Catalin Stan

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭? It’s a question many IT professionals in Romania are asking right now. With industry shifts, restructurings, and evolving skill demands, stability feels uncertain, and some roles are feeling it more than others. QA Manual is one of them. But we saw it as a chance to shape our skills together. That’s why we launched 𝐂𝐞𝐠𝐞𝐤𝐚 𝐋𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥 𝐔𝐩 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦: to support both our colleagues and our clients' teams in taking the next step, towards QA Automation, in partnership with 4MAYO. 👉 Read more about the initiative in our latest article: https://lnkd.in/dzzARNjb

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In just 48 hours, a team of Romanian developers built a prototype so compelling the judges asked a simple question: why isn’t this already a product? 🚀 To understand how remarkable that moment was, you have to zoom out. In 2023, more than 5,500 teams 🌍 around the world joined NASA’s Space Apps Challenge. Only 40 would emerge as Global Finalists. Among them were five Romanian teams, tackling problems as ambitious as geo‑agriculture, fire detection in off‑grid areas, and even turning space imagery into sound. One of those teams came from Timișoara. They called themselves Open 360. Their mission: transform satellite 🛰️ imagery into audio that alerts local farmers about land anomalies, even when cellular or internet coverage is non-existent. Their thinking? If you can’t rely on mobile networks, maybe you can rely on your ears. In a single weekend, they: - dove into NASA satellite datasets, - prototyped an app that turns images into soundscapes, - tested it with actual farmers in rural areas, and emerged from the hackathon as one of Romania’s champion teams 💡 Will you be the next Open 360? 👉 Join us this October 4–5 in Bucharest or Cluj‑Napoca. Use NASA open data to tackle real-world challenges. Collaborate across teams. Build something people remember. Join us today: https://lnkd.in/djqQ5RrE #SpaceApps #NASA #Hackathon

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Really proud to see this project finally coming together. Sometimes the most valuable collaborations are the ones that require patience. This one took almost 1.5 months of discussions, alignment, and negotiations, but in the end we managed to place two excellent Senior DevOps Engineers into one of the most demanding cloud environments in Romania. Their Google Cloud Platform experience made the difference, and it’s great to see strong engineers being matched with complex, high-impact platforms. Moments like this remind me that building CloudAge IO is not just about delivering engineers, it’s about persistence, trust, and long-term partnerships. More to come. #CloudAgeIO #DevOps #GoogleCloud #GCP #BuildingTeams #TechLeadership #Resilience #StaffAugmentation #Startup #RomanianStartups #TeamAugmentation #Outsourcing

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Looking for insights that keep you ahead in fintech? On the 🇷🇴 Romanian Fintech Association website, we’ve built a growing resources hub designed for our community. Here you’ll find: 🔹 Articles exploring the latest industry trends 🔹 Updates and news that matter for fintech in Romania and beyond 🔹 Reports and thought pieces from experts across our network Whether you’re a founder, investor, or part of an established player, our content is created to spark ideas and keep you informed on where finance and technology are heading. Link in comments for all the latest resources.

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Episode 8 of REWIRED is live NOW! And it starts with a reality many Romanian companies feel every day: teams move faster than the systems built to support them. Shadow AI shows up long before leadership plans catch up, revealing where work truly happens and where processes require reinvention. In this episode, Emil Muthu and Marius Ciurariu explore what Shadow AI really means for leaders, why employees adopt AI on their own, what this signals about organisational speed, and how companies can turn scattered habits into coordinated progress. From workflow friction to cultural alignment, this conversation examines the gap between how work is designed and how work is actually done. It’s a practical lens for SMEs looking to understand where transformation already started inside their teams. 👉 Watch the full episode: https://lnkd.in/d3Ywsw6R

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Curious how pure Romanian cutting-edge technology looks like? I had the chance to see it with my own eyes today at RISE's cleanroom facility, and I'm sharing it with you: Meet Corvus, a 6U nano satellite intended to operate in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The design, development and testing activities were carried out in Romania by a team led by Romanian InSpace Engineering (RISE) and represents a significant step towards increasing Romanian presence in space.

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✍️ I should have written more... Looking back at 2025, this thought kept coming up again and again. Especially about what’s really happening in the Romanian IT industry. Most of the voices we hear on LinkedIn today are not technical ones. They come mainly from management. And while management perspectives are important, many of these voices belong to people who are not engineers, have never truly worked as developers, and often make decisions without fully understanding the technical reality. Meanwhile, many engineers stay silent. If the topic isn’t strictly technical, we tend to step back. We avoid public opinions. And that silence creates a gap—one that gets filled by non-technical narratives and decisions made without input from those building the software. I want to change that. I’m starting to write on Substack about: 🧠 What professional software engineering really means 👨‍💻 How the last few years in Romanian IT looked from ground level, through a developer’s eyes ⚠️ What I believe went wrong (and is still going wrong) 🛠️ What we can do better 🧭 And what direction I believe the industry should move toward These articles are for anyone interested in what’s happening in IT—developers, stakeholders, and decision-makers who want to hear perspectives from people actually working in the field. The link to my first article is in the comments.

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Success isn’t achieved alone - allyship matters. 💡 We’re thrilled to share our latest blog written by Roxana Iuriet, Director at DB Global Technology Romania. Roxana is a true inspiration: she is the Head of CI/CD and SDLC (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment and Software Development Life Cycle), a Distinguished Engineer, heads the Women in Tech mentoring group, and delivers lectures at a university. In her blog, she shares how her career skyrocketed five years ago, thanks to an amazing ally who gave her the confidence to grow. She explores the power of confidence, mentorship, and education in helping women in tech thrive. Check out the comments below to read the blog now! 👇 DB Global Technology, Deutsche Bank’s technology centre in Romania, is helping shape the future of banking. Through the partnership with Code First Girls, they are creating clear pathways for women in tech to progress into impactful roles.   #WomenInTech #DiversityInTech #CodeFirstGirls #TechCareers #MidLevelAccelerator #DeutscheBank #RomaniaTech

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📌 Would you trust a coding test to tell you who’s ready to lead your team? In a recent poll in one of the largest software engineering communities in Bulgaria, 94% of nearly 300 respondents said they would not rely solely on HackerRank to assess a candidate’s technical expertise. And they are right. Especially for a Tech/Team Lead role, coding tasks alone are not enough. Strong leadership also requires: <> Communication - explaining complex ideas clearly and building trust <> Collaboration - driving alignment across teams and stakeholders <> Decision-making & problem-solving - shaping solutions, not just writing code <> Mentorship - helping others grow, not only delivering results These soft skills, together with architectural thinking and the ability to reason about trade-offs, often emerge best in in-depth interviews and technical discussions, not in automated tests. At HRLabs, we believe a successful hiring process for leadership roles needs a balanced approach: technical depth + leadership impact. #HRLabs #CandidateLab #TechInterview

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