On this Worker Highlight, we sat down with Julia Ostrowski to study her time at Cloudera, what she loves about her job, her expertise on either side of Cloudera’s mentorship program, and her spectacular volunteer work.
Meet Julia Ostrowski
Julia is the Director of Enterprise Entitlement at Cloudera and has been with the corporate since 2019, becoming a member of through Hortonworks. Exterior of her typical tasks, Julia is deeply concerned in varied philanthropic initiatives inside Cloudera in addition to in her personal free time.
“At any time when there is a chance to do one thing good within the Santa Clara workplace for a few hours, I all the time join it, it doesn’t matter what it’s,” Julia mentioned. “There are such a lot of rewarding initiatives that Cloudera places collectively, from mentorships to caring for animals or serving to individuals in want. It’s a fantastic a part of Cloudera’s tradition.”
Julia’s Cloudera Profession Journey
When Julia first arrived at Cloudera, she labored in Assist because the supervisor of the Assist Product Administration crew, serving to guarantee Cloudera’s COEs and Assist Managers have been in a position to present world-class technical help to our prospects. In 2022 she was supplied the chance to affix the rising and dynamic IT division below Olivia Keenaghan as part of Enterprise Purposes. Now, she’s liable for managing a small crew that critiques your entire entitlement enterprise course of, taking possession of any elements of the lifecycle that have been distributed and/or unowned.
This was fairly the profession shift, however she described switching to the IT division as “incredible,” crediting a tremendous supervisor, a fantastic crew, and rewarding tasks.
“Making the change was such a welcoming expertise,” she mentioned. “I nonetheless get to my laptop computer every day with a smile on my face. I just like the problem of by no means understanding precisely what every day will carry, and I get excited to unravel complicated issues to assist Cloudera develop. I’ve all the time mentioned that at Cloudera your profession is in your fingers. I’ve seen individuals go from one crew to a totally totally different crew with such success and beauty, completely supported by their former and new managers. You simply don’t see that at each firm, sadly”
Julia’s crew consisting of Ken McCarthy and Susy Mena-McCarthy tracks and manages all of Cloudera’s public cloud metering for billing functions and constantly optimizes processes to help enterprise wants. Their present massive challenge is Mission Lionheart: the alternative of a licensing server to permit for extra flexibility and way more management over the perception gained into buyer utilization over their on-premises product.
Whereas Julia has an actual ardour for fixing issues and driving worth throughout her day-to-day job, she is all the time desperate to leverage Cloudera’s in depth giving and volunteering applications to volunteer her time to assist others.
Mentoring and Volunteering at Cloudera
Cloudera provides a mentorship program to assist workers enhance and navigate their careers. They acquire recommendation, set objectives, and learn to deal with tough conditions at work, similar to a challenge not going in response to plan. Julia, who shared that she’s benefited from being a mentee herself each at Cloudera at present, and at earlier organizations, volunteers to mentor as much as 4 colleagues at a time and views this act as paying it ahead.
“I actually take pleasure in it,” she mentioned. “I’ve gotten a lot out of getting a mentor that I really feel obligated to be a mentor myself, however happily, I do adore it. I respect having the ability to meet new individuals at Cloudera and do my greatest to assist information them of their careers.”
Julia says that numerous the time, the bottom line is to maintain an excellent angle, however the largest piece of recommendation she provides is that uncertainty isn’t all the time a nasty factor so long as you will have a path ahead.
“It’s okay to not know precisely the place you may be in ten years, 5 years, and even two years,” she mentioned. “Anticipating to have your entire profession path mapped out all the way down to the final rock or pebble is a really old-school mind-set, however you need to all the time have your subsequent purpose in thoughts. It doesn’t must be a brand new title or a specific wage, nevertheless it might be a brand new ability set that you just wish to add to your repertoire, for instance. I all the time ask mentees, ‘What’s your subsequent purpose?’ and work with them on discovering a path there.”
Cloudera Cares Volunteer Program
Julia additionally lends her time to philanthropic initiatives like Cloudera’s Teen Accelerator Program, an initiative organized by Cloudera’s volunteer group, Cloudera Cares.
The Teen Accelerator Program is a partnership with the Boys & Women Membership of America in each Tennessee and the San Francisco Bay Space. This program provides college students a six-week paid internship program at Cloudera and 1:1 worker mentorship, serving to facilitate alternatives in company America for highschool college students in under-resourced communities.
At first, Julia defined, she was a bit nervous to start out working with this system as a result of she had not had a lot interplay with teenagers. Nonetheless, regardless of that preliminary nervousness, she dove proper in and was hooked immediately as this system tapped into her ardour for serving to others.
“It was such a rewarding expertise,” Julia mentioned. “I requested myself, ‘What did I wish to know concerning the world of enterprise after I was 16 years previous?’ The primary time I used to be in an workplace in my early years, I didn’t know tips on how to gown or what to do. And there are such a lot of easy questions. I keep in mind not understanding whether or not you need to elevate your hand to go to the lavatory or what ‘CEO’ means. I put myself in these sneakers, and I’m glad I did. It was truthfully incredible.”
Through the teen mentorship, Julia partnered with Cy Jervis (Senior Supervisor, Assist Data Applications) to just about information the teenager mentee via the ins and outs of Cloudera, introducing him to key departments, and permitting him to ask questions and interact with colleagues. By the top of this system, he left with a strong understanding of how fashionable tech corporations function.
“It was so attention-grabbing to listen to all our colleagues go in-depth sharing what they do and what their division works on that I used to be even studying proper together with him,” Julia mentioned. “I wasn’t anticipating to have a lot enjoyable, however he was so engaged, and it was simply nice.”
Julia additionally takes benefit of one other Cloudera volunteer initiative by spending a few of her time with Second Harvest, a meals distribution group in her native space of San Jose, California. By this volunteer program, a gaggle of Cloudera workers (championed by Govt Briefing Program Supervisor Amanda Allen) help the group in distributing meals to individuals in want.
“Cloudera has fairly a number of volunteer alternatives, and this one is one in all my absolute favorites,” Julia mentioned. “I make the most of each alternative to participate in it. Whether or not it’s sunny or raining out, it doesn’t matter. I get to go and spend time with different incredible Clouderans who I wouldn’t usually see, and I actually take pleasure in it. It is a nice group that places meals within the fingers of people that really want it, and I’m so appreciative of Amanda’s robust advocacy in organizing these alternatives for Cloudera.”
Julia is actually keen about her philanthropic efforts and serving to these in want each via Cloudera and outdoors of labor. She continues to foster canines and cats for native animal rescues (and sometimes they discover a everlasting residence together with her!). She loves having the ability to make a distinction in her position in Enterprise Entitlement and appreciates the pliability Cloudera granted her to discover a brand new place in IT that she really enjoys.
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