to cook some new dishes. so it is always a question of whether it is really tasty or not 🙂 I do like sports, but not running haha.
And of course, traveling. And since there are no possibilities now to travel outside of the Netherlands, we decided to discover the Netherlands. A couple of months ago we bought a small caravan and every weekend we try to go to visit some new nice places. It was a great decision 😉 It feels like I am becoming a real Dutchie :-).
What I am most proud of
I am proud of my Dutch! It is still not perfect and I still have to improve it but I did my best to get to B2 level within 2 years and I’d like to thank Devoteam for giving such possibilities to their employees.