Ivaylo Chenchev, PhD: What I like about Do IT Wise are ‘our amazing people, company culture, team spirit, and teamwork’

Please tell us about your career path and your experience working at Do IT Wise. What do you enjoy most about working there?

I've been doing computer science for as long as I can remember. Let me first start with my education path till now. I graduated from the National Vocational School of Computer Technologies and Systems in Pravets – the high school. I continued my education at Technical University-Sofia, studying computer systems in the Computer Systems department. That was followed by few years of research, hardworking, and gaining field experience, and then successfully defending a Ph.D. thesis in 2021. Now, I have a doctorate in computer science. My experience in the IT industry spans more than 24 years. I started my career from the bottom and went through different positions like ERP supporting engineer, UNIX/Linux systems administrator, technical consultant, solution architect, team lead, and head of sector. My current role at Do IT Wise is as a consulting manager. My responsibilities include building a team of technical consultants in the ITOM (IT Operations Management) area and their professional development and growth. Together with the whole management, we take care of our people to achieve a work-life balance. We are constantly working on building a healthy environment where everyone feels appreciated and supported. A few of the most important things I like about Do IT Wise are our amazing people, company culture, team spirit, and teamwork.

What is it like to be part of Do IT Wise? What should AUBG students expect after they start working at the company? What are the perks and the career growth opportunities?

Being part of Do IT Wise to me is a big honor and a big responsibility. We have responsibilities to our people and our clients as well. We developed the Do IT Wise Academy program for people with very little or almost no experience in the ITOM field and the IT consultancy. Our leading target group for the academy are university students. This is why we participated in the job fair, which the American University in Bulgaria organized. The AUBG students who join our company will attend the three months Academy. They will have the chance to participate in a few official ServiceNow training courses and will have the opportunity to acquire official certifications in a few of the modules. We also included soft-skills interactive workshops, a few supplemental ones like ITIL and SAFe, and many technology training sessions – including monitoring concepts, operating systems, databases, networking, virtualization, and cloud infrastructures.

The technical career path is very well structured and documented. Once someone achieves the requirements for the next technological level, we start the promotion process. There are five levels in the IT technical consultancy path, and on top of it – lead solution consultants and solution architects. Some inter-departments movements are also possible. For example, if someone has an affinity for ITSM or project management, we prepare an appropriate personal development plan and start working together in that direction.

You are the person behind the Do IT Wise Academy. What motivated your decision to devise this program and what are the main goals of the three-month training?

Let me answer by supplementing the question – I am not the only one behind the Do IT Wise Academy. The idea for the Academy arose during one of our regular management meetings, where our focus was on increasing productivity, efficiency, and growth. Although we have a very well-defined and written onboarding process, we wanted to go a step further – to improve it. We had and still have a large pipeline of upcoming projects. So, it is the right time to realize the idea. We first reviewed the existing process and decided what to reuse and how to reorder the training sessions. Then we identified what else, in terms of technical skills, soft skills, and experience, made sense as technical consultants, and we worked on the contents. The Academy includes a lot of hands-on exercises and interactive sessions, and it also gives the opportunity to all attendances to be certified in two official ServiceNow certifications. The main goal of the Academy is to develop the minimum needed skills and experience for a quick and successful start in the ITOM profession. We will be delighted if we manage to ignite the spark of further development and growth in the ServiceNow ITOM consultancy area for each of the participants.

What kind of people are you looking for to join your team?

What is most important for me is that people have to be motivated. We can teach the technical skills and the soft skills, but they should have the desire to learn and work hard. People should be open-minded, be ready to work in a team, and share information with their other colleagues in the company. So, from that point, anyone who recognizes themselves in these qualities is welcome to consider joining us. Anyone with deep technical knowledge and experience in different IT domains and preferably with the ServiceNow platform is very welcome to join. Of course, we are also happy to give a chance to the graduating students, like the students from AUBG. Well, for sure, we will check the level of experience and knowledge, regardless of the applicants’ CVs.

What advice would you give to students on successfully preparing for a job interview at Do IT Wise?

Our hiring process foresees two interviews. The first one is more like a conversation with our HR colleagues. The discussion with them is around the job, position, organization, the hiring process, possible start date, circumstances, etc. We need to understand student motivation. In the second meeting-conversation, we are trying to identify their strengths (and weaknesses) in technical knowledge and skills. Thus, a person can prepare a list of any previous job activities and exciting projects (if any, of course). They must be ready to freely explain the level of their involvement, their responsibilities, and their obligations. If someone does not have previous experience, which is the case for many, they can talk about university work tasks, course projects, diploma projects, etc. We are giving our student applicants the freedom to discuss any IT areas where they feel comfortable and can demonstrate their expertise and knowledge level. I also have a few favorite questions with which I try to understand what the students' analytical thinking is and see what approach they would choose in different factual situations.