Just a year ago, I joined Vandebron with a clear picture in my mind: I was going to be a Front-end Engineer. Fast forward six months, and I stepped into the role of Engineering Team Lead for our Acquisition and Retention domain. It’s been a whirlwind journey, but it completely changed how I view personal growth and what it means to be a "mission-first" engineer.

When Vandebron first introduced these new internal team lead roles, I read through the description and thought, "Wow, this perfectly matches what I love to do." But as a relative newcomer, I hesitated and figured I hadn't been here long enough. During a routine check-in, my manager, Daniela, asked if I’d seen the open positions. When I told her my doubts, she gave me the perspective I needed, pointing out that even external hires would be brand new to the company. She told me, "If you have the correct skills, please apply." That conversation was the ultimate catalyst for me. Receiving the role after a rigorous interview process brought a huge wave of gratitude, giving me a deep sense of responsibility to deliver on the trust my peers had placed in me.

Today, my role is a dynamic mix of scopes that uses completely different parts of my brain, which is exactly why I love it. On any given day, I balance the technical side with the nuanced world of people management and stakeholder alignment. My personal philosophy is to ensure my team has enough clarity so they can operate autonomously.

This balance is especially crucial right now because my team is navigating a massive, "once-in-a-career" technical transformation. We are completely changing our systems and migrating our programming languages from Scala to Kotlin. For an engineer, a change of this scale is a massive gift, but it requires shifting our mindsets from simply delivering on a ticket to embracing active discovery. My main challenge is translating that uncertainty into excitement for the team, establishing clear boundaries on what is still unknown so they have the space to safely explore and innovate.

Stepping into this leadership space didn't mean being thrown into the deep end, though. Vandebron supported our transition with a months-long professional leadership training program. We did digital modules and full-day, in-person deep dives where we could even roleplay tough management conversations with professional actors. Beyond the formal training, the camaraderie among the engineering leads has been incredible. We meet every Monday for a Team Lead Sync, which has created a powerful peer-to-peer network. Because it's a new role across the department, we get the unique challenges of the position, making it the perfect space to share tips, support each other, and keep our engineering cultures aligned.

What makes engineering at Vandebron truly unique is how our "mission-first" ethos shapes our code. A great example is our infrastructure move from AWS to Scaleway, a green European cloud provider. This mindset filters right down into our daily technical refinements. We actively question whether a new feature pushes us closer to being 100% green, or if it consumes too much compute power. We genuinely care about the environmental cost of our digital footprint.

If I had to sum up our culture in two words, it would be open and smart. "Open" is our welcoming atmosphere where grassroots initiatives thrive—whether we're discussing International Women’s Day or signing up for a climate cycling race. "Smart" is the hard engineering excellence required to solve complex energy problems, backed by a company that gives us the time and space to do it right. It’s the perfect playground for product-minded engineers who want to drive feature discovery rather than just build from a static checklist.

At Vandebron, making a change in the world is simply a part of who people are, and that energy easily rubs off on you. But I’m also a firm believer in bringing your full self to work and leaving room to unplug. It’s that exact blend of positive energy, sharp intelligence, and a genuine desire to make the planet a better place that makes me so proud to call Vandebron home.

Inspired by the story of Gásten? Check out our open positions here.