Alina-Victoria Mihalache joins the Co-Factor team, continuing the story of women working in tech, which we began telling you in a series of interviews. Alina holds the position of Digital Marketing Manager and the coincidence is that the online environment is a real passion for her. This helps her in her daily work, because she manages to do everything with pleasure and take all the challenges as a positive thing.
She confessed that in her personal life she likes to walk, to visit as many places as possible, to enjoy nature, especially the places where there is water, because water relaxes her a lot. She relaxes when dancing, lately only in front of the mirror, because of the pandemic. She collects newspapers in different languages, from the places she visits, even if sometimes she doesn't understand anything of them.
In your opinion, what do women bring to tech? What do you consider to be your personal contribution?
In general, women pay more attention to details and to a structured organization, but I think the contribution can be equal, it depends a lot on each person. I tend to believe that I am a person open to everything that is new and this has helped me a lot in the fields in which I have worked, innovation plays an important role, regardless of the company you work for. We are so different as people that your contribution is also different, but when it comes to ideas, there is no such thing as good or bad idea, there are only IDEAS that you have to put in the right context.
How does it feel working in an industry that is male dominant?
I tried, as much as possible, not to make this a difference, to take people as they are, regardless of gender, age, mentality or any other attributes. I still believe that you have to constantly adapt to the situation and working in an industry that is male dominant makes me believe that these barriers are about to be "buried".
Have you ever encountered gender bias in your job?
I come from an industry where women predominated, so far I have not encountered these prejudices, but I have heard of such situations. It somehow depends on everyone's mentality and I try to accept situations as they are, but I will always try to express my opinion, regardless of the person with whom I have a discussion or interact about the job. I believe, however, that we are on the right track and that these prejudices will gradually disappear, so that there is an equal chance.
Do you have any advice for women who want to work in tech, but hesitate?
You have to take advantage of every opportunity, even if you sometimes have a slight fear. These challenges will help you grow personally, but also professionally. I like challenges, even if they sometimes make me feel uncomfortable, there are a lot of things to learn every day, from all the people around us, it's a shame to put ourselves "stop" and not accept the changes.
