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Spotlight on João: Data Scientist

My advice would be to think of yourself in terms of what you can do, instead of what you know. Once you look at things that way, the number of possibilities and opportunities increases exponentially. And hopefully, like myself at Samotics, you can find a place where people value your ability to learn and adapt more than your previous knowledge.

João, our technical onboarding specialist, combines his love for technical challenges and social interaction by guiding customers through their Samotics journey and creating instructional videos, while also engaging in swing dancing and building new connections in Rotterdam.

“I work as a technical onboarding specialist where I help customers in the early stages of their Samotics journey. After figuring out with the customer what specific Samotics' hardware suits their needs, I’m responsible for supporting them through the complete installation process. Once the installation is complete, the more technical aspect of my work begins, where I need to evaluate how the installation went and if any changes need to be made, either from the client or our side. What’s great about my position is that it has a great balance between complex technical tasks and customer-facing project management responsibilities, satisfying both my scientific curiosity and my social butterfly needs."

"A big part of my job involves helping and educating customers about our solution and how to use it. Given that we are a small company with customers all over the world, we aim to give them as much autonomy as possible in their customer journey. As a part of our constant search for new and improved ways to do so, I am currently working on several instructional videos on how to use our hardware and digital tools. This has been a very stimulating challenge as I had no previous experience with the whole process of designing, writing, scripting, filming, recording, and overall producing a video. I am very happy with how it is going and I strongly believe it will be an extremely useful tool in the onboarding process as a whole."

"Samotics is my first experience in the corporate world so there was some inexperience when it came to making this decision. Moreover, coming from a completely different field, I knew that I’d have to learn a lot of new things in this new stage of my life. I had three rounds of interviews with three different people on the customer onboarding team that focused on different aspects of the role and company culture. Very quickly during this interview process, I felt that this was a place where people were going to challenge me, but also listen to my thoughts; they were going to give me autonomy while still supporting me; they would give me very specific projects to work on while at the same time allowing me to be creative and pursue my own interests and ideas. This overall feeling that Samotics was a great opportunity to learn and grow made it very clear to me that this was the perfect opportunity to embark on at this stage in my career."

"Things happen every day, they move fast, and there are so many moving parts that it’s easy to get lost or overwhelmed by it. But if you foster an environment full of brilliant, enthusiastic, and supportive people, you can accomplish truly remarkable things. Personally, I've been learning how to fit in this complex machine, while at the same time working on my personal growth as far as career development and technical skills go. And learning how to balance my contributions to the bigger picture while at the same time understanding what I need and what I want has been a very challenging but rewarding experience."

"Music has always been one of the most important things in my life. But coinciding with my journey at Samotics, I've been experiencing it in a brand new way. Since last year, I've been learning different styles of swing dancing, most often Lindy Hop. I go dancing every week which allows me to have fun and be creative while listening to great jazz. Importantly, I moved to Rotterdam for this position where I didn’t know anyone, and through Lindy Hop, I was able to meet some amazing new people who are now some great friends I get to dance with."

"I come from a very different background and field, so my experience might be quite different from most of my colleagues. Before joining Samotics, I completed my PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience at Radboud University where I was working in the field of Psycholinguistics looking at language production in cognitively unimpaired adults and people with Parkinson’s disease, using behavioral and neuroimaging methodologies. At Samotics, my job is focused on engineering, project management, and establishing interpersonal relationships. Considering how big of a leap it was for me, I had to learn how to frame my previous skills and experiences in a way that fits my new responsibilities and what is asked of me. My advice would be to think of yourself in terms of what you can do, instead of what you know. Once you look at things that way, the number of possibilities and opportunities increases exponentially. And hopefully, like myself at Samotics, you can find a place where people value your ability to learn and adapt more than your previous knowledge."