Today is a speacial day, I completed one year at Celonis. I am sharing my reflections on the past year and my plans for the future.

How it all started

Last June, I started exploring some job opportunities. I was looking to get into DevRel because that’s my passion.

I even got an offer from a company, and I was very close to accepting it. But then I got a call from Celonis. The recruiter asked me if I wanted to join Celonis with a pitch.

“Of course, I understand that you might not be actively looking at the moment. However, people tend to say, “sometimes it is all about the right timing,” and therefore, I had to give it a try :)

You could be a great fit, mainly due to your educational and professional background.”

And believe me, I received this message at the right time. I was actively looking for a job and wanted to ensure I had a few good options.

Instantly I replied to the recruiter, and we scheduled a call. I was very impressed with the recruiter and how she explained the role and the company.

Interview Process

I started my interview process with Celonis in June 2022. I wanted to resign from my previous job before probation to leave them within 15 day notice period. I clarified with my recruiter that I want to finish all my interviews before 30th June.

There were multiple rounds of the interview, including a take-home test. I was able to clear all the rounds within 2 weeks. I was very impressed with the interview process and how they conducted it.

It felt more like a conversation, and I connected with the interviewers. We discussed some existing issues the team is trying to solve with Nx. I was able to clear all the rounds, and I got the offer letter on 30th June.

Why I chose Celonis

More than the interview process, I was impressed by the HR team. I was new to Germany, struggling with the process here, and away from my family for more than 6 months. I was looking for a company that could help me with my resident permit and help me with my family’s visa process.

And I wanted to visit India to see my family and my daughter on her 10th birthday. My recruiter katharina said they are more than happy if I want to visit india after joining and come back and work. She could understand my pain of not seeing my family for more than 6 months.

The human connection and how Celonis went beyond to help me with my situation made me choose Celonis over other companies.

My first day at Celonis

I joined Celonis on 1st August 2022 and was very excited to start my new journey. I was very impressed with the onboarding process and how they welcomed me.

My manager Bardh made sure I was assigned to the right team, where I could perform at my best level. I was assigned to the team responsible for managing the mono-repo and migrating more apps to Nx.

Nx is the tool I have been using since 2020, and I helped multiple clients migrate to Nx, and I was very excited to work on Nx at Celonis.

My first week at Celonis

I was assigned a buddy Yazan, who helped me with the onboarding process and ensured I was comfortable. We ended up bonding really well, and we are great friends now.

I remember telling him he needed to be patient with me during my first call with Yazan, as I was coming out of burnout and not in a good mental state. He was very understanding and made sure I was comfortable with the process.

My first month at Celonis

I got familiar with the codebase and the team in my first month. I worked closely with my teammates, Yazan and Michael. They helped me understand what the team is working on and how I can contribute.

My first speaking opportunity

One of the motivations behind moving to Germany was to get more speaking opportunities. Still, the kind of year I had, I could not focus on speaking. I was not in the best mental state and could not concentrate.

But when Juri reached out and asked if I wanted to speak at Nx Conf, I couldn’t say no. I was very excited to present the talk at Nx Conf.

But the biggest question was will my new employer allow me to speak at Nx Conf, and I was pleased when my manager Bardh said yes. Bardh even suggested the topic, which I can present at Nx Conf.

I contacted Juri with the topic, and the Nx team was delighted. I presented at Nx Conf, and it was a great experience. I was thrilled to see the response from the community, and that was just a start. I have spoken to more than 15 conferences in the past year. Traveled to many countries and met many amazing people.

During this past year, I spoke at conferences like ngBE, jsPoland, Nx Conf, JsConf India, and many more.

My experience with the team

I am delighted with my team and how they have supported me. I learned a lot from them, and I am very thankful for their support.

We plan our quarterly goals and ensure we are aligned with the team goals. I also have bi-weekly 1:1 with my manager Tomas to discuss my progress and what I can improve.

I can also manage my work, community, and family life balance. We have taken a family vacation to Poland, Berlin, and Greece and will visit Dubai soon.

What I have been working on at Celonis

Many folks I meet or speak to think I am working as a DevRel at Celonis, but that’s not true. I am working as a Senior Software Engineer at Celonis, but I will not deny that I am also doing DevRel work at Celonis, so I have the best of both worlds.

I love doing DevRel stuff, speaking at conferences/meetups, creating content, and helping the community. And I am pleased that I can do all of that at Celonis.

At Celonis, I am working on mono-repo and Nx. I am working on improving our mono-repo experience and helping the team with the migration process.

I am working as a consultant to the teams, helping teams with any issues related to Nx and Angular with my team.

We were able to have standard lint rules for our mono-repo. Migrate many apps and libraries within mono-repo for a better developer experience.

We also migrated to Angular 13 and Nx 16 and are working on migrating to Angular 14.

Also migrated our design system to Nx and Angular 13. Which helped our design systems team to have a better developer experience.

I ended up deleting more code than actually adding code, this stats is from our mono-repo

What I have learned at Celonis

One great thing about my current role is my amazing co-workers. I can learn a lot from them. Yazan and Michael are fantastic teammates, and I can learn much from them.

I wrote my first tests using the Cypress component store, learned more about GitHub Actions, and even gave my first talk on GitHub Actions.

What I am planning to do in the future

I am delighted with my current role and plan to continue working at Celonis.

I look forward to contributing more to the community and speaking at many conferences while growing in my current role at Celonis.

Conclusion

I am pleased with my decision to join Celonis and look forward to continuing working at Celonis. I am very thankful to my manager Tomas and teammates Yazan, Michael, and Bardh for all the support.

I am thankful to Celonis for all the support.

Looking forward to many more years at Celonis.

Shout out to my GitHub Sponsors for supporting my work on Open Source.

• appwrite - https://appwrite.io
• Umair - https://twitter.com/UmairHafeez
• Anand - https://twitter.com/AnandChowdhary
• Sunil - https://twitter.com/sunil_designer
• Darshan - https://twitter.com/dr5hn