“At Waterford.org, we blend individuals with diverse backgrounds and skillsets into empowered, high-performing teams.”
Waterford believes in bringing talented individuals together to build high-performing teams. One such group is Waterford’s team of software engineers based in Timisoara, Romania. This team works diligently alongside teams in the United States to enhance the learning experience of students and their families.
This team of software engineers is truly a partner in the creative process, providing valuable insight, knowledge, and feedback. Despite spanning several time zones, Waterford’s team of software engineers works around the clock. They are crucial to our success and are committed to helping children learn to read and prepare for their early years of school.
This team exemplifies our belief that having the right people on the right teams shapes our organization and promotes our mission to help every child achieve success from the start.
Full Transcript
Razvan Tarau (Software Engineer – Team Lead, Waterford): Here at Waterford, we all share the same goal: To offer access to education to as many children as possible through the use of technology. By developing our product which offers services that are extended, stable, and scalable, we also develop ourselves professionally.
Alex Borca (Software Engineer – Team Lead, Waterford): Since I joined Waterford, I’ve worked with a lot of technologies. We started with a product that had to be installed on the district’s server and on the students’ computers. Now our architecture uses micro-services. We’re using Amazon Cloud, Docker, NodeJS, Java. This helps us to provide a product that is scalable and stable, thus reaching more children in the easiest way possible.
Marius Cristea (Software Engineer – Architect, Waterford): We have a lot of flexibility in choosing how we work and I think this challenges us to be more responsible for what we do.
Nicu Bucalaete (Software Engineer – Team Lead, Waterford): I work in a wonderful team developing a product that, I believe, will grow a lot in the following years. It’s a common effort, shared by all of our departments and by the US office as well. We communicate constantly with our colleagues from the US and we feel that we are working together, as a team, to reach the same goals.
Paula Benzar (Software Engineer – Team Lead, Waterford): For us, it’s important to collaborate with our colleagues from the US and coordinate each other because our product is live and it has to be available at any given time which means that we have to deliver at a very high quality so that all children can enjoy what we have to offer them.
Damaris Botar (Software Engineer, Waterford): I like the fact that we work on our very own product and that we always focus on the quality of what we deliver. We collaborate very well with our colleagues from the US. They are our partners, we are free to come up with new ideas and to do things in our own way. We have some restrictions, but very few compared to the degree of flexibility we have.
PB: As part of our partnership with United Way, we’ve visited one of the schools they work with to set up the application. It was a very beautiful experience to see how the children are using the product and I even met a little boy that was feeling a bit sick that day and besides that, he didn’t know how to use the mouse and we had to teach him. Nevertheless, he was very captivated by our activities and by what he was learning. It brings a lot of satisfaction to see that the product I work on makes children happy and, at the same time, helps them have better results in school. And now that we have translated the application to Romanian it will be even more efficient.
DB: After I joined Waterford, I have visited a school in a village near Timisoara. There were approximately 20 children there from disadvantaged families. They were playing using our software. What struck me the most was seeing a little boy who was dressed poorly. I was very impressed by this because I realized that our application represents a chance for him to learn English.
Anca Maduta (Software Engineer, Waterford): Here at Waterford, we develop ourselves professionally and also personally while contributing to the development of education. One of the most important factors that can make us evolve as humans. The traits that children from all over the world share are curiosity, joy of learning, they are sincere and non-judgmental. When you see them, you can’t help feeling that their future is our responsibility
