Lorena Răsvanță
When did you join TORA?
I joined TORA on 1st of March 2007. That year, the first day of Spring came with the first woman developer in the company. I was still a student back then and for 18 months, my time was split between work and school.
There was not much spare time for me, but I enjoy being active, having a lot of things to do. I was driven by my enthusiasm for learning new things and TORA had a lot to offer. It was not just about learning new technical skills for me, but it was also exciting to explore a new world, one of finances. This world opened a lot while traveling to Tokyo for Support sessions for the clients. I remember my first trip to Tokyo. It was in 2008 and it lasted 3 months. I can say that I fell in love with Japan and it will always have a special place in my heart.
What has your career path at the company been like?
When I first joined the company, I started as a developer, working in Python (for a short period of time) and Java. Python was brand new for me, so I had to learn on the go.
After 6 years, I became the Team Leader with 6 direct reports, that grew to 10 overtime. The team was responsible to work directly with the Clients: implement most of their small and medium-sized custom features, fixing bugs (who doesn’t have bugs?), doing support, deploy, configurations, connectivity and integrations.
This year I started a new chapter in my career at TORA and started a new role – Product Owner.
All of my roles were challenging and they gave me the opportunity to improve different skills. During this time, I worked with talented and hard-working people and I learned a lot from them. Looking back I realize that it’s been quite a ride, a great one!
What is it like to be a Product Owner in the trading business?
I think the Product Owner role is the one that fits me best so far. I must say that working for such a long period of time close to the clients and to the Product gives me a head start in this position. But there are still lots of things to be learned and this keeps me motivated. I like that I have the opportunity to grow the product, even if we started with small steps so far.
What drives you and motivates you in your daily work?
The dynamics. I like moving things, you don’t get bored.