We’ve interviewed senior consultant Sébastien Wathelet, who joined our Digital Identity department about a year ago. He talks about his average work day nowadays, his career path and how his function has changed since working from home.
Introduce yourself.
I am Sébastien Wathelet, Identity & Access Management (IAM) consultant and currently working at the Service Public de Wallonie (SPW).
It has almost been a year since I left my previous job to join Devoteam, and I’m still happy with that decision!
How has your first year at Devoteam been?
This past year has been both challenging and very interesting. With the help of the Digital Identity team, I learned a lot about the great technologies used to improve customer satisfaction and efficiency.
Why did you decide to work for Devoteam?
For 20 years now, I’ve been passionate about computers and more specifically, about security. Playing with malware at night, studying during the holidays, working during the day, I have always wanted to make my passion my livelihood.
That’s why I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to work for a specialised company like Devoteam.
What’s your best memory of working at Devoteam so far?
I can’t think of a specific moment because honestly, there were many of them. I have a lot of great memories of the team buildings, like karting events, dinners and after works with colleagues, and training sessions in Zaventem.
The Town Hall event at the end of last year was also a great moment.
Describe your career path & which trainings have you had so far?
I started as an IAM consultant. To do so, I studied ForgeRock products and got a certification.
At Devoteam, I followed a great training program to improve my presentation skills. As well as the famous ‘Insights’ training which was amazing and quite interesting.
Additionally, I chose to take an online ‘machine learning’ course to continue to broaden my knowledge. I was also very pleased with that training.
At the moment, I have the chance to learn about Kubernetes in depth, again thanks to Devoteam.
What’s it like working for Devoteam? What do you think of the work environment and colleagues?
Most people I’ve met at Devoteam are fun, wise and extremely skilled. Of course, the direct environment depends on the client, and probably on the practice, but it’s a pleasant experience to work here for many reasons.
For example, on the first day you’re greeted with a personalised welcome moment and breakfast/lunch. HR also checks in on you by calling regularly to make sure everything is fine. On top of that, I have been invited to lunches with my manager and colleagues several times.
I think that Devoteam’s values – Respect, Frankness and Passion – are often reflected in things like this.
What strengths and advantages does Devoteam offer its employees?
I believe that Devoteam offers the advantages of a large company combined with the possibility of change, communication and qualification that smaller companies offer. I am always impressed by how easy it is to communicate between the different departments.
On top of that, the renumeration package is undoubtedly competitive.
How has your function/job changed since working from home?
I’ve always worked in open spaces. Working from home, in silence, is a good way to save time, be more focused and efficient in my opinion.
Of course, the context is a bit different now because I have three children that are still very young. So, it hasn’t always been easy, but we are very lucky. Most of my work can be done remotely.
How does your average working day look like nowadays?
When I don’t have to take care of the children, the day starts earlier. Important or urgent things have priority. Then, I often have online meetings with the client or my colleagues.
The work to be done isn’t so different than before, but I usually like to work for the client in the evening. This wasn’t possible for me prior to the lockdown. For example, applying CD/CI like Jenkins or XL Deploy, committing code, such as IntelliJ, Spring, Maven or GIT, or working with contains like Docker, is easier during that time.
What was your best achievement so far?
I am particularly proud of my new certifications, including Access Management Specialist and Machine Learning. I’ve also performed some difficult troubleshooting and worked on scripts that are now used daily.
What’s your favourite part of the day?
The best part of my day is early in the morning or late at night when everyone is asleep. This is when I get to be most productive or have some time for myself.
However, I also really enjoy spending quality time with my family and friends.
How would you like to grow in your function/career?
As I still have a lot to learn, I would like to continue to improve my skills. As of now, I don’t have a clear idea of which long term career I would like to pursue. But the more I learn and deepen my knowledge, the more I’m thinking of working on protecting systems.
