This week we put Denise in the spotlight. Denise has worked as a Support Engineer for Ivanti for 4 years at the office located in Den Bosch (NL).

Tell us about yourself and what you do at Ivanti

I have been working in IT for 18 years. I started as an IT Administrator for several clients, progressed to project engineer and then IT consultant. I remember very well the first time that I saw one of the products former RES Software products. It was my internship and immediately loved it. The RES PowerFuse and RES Wisdom software were products that helped me as an IT professional to easily manage, build, maintain and migrate IT environments. No matter how simple or complex the environments were. The products that facilitate functionalities to the end users one by one and help the IT organization to do this as simple and standardized as possible, so that you can offer a stable environment and at the same time have the supporters of a Support department that really goes for it. to solve issues and problems as quickly as possible by going the extra mile. And then I thought; I want to be part of that team!

What attracted you to a role in Technical Support

I have always found variety and diversity challenging. As a Support Engineer at Ivanti I can answer functional issues with technical solutions. How nice is that! Think about it once and then try to automate it. Currently I support the Ivanti Workspace Control, Ivanti Automation and Ivanti Identity Director products. That is why I see a lot of other non-Ivanti software and all kinds of environments from SMB to Enterprise environments. That is precisely what I see as a challenge. The contact with the customer and achieving the end goal together is nice to do.

We also deal with technical issues and bugs. The nice thing about it is to put the desired functionality next to the technical behaviour. Then transfer this back to the Software Engineer team. They look at a case with a completely different view. That is very interesting and even though I cannot program, it is nice to work with those teams.

Do you think that women are well represented in tech roles

A tricky question to answer. Yes and no. I would certainly like to have a direct female colleague. Yes, there are ladies who work in IT, but I have never had a female colleague who had the same position in the company where I was working at the time. Also, at Ivanti in the team that I work are only men. This is also the case with Ivanti. Why this is, I think, can simply be partly explained by personal interest. Not all is related to that. As a woman I did have to overcome my obstacles. But even in 2020 (unconscious or otherwise) prejudices will still not be able to work out adversely.

What advice would you give to a woman, or anyone who is interested in a career in technology

I do not think that being a woman should be something preventing a woman from taking on a technical role. Just find out what you like, your interest and what you are good at. Do not see yourself as a woman who enters a technical career or fulfils a role but see yourself as a person.

And that you must prove yourself more as a man; Yes, that is bound to happen to you. So what… If you can do it, you can! Show what you can do! And in this way, this will level out more and more.

How are you staying motivated in the current work from home conditions?

The customers and challenges remain the same. Whether you are in the office or at home. I do miss the great team in which I work together. I never had a position for Ivanti where I was always in one place and went to the same office every day or even had my own desk. But I do miss my team (yes, I miss you guys). Everyone has their own character (including me), but it is a team that (perhaps because of that) fits together very well and is also nice to work together. To be able to brainstorm technically. Seriously, but above all we enjoy a lot at the office. A very nice atmosphere. And yes, that is what I miss. Our daily SCRUM meetings that we already had can be taken care of a bit and they currently have 2x a day. And of course, we know how to find each other virtually, but it is different.

Who inspires you

I do not have someone to inspire me ... I can value a good manager or team leader. I think my manager at my first employer helped me by trusting me, which enabled me to make a good start in IT.
The one that made me think about a position in IT at all is my mother. I really didn't know “what I wanted to become” and she always said she liked that when she had a problem with the computer in the office to work with the IT person who managed to solve that problem.

And to close, please tell us three words you would use to describe Ivanti

- Offer a great range of products that can solve functional questions through technical solutions.

- International company where employees care about putting down something good.

- Being allowed to take the extra step to help the customer better and that offers the employee that it is a more challenging position.