In our latest Q&A, we catch up with Ana Dominguez Perez, a Senior Engineer, who works in Guadiaro, Spain.
DD: Hi, Ana! Please tell us a little bit about your professional background. You’re working in Guadiaro, Andalusia, Spain, I believe? I don’t know much about that city or region, although Mrs. Davis and I did visit Córdoba a few years ago. It’s full of historical sites, I know that.
ADP: Hi Dave, I am happy to speak with you. My degree is in Computer Science, which I studied in Malaga. I am originally from there, though I am currently living in Guadiaro.
In 2010 I moved to “El Campo de Gibraltar” (see image below) to start working for an English online gambling company (!) —more specifically horse racing. I started in customer support, and after nine months I moved to the reporting department and that’s how my relationship with data began. I spent six years on the reporting team. It allowed me to see how “the big data world” started to change the business. After this period, I started as an ETL developer on a Data Warehouse team at the same company.
Yes, I work remotely and currently I am based in Guadiaro. It is located on the western side of Malaga but it is actually in the province of Cadiz. I like to describe it as a summer place. This area is heavily visited by tourists that are looking for golf, polo and beaches. Here there are two very important annual events – one is the annual international polo tournament held each August at The Santa Maria Polo Club, and the second one, usually in October, is The Valderrama Masters Golf Tournament.
DD: Your role at CCC is Senior ETL Developer. Can you tell me about that? For instance, what does ETL stand for?
ADP: Yes, I am an ETL developer on the Data Operations team. This process is known as ETL which means Extract, Transform and Load. At a high level, any system dealing with data processing requires moving information from storage and transforming it in the process to be used by people or machines.
I am working on a particular project, replacing a legacy system. I ‘m fortunate to been on this project almost from the very beginning.
DD: In the current environment, what has your experience of working from home and communicating remotely with colleagues been like? Good? Challenging? Both?
ADP: I am part of a small and very experienced team. They work in the US and I am the only one working in Spain, but we have coordinated wonderfully from day one. Our communication is daily and bidirectional; we always know where each team member is, in the project.
I feel very integrated with the team, so I don’t see any challenge working remotely. Perhaps sometimes we must deal with the time difference to balance work and personal life. We are very fortunate because of the tools and flexibility that my manager offers the team.
I am looking forward to going to the Seville office to meet all my colleagues in Spain; someday perhaps I will meet with the members of my US-based team as well. I think that human contact helps us in our professional and personal development, and I can appreciate the excellent work environment that CCC provides when I attend each company meeting.
DD: Sounds like a great fit. If you had one thing to share with prospective employees, to encourage them to come work with CCC in the Spain office — or with colleagues who may be anywhere — what would that be?
ADP: I would tell them how impressed I am by CCC’s commitment to the well-being of employees, organizing different activities well, conducting surveys to find out what our opinion is and monitoring the first months of work. This involvement is a really valuable aspect of the corporate culture.
It is also very enriching to be surrounded by people with experience who want to share with their colleagues. That unbeatable atmosphere is really appreciated.