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Meet Jurgita Goloburdo, our engineering manager based in Vilnius. Born, bred and based in the Lithuanian capital, Jurgita has been working at TransferGo for almost two years, starting in an internship role before quickly and deservedly climbing the ranks into her current senior-level position after a lot of hard work and ambition.
Here Jurgita Goloburdo discusses the values that drive her at work, the challenges of leading a team and how everything is achievable when you’re not afraid to ask questions.
“I have a background in medical law; ironically, I ended up working in IT by accident…
I work as an engineering manager for TransferGo, but I started working in IT by accident. I have a medical law degree and was working in a hospital in an IT department. It’s funny how fate can change things. I never thought I was much of a lawyer; I didn’t like it and after a few internships I realised it wasn’t for me. So whilst working in an IT department in a hospital, I worked very closely with software engineers as a manager. It was more business analyst work; collaborating with doctors and engineers. It was interesting. After that, I worked in a bank and IT and joined TransferGo two years ago in July.
After working at a bank, I thought I’d like to try something more hands-on and technical. A friend of mine recommended TransferGo and mentioned that they had an internship position for quality assurance. Previously, I didn’t have a professional technical background so I thought, ‘Great, I can learn. That’s cool.’ So I applied for an QA internship and here I am now, an engineering manager.
It’s an interesting road for me here and I’m really happy about it. As of today, I lead a cross functional growth team. We’re building tools for better traffic, getting more leads—for example, landing pages and organic traffic. It’s a collaboration with marketing, engineering, product, copywriters, designers—it’s very cross functional. Basically I provide engineering capabilities for growth, building and scaling systems, data, processes and people. I also manage a few software engineers but they work in different cross functional teams. We all have different projects going on.”
“Curiosity, positivity and goodwill are the values that drive me…
I relate to our company values, such as doing the work that matters and collaborating. But I’m also driven by some of my own and they really help me adapt to changes. One is curiosity: so being curious, being interested in everything and being unafraid to ask questions (I always have a lot of questions, especially in a domain where I don’t always know things). I also value positivity, having good will for change and adaptability. There have been a lot of changes in TransferGo and being able to adapt and positively look at those outcomes help me get through.”
“At TransferGo, it feels like we’re a huge team of athletes, training and growing together…
TransferGo is a super fast-paced, young and thriving environment. I see and am touched by the many opportunities to learn and more importantly, make mistakes here. It’s good to be encouraged to not be afraid to fail; to fall and get up, go again and make more mistakes because you learn so much from them. TransferGo provides the opportunity to be yourself and gives you the tools to learn, thrive and grow. For me, it’s like we’re a big team of athletes, where we train together, run together, support together and grow together.”
“TransferGo gives you the freedom to build, be yourself and do the actual work…
I’m really proud that there’s an opportunity here at TransferGo to learn and grow. What I’ve noticed with leading a cross functional team and software engineers, is that given the right amount of trust and autonomy, people can really do things. When you give people freedom and you don’t micromanage—but instead you coach them, guide them and tell them that their work fits with our company strategy, helps customers, has an impact and solves a problem—it’s hugely motivating. And I see that. When people work autonomously, they become builders. So I’m proud that TransferGo affords that opportunity.
For me as a leader, the ultimate goal would be for my team to be able to live one day without me; that they’re comfortable with each other, trust each other and can do things. Of course, I’m also proud of where we’re moving right now. In short, we solve customers’ problems and it’s nice, it’s motivating. So I’m proud of that.”
“There are always challenges leading a team but when you’re unafraid of asking questions, everything is achievable…
Leading a team is challenging because there are different personalities and obstacles. You might need to build something and you might not have enough domain knowledge or something to maybe think, ‘Okay, I know how to do this.’ But at the end of the day, when you’re leading a team you don’t need to be the smartest person in the room. You need to be an enabler and a connector; and you need to guide and facilitate the process and everything will follow.
When you’re not afraid of asking other people questions, everything is achievable. Changes and moving with a fast speed are challenging; but so far I see that we’re overcoming those challenges and we’re delivering.”
“I think we’ve handled the challenge of working from home as a result of Covid-19 really well; we’ve managed to pull it off…
Covid-19 thankfully hasn’t had that much effect on engineering. We already had all the tools and processes in place, which have helped us to keep working. Developers can work from the beach, the office or home—it really doesn’t matter. The internet just needs to be good. I understand the struggle that a lot of businesses have had, but TransferGo is in a good place. Working from home requires trust and being open; it can be challenging because you don’t see people everyday. And maybe in the beginning, some people might have tended to micromanage but you’ve just got to think ‘Come on, trust people. Everything will be fine.’ And it works.
We’ve also overcome this stigma that working from home is for lazy ones; people actually enjoy doing it, especially in engineering. They don’t really mind working from home. We’ve been in a very good position during Covid-19, I guess.
Personally I like a 50:50 mix of working from home and in the office. I’m lucky that I have the space and a set-up at home, but I can imagine that for people with kids or other people in the house, it can be challenging. At the beginning, it was a little harder to get into a routine. But in the end, I quite liked it. Today I’m at home, whilst I was in the office for the whole of last week. From a mental health point of view, it’s good that we can change environments. I’m happy anywhere where I can work and do my job.”
“Looking ahead, I just want to get better at my role; I want to be an even better enabler and connector…
Right now, there are a lot of changes going on. Especially on my team, there’s a lot of scaling and growing. And there are a lot of things that we’re going to build, so that’s exciting. I’m looking forward to that. Regarding my own ambitions, I just want to be better at my role. I want to be a better enabler and connector between people and processes. I want to get more domain knowledge and do my best.
It’s very interesting because in my role, there are no two days in a row that are similar. Everyday I learn something new; there’s always a new task where I think ‘What’s this?’ and then I learn something new. It’s very fun; it’s not boring at all. I’m growing everyday in this role. I really love working here, it’s a great place to work.”
“A lot of people are always surprised to hear I have a masters degree in medical law…
When I tell people I have a masters degree in medical law, they’re like ‘What? What even is that?’ But if that fact didn’t surprise you, you might be interested to know that I also have an uncontrollable laughter.”
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