I have never really had a structured career path. Instead, I chose to follow what interested me: Computer science, new technology, and software development. I started working in Danske Bank as a graduate, while writing my master thesis at the Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University. A graduate program is a great way to start your career. You get introduced to a world of enterprise and business, and you learn to transform theory into practice in a steady learning curve. Gradually, your tasks and assignments gets more complex and intriguing. Now I have worked at Danske Bank for 7 years, and I would not change it for anything.
As a Chief Software Architect at Danske Bank, I am responsible for the development of the company’s web and mobile bank solutions. It is an exciting field of work, because we are migrating a centralized software architecture model towards a model based on distributed systems. This will greatly enhance the customer experience. Working with distributed systems gives me the opportunity to develop solutions that ensure we are available for the customers, whenever they need us. Another exiting task that have I have been working on is the development of an internal cloud infrastructure for the 3 million private customers and 19.000 employees at Danske Bank. It is very intriguing to be working with cutting-edge technology, which has an impact for so many people.
Computer Science is a field of pure creation: You can build a complete universe with your own hands. There are so many opportunities, and you work with many different kinds of technologies and research areas. At Danske Bank, I started working with infrastructure and server technology. My favorite field of work is cryptography and computer security – how do you secure and hide information while still making it accessible under the right circumstances? My master thesis was related to Secure Multiparty Computation, a subfield of cryptography. These crypto systems can for instance allow companies, who are competing on the same kind of market, to share information without revealing their business plans and without involving any external third party. Although they do not trust each other, it can still be an advantage for both of them to share certain information in order to develop new products and technology.
I arrived in Aarhus in 2008 as an exchange student in the Erasmus program. I already had a bachelor degree in computer science from Pisa University in Italy. It was not until I arrived in Denmark that I found out how great academic life at a university can be. I felt like a fish in water. In Denmark, there is a great willingness to teach, and you can feel that the lecturers really love the subjects they are researching. Teachers are very open and willing to develop and adopt new learning methods. In addition, the atmosphere and communication between teachers and students is informal and down to earth.
