Welcome to our new mini-series on career change journeys within Mindera! In this series, we’ll promote and celebrate beautifully unique individuals who have changed career paths within Mindera or moving into Mindera.

This series aims to showcase that anything is possible; whatever career role you want to try your hand in, you can achieve it with support, guidance, and the right environment.

Carolina (Carol) Carvalho and Alicja (Ala) Kropidlowska were the first people we spoke to for this exciting new series.

Carolina Carvalho:

Carolina is our expert social media and brand strategist; she works on Mindera Global, Mindera Portugal, and Mindera Education! She joined Mindera 5 years ago and has had an exciting time in different roles.

She has had a super incredible and interesting journey within Mindera, so we caught up with her to learn more about her inspiring career journey and the obstacles she faced. Carolina has many areas of expertise and has contributed significantly to Mindera with her knowledge.

Carolina is also one of the fantastic founders and organisers of Sharing Group - a fortnightly session hosted by fellow Minders to discuss important topics related to mental health and well-being.

Carolina’s backstory:

Before joining Mindera, Carolina worked with PhD students in international exchange programs. That’s where she started her social media journey by developing digital communication for these exchange programs. Her background is in Journalism which is an amazing help and asset to the Marketing and Communications team.

In Carolina’s own words:

“I joined Mindera almost five years ago with little experience in recruitment, but I came to learn all about it and am super grateful for the opportunity to do so.

Sofia Reis, one of our founders, created the social media accounts for Mindera Portugal. She added me on because of my previous experience in social media and my degree in journalism - I was happy to come on board!

Sofia mentored me on Mindera’s culture and ways to communicate our unique ways of working inside and out. What was key here was learning the tone of voice and the brand - Sofia remains my inspiration to this day.

After being mentored, I handled the recruitment and social media in a 70/30 split for a time. Then, in 2021, the scout team created a group for ideas for Mindera Portugal's social media posting. My team encouraged me at the time to leave the pipelines, supporting me through much self-doubt, guilt, and fear of losing connection to the rest of the scout team.

In early 2022, I took up social media full-time and realised this was my passion - I can really show off my creativity, and this comes naturally to me.”

Alicja Kropidlowska:

Alicja joined Mindera in March 2020, right at the start of a pandemic lockdown. Initially, Alicja was part of the facilities team, the only team member responsible for the Aveiro and Coimbra offices.

Much like Carolina, Alicja has had an epic journey within Mindera! When we caught up with her for this piece, she commented on how she always felt like Mindera was the right place for her and a place she truly fit in. It was just about finding the perfect role and career path within Mindera.

Initially, Alicja started out as a facilities team member right amid the global Covid19 pandemic; this was extremely difficult as communication was done entirely online. Eventually, Alicja explored new roles within Mindera to find her true passion and calling as one of our fabulous programmers! She also went through our MindSwap Bootcamp.

She has faced many barriers and obstacles, but she powered through them and overcame stigmas.

As another founder of Sharing Group, Alicja organised and participated in many discussions regarding well-being with Global Minders!

Alicja’s Backstory:

Before joining Mindera, Alicja was a graduate in Sustainable Construction, having studied natural building materials such as hempcrete and strawbale. How cool and epic is that?! It really shows that people from all cool and unique educations and backgrounds can come to Mindera.

In Alicja’s Words:

“Starting my role during the pandemic brought many challenges, especially in terms of remote work; it meant knowing my colleagues just via online communications. I thought I was a good communicator, but I faced many challenges in the beginning with solely communicating over video or Slack/email. This was difficult, especially in languages that are not native to me.

Because of this, I struggled with bonding closely with my colleagues, which greatly impacted the visibility of my work and performance.

In the second year of my role as a facilities team member, I began to feel unhappy, and I felt this wasn’t the job for me. I explored my interests, hoping to find something that suited me, and eventually, I trialled programming lessons for newbies, which Mindera organised.

I then realised that I loved the challenge of solving problems and dealing with algorithms, and actually, I had always been good at logic and math - some core components for starting a new journey as a programmer!

Another obstacle that I faced, however, was being encouraged previously to not choose technical courses due to being a woman… Unfortunately, I followed this advice in the past, believing that I would struggle too much.

After overcoming this gender stereotype and deciding that programming was for me, I joined MindSwap Academy - I felt so empowered and glad I took the risk!

Fast forward to today, and I am 6 months in on my journey as a backend programmer - so happy I took the leap. There is always so much chance for progress and learning in this role….”

Changing roles at Mindera

When joining Mindera, we are not tied to our project or role. Minders are seen as individuals, and our contributions are not limited to our role. We have the freedom to join initiatives or start our own, such as the Sharing Group, workshops, events, etc.

When our projects change or a team’s purpose is concluded, we search for another opportunity inside the company. It is also possible to change projects to learn something new in our own role! Allocating Minders is a priority of the “People Team”, and each person is involved in this decision.

Changing roles is also a possibility, from QA to PO, for example. But this is a process that must include allowing for the team to adjust to the change - this may look like finding another person for the role and/or recruiting.

Join us for this series as we explore more stories of Minder’s career journeys!

If Mindera sounds like a perfect fit for you, check out our vacancies!