“I will stay in The Netherlands”, is what Alona finally decided on 24th of June 2022, four months after the war in Ukraine had begun. It was one of the toughest decisions of her life, but it would turn out to be the start of a new journey. The end goal of this journey? Becoming a Certified Pega Lead System Architect at BPM Company. In this first blog, Alona will tell you more about herself, the decision to stay and become an LSA, and how she ended up at BPM Company.

“There are no problems in life. Every problem is an opportunity.”

– Alona Nadieieva (inspired by Ichak Adizes)

Let me introduce myself

My name is Alona Nadieieva and Pega is my professional passion. I explored a few different technologies throughout my career. However, Pega ignited a spark in me that no other technology could. It makes every digital transformation journey a productive and joyful experience.

Originally, I am from Kherson City, which is situated in the south of Ukraine. If you ever visit, the city will welcome you with warm rays of sunshine, which pleasantly caress your skin, and various fields, which disappear into the horizon. The city’s hospitality provides you with a sense of endless possibilities, diversity, appreciation, and passion. The landscape of Kherson is very similar to the city of Arnhem in The Netherlands, which is the city where I am currently staying at. It still deeply fascinates me that I can experience the same color shades of phantasmagorical dark blue-grey skies on the other edge of Europe, which is hanging heavily over vibrant green leaves on the trees.

The unexpected turns of my career

I have found myself taking unexpected turns in my career, due to surprising discoveries about myself and major world events. The challenges I encountered and overcame on my path, I converted into efficient tools for my own professional toolbox. I will share these insights with you in this article series. So, I invite you along on the journey of my experience: from discovering Pega to becoming a Pega LSA. I hope that by the time we cover the LSA parts of my journey, you can enrich your own professional toolbox with insights you get from this article series.

Career of Alona

Discovering my passion for Pega

Many people claim that you need to try many things if you want to understand what you really like. To my surprise, my surroundings were giving me these hints on a daily basis. The region I am originally from, the Kherson region, is rich with fields with different crops. Just imagine a long road surrounded by endless fields of wheat, sunflowers, watermelons, grapes, or even peach trees. Every field is beautiful and offers a unique experience walking through it. However, only one or just a few of these rich varieties of fields would be most appealing to oneself. In my case, walking under the peach trees would be the most rewarding one. Especially when the branches of these trees are weighted down by ripe peaches.

The same idea can be applied to my career. I started my career as a Microsoft .NET Developer. As it was the first technology that I started to master, I thought I would stay a Microsoft .NET Developer my entire career. It was a pretty bold statement, and only eight years later I realized that being a Microsoft .NET Developer didn’t excite me in the way it should. By that time, I had tried several other things, including Microsoft SharePoint, Python, and even the Quality Assurance role. I knew those were also not the right directions to pursue. So, I started to look further, and a couple of months later I discovered Pega. At that moment, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to pursue a Pega career, but I definitely wanted to discover it further. It has been six years since then, and it has been an exciting ride so far, with many adventures still to go on!

Two things you should do

My journey to discover Pega encouraged me to start growing my professional toolbox with tools that make my professional life more efficient. The insights I learned six years ago, were the first tools I added to my toolbox:

  1. Be curious. Explore what most of the fields in the region have to offer. Do not dive into the first available one.
  2. Be agile. The world is changing, and you shall too.

Think about it, if I had known about these two things all those years ago, I could have made the first seven years of my career way more exciting and productive! So, my advice to you: be curious and be agile!

In the coming months, I will tell you about my journey to become a Pega Lead System Architect (LSA) at BPM Company through a series of articles. In the next article, I will tell you about what makes Pega so special to me and what challenges are waiting for you if you decide to switch to Pega from another programming language. Don’t want to miss an article? Subscribe to our newsletter! So stay tuned and see you next month!

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