Elsy Mena

I was born and raised in Colombia, and emigrated to Montreal, Canada quite some years ago. I worked as a software developer in Colombia in large company environment, which I loved. When I first moved to Canada, I was working for a small company, and it was just not for me. I felt that they simply did not have the type of culture where employees were valued. I knew I needed a change, and so I pursued being hired at SAP, interviewing three separate times, and was hired in July 2010 into SAP’s Application Innovation Services (AIS) department as a software developer. At the time, there were about 40,000 employees globally. Today, SAP is more than 100,000 employees strong and the benefits of working in a best of breed software company are just as relevant for me today: diversity in all aspects color, culture, age and thought, opportunity and encouragement for career growth, and a focus on work-life balance.

I love the diversity at SAP. I am a woman, I am Colombian, and I am a developer. In previous job, I was the only woman in the department. Even thought I was assigned to a specific development task, sometimes I felt the treatment the male colleagues gave me was not the same, as they have between them. My experience at SAP has been quite the opposite. Not only am I not the only female developer on my team, I am not the only woman, and I am not the only person of color on AIS Canada either. At SAP, I feel like I belong, and that my experience and expertise are valued.

Within our AIS department, I have two main responsibilities: first, to give support to our customers who use our CRM Interaction Center and Telco Solutions. When I receive a problem or inquiry from the customer, I analyze what’s going on and find a solution. Our department likes to think of ourselves as super sleuths: we are looking for a needle in a haystack at times, trying to find just one line of code where something is broken. It takes great patience and attention to detail, but that’s exactly why I find it rewarding, because the patience pays off when you do find the problem and can offer a solution to our customers.

My second main responsibility is partnering with customers in our Customer Connection program. Customers use our products every day, and they often have great ideas about enhancements and improvements. Once a year, they put pen to paper and request new functionality for our products. Several colleagues analyze the customer’s request and choose the best of the best ideas based on a voting and when once this process is finished I will work in building that new functionality into our products, normally in collaboration with other colleagues, depending the size of the change. Our close collaboration with our customers is what keeps SAP’s products cutting-edge, and allows me to have my pulse on important projects within the AIS department.