Life at GE : Careers : GE

What are the best aspects of your current job?

The impact on the organization and business results, the ability to work with bright people, and the ability to develop others.

What are the best things about working at GE?

Three things stand out: the scale and reputation of the company, the variety of tasks and careers available, and the knowledge inside the company.

How did your background/previous work experience prepare you for your current role?

It prepared me tremendously. I started my work in the software industry and soon faced problems with software engineering. That drew my attention to analysis and design methods and, later, to project management. Soon I realized that the software delivery process - rather than tools or languages - is the main reason for many problems, and I moved to process improvement, which ultimately led me to where I am now.

I built my career on a combination of education and experience. I worked hard, but every few years I went back to the university to expand my skills.

What is the most challenging project you've worked on at GE?

Working through a major, strategic change of the IT organization from a traditional, technology-driven IT shop to a modern service-oriented and process-driven IT organization (project ITILity). Working with technology is good, working with people is great, but the challenging part is working with people doing technology.

What are the top technical skills that you take pride in possessing and/or still draw upon for your job?

I have a solid technical and management background, which gives me the ability to update my knowledge as technology changes. Having worked in technology support, programming, analysis and design and project management, I have a good understanding of dynamics of the IT world.

In particular, I value my technical background in software engineering; it gives me structured thinking, a systematic approach to problems, and the ability to hack up simple applications quickly. It is useful and it is fun, too.

What is the best piece of career advice you can offer IT folks embarking on a technical career at GE?

Understand the power of a solid technical background, and invest effort in staying close to technology. Management background and 'soft skills' are great, but they work as an addition to techie stuff - not the other way around.