Meet Stéphanie Lebrun, Security Engineer at Sopra Steria Benelux, and currently working in our Red Team as an ethical hacker. “It’s a hard job because real hackers are very smart. It is a cool job as well because you have to be creative to find out how a real hacker would try to break the system”. Stéphanie thinks that someone who is dynamic, a hard worker, curious, and likes to have a good work-life balance would totally fit in with Sopra Steria.

What does a regular working day look like for you?

Our Red Team is a small team of 9 people, and our mission is to stimulate an adversary and test our client's applications, networks and systems in order to assess their security posture. Our activities include for instance web application penetration testing, working on active directory assessment, performing compliance tests, and preparing a phishing campaign. A project usually lasts between 3 and 20 days, so it is always a short cycle, and that is what makes my job dynamic – in 1 month, I can work on 5 different projects.

Within a project, there is always more or less the same timeline. It starts with a preparation phase, followed by the activity itself, where we for instance are given a website and we try to find its vulnerabilities. After, there is a reporting phase in which we explain what is problematic in the system, compute a severity score for each issue, and provide recommendations. The goal is then for the client to, based on this report, solve the problems raised so they can increase their security level. This way, it will be harder for hackers to break into their system.

The end goal is to make our client’s system more secure, and therefore also contribute to a more secure digital world. “It is impossible to find everything, and there will probably always be a gap that you are missing in the system, but we try to be as complete as we can. By repeating this kind of tests continuously, you can tend to secure systems as much as possible”.

What are the most important qualities for a Security Engineer?

I would say my job is quite technical, so it is important to have some security skills, but you should also be able to see the bigger picture and understand how a website or network works. In terms of soft skills, I believe communication, both with your client and team, is very important.

What projects are you currently working on?  

I just finished a Static Application Security Testing (SAST) project in which we analysed the source code from our client to identify vulnerabilities. I also just finished a web application test, in which we tried to find out what is problematic from a security point of view in the client’s website. I am currently working on a phishing campaign. In this campaign, we created a phishing email from scratch, sent it out to our client’s employees, and monitored how many people opened the email and clicked on the links. Then, we shared some awareness material with them to inform people about the risks of phishing. Afterwards we will send out a second email to see if these trainings helped.

Fun fact

If Stéphanie could switch jobs for one day, she would like to have a job in the Communications team, because she believes this is a dynamic job in which she would be in touch with a lot of different people. Also, she could help organising cool events, like a sports tournament, a women-only lunch, or employee testimonials.

Were you always part of the Red Team?

I started working in Sopra Steria’s Blue Team in September 2021. This team is also called the SOC Team or the Security Operation Center and is responsible for protecting and monitoring the security of some of Sopra Steria’s clients. When there is an alert, the SOC members must investigate it, evaluate the severity and inform the right people or take further actions. At the same time, I worked on a development project in the Sopra Steria Toulouse team, where we developed a tool that aims to automate the tasks of Blue/SOC Team.

What do you like about Sopra Steria’s culture?

When I applied to Sopra Steria, I could feel that the company is very human, and this was important to me because I didn't want to join a huge company where you are treated like a number. Everyone in the HR team was nice, and I could feel that they were trying to find out if there was a match between me and the company, more than just selling Sopra Steria as a company.

Now that I work here, I can say that there is a nice and peaceful atmosphere, and I can always ask help to anyone. I have a good work-life balance, there is not a lot of pressure from management, and no one is telling me when to start or end my day. We are free in our projects and in how we are organising our day. If you want to, and you take the initiative, you can also change teams or activities. Red and Blue team members are young, and we have a lot of fun at work or outside of work.

Fun fact

If Sopra Steria was an animal, Stéphanie thinks it would be an entire zoo, because 1 animal is too restrictive. There would for sure be an elephant in the zoo, that represents our big projects in the Public Sector, like i-Police for example. Also, there would be a bonobo because this animal lives in an inclusive group where women also have their place, and this is also the case at Sopra Steria. And then there is also a polar bear that represents the caring aspect of Sopra Steria and the peaceful atmosphere.

Meet Francisco Montilla Enriquez, Solution Building Engineer at Sopra Steria Benelux. Francisco is a back-end Java Developer, working on the Fedasil project. “My goal at the end of the day is to deliver the best outcome with my team, and to provide well written, maintainable, and sustainable features to the client”. Francisco started working at Sopra Steria 9 months ago, after a friend recommended us.

How would you explain your job?

When you have a puzzle, you can see on the box what it would look like when it’s finished. My job is to assemble all the different pieces of the puzzle that will serve as the core base, so basically the edges. The end user doesn’t necessarily see my work, but it is very important that I put all different parts in the right spots from the start, to avoid any issues in a later stage of the puzzle. Then, when the edges are all in place, the front-end Developers come in, and they take care of the other aspects of the puzzle.

What does a regular working day look like for you?

My day always starts with a 9 AM stand-up meeting in which we discuss with the team what we did previous days, and what we have planned for the coming days. The rest of the day, I review codes from my Developer-colleagues, I develop new features based on the tickets I am assigned to, I test features and run them in our testing environment, and I keep our documentation up to date. On my project, I work in a team with 3 front-end Developers, 2 other back-end Developers, 2 Architects, 2 Business Analysts, 1 Project Manager and 1 Scrum Manager.

What are the most important qualities for a Developer?

I think about problem solving skills, because solving problems is what you need to do every day in this job. I also think about the ability to adapt or shift gears, based on the client’s request. You need to pay attention to details, and be patient, because coding can come with some frustration as well. You need to be resilient and able to prioritize, because you have a deadline for every feature.

What does the Fedasil project entail?  

Fedasil is a project where we maintain and develop features for an application called Match-it that is used for the place management but also follow-up of the social dossier of asylum seekers – we call them beneficiaries. Fedasil’s job is to find the right house for every person, assign the right assistant to them, and find out what their needs are. Within the application, you have different tabs that represent different aspects of the beneficiary’s social dossier, like housing, children, school subscription, employment, etc. What I like about the Fedasil project is the real impact from a human perspective.

Fun fact

If Francisco could switch jobs for one day with someone else at Sopra Steria, he would like to switch with a Business Analyst, to see the complete other side of what he does, and to be more in touch with the customer.

What can you say about Sopra Steria’s culture?

Sopra Steria’s culture is very free and open. It is informal, and you can easily talk with everyone and approach your superiors, and I believe this is not the case in every company. I have a lot of autonomy in my job, and there is a lot of room to grow professionally, and as a person. There is room to express yourself and to share the ideas you have for future applications. Sopra Steria cares about its employees, and if you have something you want to discuss or that concern you, management listens to you, and tries to find a solution.

I believe people at Sopra Steria don’t want to stay in the same position, but they look forward to learning new things and technologies, so I would describe a ‘Sopra Sterian’ as someone who is eager to learn. Sopra Steria also makes this possible because they try to push people to train themselves.

Fun fact

If Sopra Steria was an animal, Francisco thinks it would be a cat. “At Sopra Steria, there is a friendly environment, and a cat is also a friendly animal – at least my cat haha. Sometimes, a cat can be very playful which very much aligns with Sopra Steria’s “Work hard play hard” mindset, so I see a link there”.

Meet Jingyi Qiao, Data Consultant at Sopra Steria Benelux. Jingyi joined Sopra Steria in the beginning of 2022 as part of her apprenticeship at KU Leuven. She studied Industrial Engineer, among other Masters and Post Graduate Programs, and now combines knowledge and expertise from all studies to create value in her job. Jingyi believes that “if you want to find your potential and have an opportunity to develop it, you should join Sopra Steria”.

What does a Data Consultant do?

In my current project, I am working on data visualisation. I use tools such as PowerBI, and Tableau to create dashboards for both internal and external use. Last year, we initiated the Green Up Sustainability project internally at Sopra Steria Benelux. We analysed our data of fleet and energy consumption and translated it into a dashboard that made it easy and simple to understand our carbon footprint and the environmental impact of Benelux entities. This project offers a potential solution to identify transformation levers to reduce environmental impact, and make data-driven decision possible and easy. Besides, I am working with two clients, and I support them in creating their dashboard and skilling up their teams on BI topics.

As a Data Consultant, it is important to listen to people and try to understand what they need, so we can offer them a suitable solution. I communicate frequently with my clients to check if the dashboard is tailored to their needs and requirements. Also, we check if we can provide potential improvements and look for best practices to incorporate. We are not just selling the product, we are trying to bring our experience and skills to clients and build good relationships with them.

I work closely together with Business Analysts, and I believe they are an important part of our team since they know a lot about the client's business and can help me create workshops that are specifically designed to meet their needs. And for the BI part, I also collaborate with Data Administrators and Data Engineers. They help clean and structure the data in a way that makes it easy for me to analyse and present it to the client. This allows me to focus on creating clear and informative reports that show the client how they can use their data to make better decisions. I really enjoy operating and bridging the technical and functional aspects of projects.

Can you explain a bit more what projects you work on?

I am working with 2 clients. The first client had a lot of data they wanted to analyse, but they struggled to find a qualified profile to help them build and skill up on business intelligence solutions. So, they hired us to provide our expertise. This client is also interested in our Green Up Sustainability project, so we created a similar dashboard for them that helps them track their carbon footprint and identify ways adapted to their business and organisation specificities. It was a standard process for us since we already had the knowledge and experience necessary to help them. By combining what we have internally with their requirements, we were able to deliver results that make their lives easier and have a positive impact on their business.

The second client in Luxemburg is an industrial company and we created some dashboards for them for their daily production. They were using a lot of Excel sheets, which were not efficient. We created dashboards for them that made it easier to see their performance, analyse and draw conclusions from their data. It was a good improvement for them, and they found it much more user-friendly than their previous solution.

I feel that all these projects have had a positive impact on our clients. It is rewarding to see that our work is making a difference in their daily operations and sometimes on a larger scale.

Fun fact

If Jingyi could switch jobs for one day with someone else at Sopra Steria, she would like to try a job in HR, because she is curious about what kind of profiles we hire, and she would like to try her best to encourage people to join Sopra Steria.

Why did you start working at Sopra Steria?

I met 2 HR Recruiters at a forum. I didn’t know Sopra Steria at that time, but they introduced what Sopra Steria does and what projects they work on, and it really attracted me. Then I got in touch with a Director at Sopra Steria, and he explained Sopra Steria’s projects more in detail and it was exactly what I was looking for. Once I joined, I immediately liked it here; I love working with people with diverse backgrounds on projects in different sectors.

What can you say about Sopra Steria’s culture?

Sopra Steria is a very international company, especially in Belgium, so I immediately think of the word diversity. I would also mention the words collaborative, respect, and support. I get support from my proximity manager, my team members, and also from people that I don’t know super well. We for example can ask questions in an online Community and people from other Sopra Steria countries will answer. We have a lot of people with great skills and potential so it is easy to find people who will know exactly what you are talking about.

I really enjoy working in my current role because I feel like I have a lot of flexibility and support. My manager gives me the freedom to structure my work in a way that makes sense for me, without micromanaging or requiring me to ask for permissions on everything. This allows me to be more productive and focused, and to achieve better results for the organization.

Another thing I appreciate about my role is that I have a lot of say in my personal development. I'm able to choose the subjects that I want to focus on and the skills that I want to develop, which is really empowering. My manager is always available to offer guidance and support, but they trust me to take ownership of my learning and development.

All in all, I feel very supported and valued in my current role. The level of trust and autonomy my manager provides is refreshing, and it makes me feel motivated and engaged in my work.

We combine skills and we bring them together to create value. At Sopra Steria, we see great value in having people with different skills and backgrounds work together.

Fun fact

If Sopra Steria were an animal, Jingyi thinks it would be a dolphin. Dolphins are known for their intelligence and their close-knit social structure, relying on one another for support and protection, just like we do at Sopra Steria. Additionally, dolphins have a unique way of communicating with one another through sounds and body language, which makes them different from other animals. Jingyi sees a similarity here with the field of IT and consulting, which is always changing and requires a special set of skills and knowledge to communicate with technology and other people effectively.

Meet Sana Hamida, transversal Programme Management Officer (PMO) in the Aeroline, Defence and Security agency at Sopra Steria Benelux. As a transversal PMO, Sana’s job is a bit different from other PMOs, since she is not taking care of the planning or budgeting of 1 particular project. Sana believes others should also join our Sopra Steria because “we work on interesting, challenging and impactful projects, you will have fun, meet nice colleagues, and get a lot of responsibilities”.

What does your job entail?

As a transversal PMO, I would say my job consists of 5 main responsibilities. First, my goal is to assess all the processes of all projects in our agency, and based on that, provide the PMO Community with the ‘best practices’ library of processes. To get there, I have to find out what is working well in each project, what can be improved, what is the same for each project and what is different.

Secondly, I am doing a quality check for all the deliverables of our SIS project. I proofread and improve all documents that should be sent to the client. For this, I can take advantage of my academic background as a translator. Thirdly, I am part of the ‘feel good’ team in our agency. Our job is to improve the onboarding process and wellbeing at work. We for example did something on World Compliment Day, and we organized a cultural lunch at the office. Fourthly, I support our HR team by working on the preparation of the freelance contracts in our agency. Finally, when one of our PMOs is out of office, it is my job to replace them. Therefore, it is important for me to be aware of what is going on in all projects.

In our agency, we work on big projects that have an impact on society, like i-Police, SIS, and sBMS. Even though I am not in direct contact with the citizens, I still feel that my work has an impact on them because my job makes our employees’ jobs easier, improves their wellbeing and therefore also their results.

What are the most important qualities for a PMO?

It is important to be open-minded, easygoing, and not shy, because you sometimes have to advise people who are superior to you on different topics. You need to help where needed, be rigorous, and well organized. Even though it is not necessary to have all the technical skills, I would say that it is important to quickly understand the technical jargon and processes.

Fun fact

If Sana could switch jobs for one day with someone else at Sopra Steria, she would like to do the job of Michel, our CEO. “I am working now on a lower level in the company and my job has nothing to do with the “real” business, or discussions about the financial strategy, so I would like to see how this works on the highest level. But I would only like to do it for 1 day, because it must be a very stressful job”.

What can you say about Sopra Steria’s culture?

At Sopra Steria, it is all about love. I really feel that people love what they do here, and are passionate about their job, trying to improve every day. There is a friendly and open-minded atmosphere, and everyone is always trying to help each other out and find a way to achieve our goals. There is for sure time to have fun at Sopra Steria, and because of this, I am even more motivated to do a good job. I can chitchat with my boss, and my direct colleagues became my friends. It is a good mix between working hard and having fun. We have a lot of freedom in our job, and I am very happy about this. I can work on my own, come up with my own ideas and create my own plans. The job just needs to be done in the end, but the way to get there is not micromanaged at all. However, I can always count our team lead’s support!

Every employee at Sopra Steria is assigned to a Proximity Manager who helps you with your personal and professional development. You have a lot of training opportunities, and it is also possible to follow trainings that are not directly linked to your job. For example, I found out that I am interested in Testing, so I had conversations about that with a Test manager, and now I know that I want to learn even more about this topic. When I started at Sopra Steria, I didn’t even know that being a Tester was a job as such, and now, who knows, maybe one day, I might even become one.

Fun fact

If Sopra Steria was an animal, Sana thinks it would be a horse, because it is a friendly and gentle animal, but it can also go fast when at a gallop. Just as Sopra Steria, where we have quite moments, but also challenging moments when it feels like you are in a race, and you have to go even faster to keep up.

Our colleagues Sami Hallak (Business Analyst) and Estelle Huynen (Frontend Developer) work on Match-IT, a Fedasil application that manages the social files of asylum seekers in Belgium. By adding new features and improving the application’s workflows, they make it easier for the application’s users to handle the asylum files of an asylum seeker, which then also facilitates the entire asylum process. “The project is very rewarding because we know we contribute to making the lives of asylum seekers easier, even though we don’t see the direct impact of our work. You can say we have a positive impact on humanity”.

Can you tell a bit more about your job?

Sami: “As a Business Analyst, you analyse business needs and requirements on the end-user’s side, in which you compare the current situation with the preferred future situation. You find the middle ground between what the end-user wants and what is feasible in terms of capacity, timing, and budget. Furthermore, my job is to treat and complete tickets about bugs, improvements or new requirements that come from the client. I like doing what I do because I provide a concrete solution to all problems that come my way. We sometimes need to be very creative, as we must comply with all kinds of rules, such as GDPR for example. I would say it’s a love-hate relationship, haha.”

Estelle: “As a Developer, part of my job is of course coding and developing on my own, but it’s not only that. I also have a lot of technical meetings and discussions about feasibility with different members of our team because what the client wants is not always possible and it’s my job to imagine how far I can take a certain code. I personally like my job because when you see on your screen that what you did, works, and does exactly what you expected it to do, it just feels amazing. It makes me feel like a queen, haha.”

What are the main skills you need in your job?

Sami: “I am the one who’s regularly in contact with the client, but also with the end-user, and of course with our internal team at Sopra Steria, so it’s important to have good communication skills. I don’t think you necessarily need to have a technical background or knowledge about coding, but you do need to have an idea of what the limits of a certain idea or project are.”

Estelle: “I believe problem solving and communication skills are important for a Developer, because we translate a complicated technical language or code into a language that the client needs to understand. Creativity is also needed in my job, and with this, going beyond just what is asked by the client, based on the information you have as a Developer.”

What does your team look like?

Estelle: “In our team, we have 1 Architect, 1 Business Analyst on our side, and 2 Business Analysts on Fedasil’s side. We also have 2 Full Stack Developers, 2 Back-end Developers and 2 Front-end Developers, and there is 1 Test Manager that I am in touch with a lot.”

Sami: “And of course, there is the Project Manager and the Product Owner on Fedasil’s side that I meet and consult with a lot. We work on a volatile project in which I, as a Business Analyst, have a lot of different tasks. This is something I appreciate because I don’t think this is the case in a lot of projects. We also receive a lot of autonomy, so we can choose ourselves when and how we do certain things.”

How do you two interact on this project?

Estelle: “We see each other every day during our daily stand-up, and depending on the features we are working on, we see each other more or less. Most of the times, after Sami’s job is done, it’s time for me to get to work.”

Sami: “Yes, and during the development of a feature, Estelle will contact me if she needs some clarification. Then, when Estelle’s job is done, I will functionally review the features and contact Estelle if necessary.”

Why do you think others should join also Sopra Steria?

Sami: “Sopra Steria is a great place to develop yourself and your career. You get this feeling from the very beginning. Sopra Steria is both professional and informal at the same time, something which is quite rare in my opinion. I also feel the trust of my direct superiors, as well as higher management. They have faith in their employees to make the best possible decision. To be perfectly honest, I don’t have a single negative thing on my mind to say about Sopra Steria and I think this says enough.”

Estelle: “I agree with everything Sami said. One of Sopra Steria’s objectives is to give everyone a chance to proof themselves, regardless of their cv, and that also counts for me. I don’t have a university degree, but Sopra Steria still gave me the chance to start working here when maybe on paper I wasn’t the best candidate. It’s really your capabilities that count, and I appreciate this a lot. Linked to this, there are a lot of opportunities to grow within Sopra Steria. I get support to learn things and I feel trusted in what I do, so I feel good here. Sopra Steria is a growing company and we, as employees, can grow with it.”

Can you tell us a bit more about your job?

As a Security Architect I am building solutions for our customers, mostly in the technical area of Cybersecurity. I also started building a Security Operations Center (SOC team) for Sopra Steria Benelux 5 years ago, building a mutualised service for our customers. This team evolved from 2 people to 10 people and from 1 customer to 4 customers. I was working as the lead Engineer in this team, but I am now leaving this team to fully work on the i-Police programme. It makes me proud to see that me leaving the team doesn’t have a lot of impact, since this means that we set up an autonomous team. I believe starting your career in this SOC team is a great opportunity, because you can discover production architectures of several customers, and delivery security services differently for each of them, thus learning a lot in a short period of time.

What projects are your working on?

I am mostly working for i-Police to realise the digital transformation of the Belgian police. Both federal and local police zones are moving from a decentralised approach where each zone is a separate information system, to a centralized approach that supports more collaboration between police activities. It is super interesting, because the platform that we are building will be used in every police car that you see in the street and it supports the police activities in all kinds of ways, from very basic cases like theft to very severe cases like terrorist attacks.

What are the most important qualities for a Security Architect and a team leader?

As a Security Architect, you have to aim at progressing and learning something new every day, and not being afraid to be assigned to something you don’t know anything about yet or to start a new project. As a team leader, you must trust your team, try to make people work together and treat everyone with respect.

Why do you think other people should also join Sopra Steria?

If you are a junior, Sopra Steria is a good company to start your career. You will work on very interesting projects, learn a lot and get the support you need from people with a lot of experience. On top, you will have the opportunity to change positions and activities. As a medior or senior I would like to point out that you will have the chance to work on interesting projects with large institutions and companies that work with interesting technologies.

Fun fact

If Julien could switch jobs for one day with someone else, he wants to be the director above him, to meet interesting people in the companies we work with and to have the opportunity to understand the mindset of other hierarchy levels at our customers.

How would you explain Sopra Steria’s culture?

Sopra Steria is a great place to work, because human skills and social interaction are important for me and both are present within our company. There is a good collaboration within the teams and it is always easy to find someone who wants to help you when needed. We really want to achieve things in team, but there is also time to celebrate those achievements. We for example organise afterworks in a bar, a Family Day, and a Great Place To Work party. I like that, because it is nice to see people in another context than at work.

I believe that a “Sopra Sterian” is someone dynamic who is looking for a challenge and this is good, because if you want to grow and evolve, you will certainly have the opportunity to do so in our company. What is good at Sopra Steria is that everyone is assigned a proximity manager that provides you guidance, so especially for junior and medior profiles, this is really an added value.

We have a flat hierarchy at Sopra Steria. You can for example easily discuss something with our CEO like he is a “normal colleague”. The management in general is very accessible as well and they always welcome your ideas as long as they bring added value to the company. On top, there is a lot of flexibility at Sopra Steria. The message that I try to bring to my team is that they are paid for a mission, not for hours. If at some point someone needs to adapt their work schedule, it is not a problem at all.

Fun fact

If Sopra Steria was an animal, Julien thinks it would be a leopard: we do some very impressing running sprints as well and we are able to accelerate quickly.

Meet Cristian Sanchez, Business Analyst/System Analyst at Sopra Steria Benelux. Before signing his contract in 2023, Cristian did an internship with us in 2022, also working as a Business Analyst. “My Master's degree provided me with extensive theoretical knowledge in business and technology. However, I also gained significant practical experience during my two-year internship”.

What is the difference between a Business Analyst and a System Analyst?

Although the roles of Business Analyst and System Analyst are broad and may differ slightly depending on the type of project and the methodological framework adopted, there are some differences between the two. A Business Analyst focuses primarily on analysing the client's business needs and processes. This role involves understanding business requirements in depth, defining requirements, and proposing solutions to improve business processes. A Business Analyst often works at the interface between the business and technical teams, ensuring that business needs are correctly translated into technical solutions.

The System Analyst, on the other hand, focuses more on the technical aspects of IT system(s). This role involves analysing and working on their configuration and integration and ensuring that the solutions meet the defined requirements.

I work on a subproject of i-Police, and more specifically, on one specific COTS. A COTS is a ready-to-use system that the users concerned by the business will use in their daily jobs. This system has already been developed and our job is to adapt it to the business needs. This involves analysing the COTS documentation, discussing specific new concepts with the system supplier, taking part in training sessions to find out which 'out of the box' concept can be used, and taking part in demonstrations to introduce the COTS to our key stakeholders.

Within this project, I am most in contact with following 2 key stakeholders:

1. The police ICT unit, which will apply the needs of the business via a set of processes and requirements to be taken into account.
2. The people in the police business (management/field), who take part in workshops and share what they think is needed in the field for continuous improvement of the solution.

What are the most important qualities for a Business Analyst?

I would say that a Business Analyst needs to have a mix of hard and soft skills. First, we need to listen to the client to understand what their needs are. Then I think that having an analytical mindset is maybe the most important skill, because we need to verify all the time what the added value is that we can bring to the client. Since you get in touch a lot with different stakeholders, we need to adapt our communication based on who is in front of you.

What project are you working on?  

The project I have been working on since I started at Sopra Steria is i-Police. In this project, we are centralizing police processes and information in one place (for the users) and making it accessible only to the right person with existing access. The project is striving to better manage the access control of this information to determine who can access what information and who can’t. Additionally, we need to consider how to use all this information to improve the jobs of our police officers, whether in the field or at their desks.

Citizens might not feel or see much impact from our work; it’s more about the police officers themselves, as there will be less paperwork and a major part of the processes will be digitalized.

What can you say about Sopra Steria’s culture?

I feel that Sopra Steria has a real family culture. You are not treated as a number, but as a real person. I feel a lot of guidance, already during the onboarding process as well as during my internship. Since joining the team, I have found everyone to be incredibly friendly, which is a major factor in why I chose to come here and why I continue to stay. My interactions with my project manager have been particularly encouraging. If I have any ideas or suggestions to enhance my work, I am free to share them. This environment fosters a sense of freedom to openly communicate, which I greatly appreciate.

I already convinced 2 people to join Sopra Steria, highlighting to them that it's a company where you can work on numerous significant and fascinating projects, for example collaborations with the Federal Police, the Defense sector, and various European institutions. These projects underscore the diverse and impactful work Sopra Steria is involved in.

Meet Sébastien Nys, Service Delivery Manager at Sopra Steria Benelux. Sebastien started working at Callataÿ & Wouters in 2004, before this company was acquired by Sopra Banking Software. In 2018, he transferred to Sopra Steria, specifically to take over the client he is now responsible for. “I have been working for the same client for several years now, and every year we have the same objective, namely increasing our footprint. However, every year, the way we get there and the issues we encounter are different, and this is what makes my job exciting”.

How would you explain your job?

I manage all operational activities of Sopra Steria at our client’s side, meaning that I have to make sure that the commitment taken in the contract during the sales part is properly delivered to the client. This goes together with making sure that our consultants are happy where they are. I am the Service Delivery Manager for 1 client, the biggest banking group in Belgium, and we have around 100 Sopra Steria consultants working for this client. In my job, I can rely on a delivery management team. Each member of this team is responsible for one or more of our client’s departments where Sopra Steria is present. To support our client, we work on activities related to infrastructure (network and window systems), activities linked to data, and we take care of almost all non-core banking applications of the client, amongst which SAP applications.

What does a regular working day look like for you?

My main focus is following up on our teams’ deliveries through different governance instances. To do so, it is important for me to be close to both the client, and our consultants, who encounter different issues every day. It can be consultants who are not happy in their job or who are not performing at the expected level. We also have teams working in India and Spain, so it is important for me to keep proximity with them as well, since they are fully part of our team. Despite my experience, there are always issues that still surprise me and that we have never seen before. Making sure our consultants are happy is a full-time and important job for me, because when they are happy, the client is also happy.

On top, I also support our sales team with extending the business with our client, and I make sure we reach the financial targets we have set up. This is of course the final objective in the end, but this is only possible if our consultants and the client are happy.

What are the most important qualities for a Service Delivery Manager?

I would say that soft skills are the most important ones: you need to be a good leader and a good communicant towards both the client and your consultants, but also towards other departments of Sopra Steria like legal and HR. For technical skills, I guess experience in project management is the most important one. On top, resilience is needed as well; you need to be able to adapt to the speed and pace of the customer.

Fun fact

If Sébastien could switch jobs for one day with someone else at Sopra Steria, he would like to experience being the HR Director (but only for 1 day), because in this job, you have a lot of connections with other employees who have the same issues as the consultants working on his project.

What can you say about Sopra Steria’s culture?

I started working at Sopra Steria as a junior, and I am now leading a team of 100 people, so I would say that for sure there are opportunities to evolve here. This is also one of the many reasons why I stayed at Sopra Steria after all these years.

Sopra Steria is a big family and a safe place where you can speak freely and express your needs and feelings. The atmosphere is informal and the vibe between colleagues is very nice. There is of course some pressure to reach your objectives, but it is pressure within a good spirit. Both are key elements to enjoy my work, and I believe this is a unique feature of Sopra Steria, since this is not always the case in a big company. We organise from time to time small events with our team and twice a year, we have a BBQ or dinner.

Meet Radu Mihis, team leader of 3 Incident Managers and 5 Service Desk Agents at Sopra Steria Luxembourg. Radu started working at Sopra Steria 4 years ago as an Incident Manager for the European Commission, on the Directorate General for Informatics project. “Even after working all these years for the same client, I still discover new things every day. My job is very dynamic, and no 2 days are the same.”

What does your job entail?

My main responsibility as team leader is assuring that my team, the MSP II team, is always up to date with their tasks and skills. When needed, I can also take on the role of Incident Manager or Service Desk Agent myself. I compare my team to the Emergency Room of a hospital. Service Desk agents do the triage, or first level analysis, and manage easy cases, while the Incident Managers handle the critical ones. Once our investigation is done, we coordinate with other specialised teams that need to act and resolve the cases. An example of a crisis is an application that doesn’t work properly anymore. It is our job then to investigate all the layers of this application and see what layer causes the issue.

In our job, we don’t only solve crises, we also try to prevent them from happening, by using change management, problem management, configuration management and monitoring improvement. We, together with other Commission units, are responsible for everything related to IT within the European Commission. At the end of the day, our job is to make the client happy. To do this, we work together every day with different stakeholders, like vendors, developers, and end users.

Most of the European Commission applications under our supervision are visible to EU citizens, so I believe our work is important and impactful.

What are the most important qualities to do your job?

As an Incident Manager, I would say that stress management, patience and having an analytical mind are the most important skills. You don’t need to be an expert on a specific technology, but you need to know a little bit of everything. A team leader should lead by example, have patience, and good crisis management skills. On top, you should be helpful, and be a “people person” who knows how to balance having an enjoyable but diligent atmosphere.

Fun fact

If Radu could switch jobs for one day with someone else at Sopra Steria, he would like to work in HR, since he is a “people person”. He thinks it would be interesting to meet many people and analyze them during interviews. “As HR, you see candidates throughout the entire application process, so you really can detect candidate’s good qualities and/or pain points”.

What can you say about the culture of Sopra Steria?

Sopra Steria has a diverse culture, and therefore you meet people from everywhere. Everyone is also open to this diversity and respects each other. When I started working at Sopra Steria, I received a warm welcome, and my integration went very smoothly. I have a good relationship with my colleagues and with management, and my team is very dynamic. People overall are openminded, easygoing, and willing to help or give advice.

When you have an idea, you are free to discuss it with management and your team, and you can be sure that people will listen to you. This combined with a lot of training opportunities, I would say that it is for sure possible to grow and evolve at Sopra Steria.

Fun fact

If Sopra Steria was an animal, Radu thinks it would be a Komodo dragon, because it’s an animal that has a purpose and that knows how to get there. Slowly, but it gets there, with more knowledge than others.

Meet Sacha Maricau, Solution Building Engineer at Sopra Steria Benelux. Sacha studied Computer Science, did an internship at Sopra Steria, graduated in 2019, and started working here immediately after. “In school, you only learn the best practices, but clients always have different requests and restrictions, so it is important to offer them a tailored approach and provide them with the best solution possible”.

What does your job entail?

I mainly work on back-end development in Java, and now for 1 year also on a front-end project within Angular. The key task in my job is creating applications, but our team does more than just that. We also do research on other applications to see what the best solution for our client is. We analyse and test applications as well, we solve bugs, and we meet with clients directly from time to time to present our work. I like the fact that I do more than just developing, because I don’t know if I want to be a Developer all my life. This way, I can experience a bit of other tasks as well, within the same job.

What are the most important qualities for a Solution Building Engineer?

I think being a team player is the most important one, because every problem and every solution is different, and no one knows everything. Therefore, you must work together with your colleagues in order to learn new things. Having the right technical skills can also help, but you also learn them on-the-job, from other colleagues, and via formal trainings, so it is not the most important thing. On top, I believe that understanding the business from your client is necessary as well, since this can help with the creation of the application.

What client are you working for?  

My client is IBZ, or Federal Public Service Interior. Our team is responsible for producing and managing the central system behind the chip on the electronic identity card. Municipalities use this system daily, and our job is to make sure the system works. To that end, I believe my job also has an impact on citizens, because everyone has an ID card, and uses it all the time.

Fun fact

If Sacha could switch jobs for one day with someone else at Sopra Steria, he would like to be a Business Analyst, because he likes the contact with the client.

What can you say about Sopra Steria’s culture?

After I did my internship at Sopra Steria, I applied for a job here and I really liked how the application process went. It was fun, and not stressful at all. People I came in touch with listened to me and I felt comfortable with HR and the management. The atmosphere is very informal – it is like talking with friends – and you can talk about any subject. People care about each other, and everyone is appreciated, no matter your level or title. If I have a problem with project or a colleague, we can always talk to someone to ask for advice.

At Sopra Steria, I feel very much recognised and rewarded for my job. My colleagues and superiors often tell me that my work is important and impactful, and this is important for me. There is also always room to present new ideas, to your team leader and the management, or even directly to the client. Because of this, I feel that it is possible to grow. In my case, this is mainly thanks to my team leader, because he is always very supportive, but also thanks to my Proximity Manager, because he helps me decide what trainings could be relevant for me.

Fun fact

If Sopra Steria was an animal, Sacha thinks it would be a bee, because bees work together as a team, and they support the ecosystem. In addition, at Sopra Steria, we produce honey in the beehives next to our office, so this makes it easy to see the link.

Meet Pierre Baron, Business Analyst at Sopra Steria Luxembourg. Starting as an intern, Pierre transitioned to a junior position after signing his contract. Appreciating the company's supportive atmosphere and engaging programme, Pierre is happy to continue his journey with us.

What does your regular day-to-day look like for you?

As a junior Business Analyst, my role involves analysing business operations, engaging with different stakeholders, devising solutions, and ensuring alignment between business requirements and development outcomes. My typical day involves communicating and reporting to our Developers, ensuring a smooth project progression and alignment.

My objective is to enhance efficiency and satisfaction among stakeholders while leveraging opportunities to gain experience and grow, bridging the gap between technical expertise and business requirements.

What are the most important qualities for a Business Analyst?

In my experience, essential qualities for a Business Analyst include effective communication, fostering approachability to encourage openness among colleagues, and building trust in managing programmes flawlessly. Listening skills are also crucial for understanding various positions and roles within the organisation. Additionally, logical reasoning aids in problem-solving, while creativity enables the discovery of innovative solutions, which are both vital aspects of the role.

What project are you working on?                            

Currently, I am involved in digitalising an extranet for a private life insurance company. My role includes evaluating new functionalities, collaborating with partners and stakeholders, and guiding our Developers toward effective solutions. My objective is enhancing user experience and workflow efficiency.

How would you explain the culture of Sopra Steria?

At Sopra Steria, I have experienced a welcoming, supportive, and collaborative culture that fosters a sense of camaraderie and connection among colleagues. Even during my internship, I had the opportunity to provide solutions and suggestions that were valued by my team. The flexibility and informal work environment promote autonomy, and options like teleworking have increased my productivity. The positive atmosphere and strong relationships with my coworkers make my work here enjoyable and fulfilling, leading to a sense of happiness. Additionally, the accessibility to management has supported my personal and professional growth, providing meaningful opportunities for career advancement. Overall, my experience at Sopra Steria has been invaluable, allowing me to interact with diverse individuals, face challenges that enhance my adaptability, and benefit from supportive training opportunities that boost my confidence and career prospects.

If Sopra Steria were an animal, what would it be and why?

I would say a fox, representing a culture of creativity and curiosity. The company's dynamic and innovative approach to problem-solving mirrors the agility and adaptability of a fox.