Our second employee story from the Dutch office is here. This time we had a great talk with Emil Bunk, a Senior Data Analyst that has been part of the company for 7 years!
In this interview, you will learn about how Emil got into the company, what it was like to experience the switch from Nodes to Monstarlab as an employee, and more.
Could you introduce yourself shortly?
I’m Emil, I’m a Senior Data Analyst and I’ve been in the company for 7 years. Back when it was still called Nodes, I was hired as an intern and since then progressed through several roles within the company. I started out in UX design, then changed into more of a consultancy and strategy role, and recently I transitioned into a more internal role where I work with all the data that we are producing internally and how we make it more available to everybody in the organisation. Throughout my time in Monstarlab I have been working in the Danish office, then the UK office and now here in Amsterdam.
Could you tell us a little about your background, what did you do before joining us?
Well, I started straight out of school. Before I was in Monstarlab, I was doing my studies at the Technical University of Denmark, my line of study was called design and innovation so I have an engineering background focusing on collecting information about users, stakeholders and projects and I research the best way to deliver solutions to problems. I turned that into a more technical and IT set-up where I also do my fair bit share of coding, which is also what I do in the company. That is to help people understand complex topics and help shape solutions from my understanding combined with what people request.
So most that you learned for your current position, you have actually learned in the company?
I had some experience from projects at school, but all my actual experience is from just working in the company. When I joined we were still a rather young company, so we were often thrown into deep waters and everything was learned by doing. It helped mature both my skills and the way I work with clients and projects. The most important thing I learned is to know that even when there seems to not be a solution, we will eventually figure one out as it is more about the process of how to get to the solution than having one right away.
Can you tell me about your role as a Data Analyst and what is a specific skill you need to be able to do your role?
I think a lot of people when they hear such a role, think that you need to be good at math or you need to know statistics and of course, that is important, you need to know how basic math and statistics work but it is not the entire truth of it. When you are working with complex concepts, you will often find people asking for a specific thing they need, but this is merely what they think they need. So a skill that you need is that you have to pull this apart and figure out what the kind of problem is that you are solving, only then you can actually find the right solution.
You have been with Monstarlab for quite a long time, what attracted you to start here?
Well as I said, it was a very young company when I started, so how I got into it was through my colleague Linn from the Danish office, she started half a year before me and we studied together. She pushed it out to multiple people we studied with but reached out to me particularly and told me about what Nodes were doing back then and I found it super interesting because it combined the two worlds that I had been studying towards, so design and IT. Back then we primarily made apps which wasn’t necessarily a new technology but everyone was still trying new things with them, and being part of that process just sounded like the perfect fit for me.
You experienced the change from Nodes Agency to Monstarlab, what are the biggest changes you have experienced during this period at the company?
I would say in the start there wasn’t much change, which was part of what the CEO wanted. They were keen on learning from Nodes and wanted to keep the skills and processes of the company and incorporate that across the different offices. We had to work with offices across the world, which started a new way of working as we were used to sitting next to the people we work with. This was needed because in a bigger company you have to make use of people with the right skillset and these can come from different offices. Covid helped to normalise this way of working, though, as everybody had to work remotely regardless, and all meetings had to happen online.
What has been your professional highlight while working at Monstarlab?
I think it’s a project that I’ve come back to many times over the years, which was a piece for Danica Pension. We started out exploring different ways for them to talk about pensions with people, which is known to be something boring. So we had a good collaboration with the company in regards to finding out what makes people tick, what the things are that people want to know but can’t be bothered to, and how we make it more personal for them to understand. That work just escalated and in the end, the team and myself spent 1.5 years on it, and to me, it stays one of the best works that I have been part of. When I was sitting with Sam and the other designers recently, there was kind of this notion that that work, even though it is like 4 years old now, is still some of the really solid works that if you look at it today you can’t really say that it wasn’t great. It also came with a lot of trust from the client, which made it stand out a lot. Our collaboration was so good and the client was so happy about being part of the process that they came in for meetings twice a week, just to sit and look at what we have developed and discuss and then we would make the needed tweaks. It was a huge piece of work that gained a lot of trust from the client and I think in the end it turned out to be something really cool.
As a Senior, do you have any career tips for anyone interested in starting in the same position?
When you just start you usually want to please people, so when a client comes and tells you to build something, you would probably start out with the notion ‘they told me to, so I’m gonna do it!’. But the more experience you have, the easier you’re going to recognise common pitfalls like these. When people ask you for something, you have to find out their incentive, you can do this by pressuring them a bit to figure out what the problem is that they are facing. Requested solutions are produced based on the client’s own experience, which isn’t necessarily wrong, but bringing up what the problems are can help the entire team to understand how to move forward and find the actual best solution. So when someone asks you to solve something, you should question what the problem is and give feedback on how you would solve it compared to the solution that they gave, because the client isn’t always right.
What does Monstarlab stand for according to you?
I would say, we come from a very technical background so when we address specific issues we have a good understanding of how tech works and how to apply it to build solutions. We only propose tangible solutions, we don’t see a solution that isn’t within reach for the budget or the client’s current stage as an actual solution. So that pragmatic approach of expanding on the problems and understanding the scenario the client is in and bringing that all together into a solution, has been part of our DNA. Looking at us today, that is where we excel.
What do you enjoy the most about Monstarlab?
What I enjoy the most is something I always realise when I’m talking to people outside of the company. It is that when I talk about my colleagues, I talk about them as friends rather than just as people I work with. I meet my colleagues privately and for instance, when I travel back to Denmark it’s like a group hug all around because many of them are my friends. This even counts for former colleagues that have moved companies, because there are many that I still keep in contact.
Does Emil’s story inspire you and would you like to know more about him and the company? You can contact Emil on his LinkedIn or his email: emil.bunk@monstar-lab.com.
