Jobs & Careers Month discussion: Pay it Forward

[Raymond Muyuka]

1.  How you first discovered your favorite Atlassian Tool, why it's your favorite, and how it has affected the trajectory of your career.

Well, my first Atlassian tool was Jira service management.

We needed a tool that would be able to manage customer requests. I had interacted with Jira in the past from a different service provider, and it seemed like it would be able to fulfill our needs. That was three years ago. We are still going strong. I am currently trying to grow my expertise and possibly try my hand at becoming an Atlassian expert.

2. If you could provide advice about that tool to a High school or university student today, what would it be? 

I would say, "have a project-based approach, that fulfills a need." This will make the learning experience very enjoyable. Then identify an atlassian tool that would fulfill that need.

[Kavitha Chandrasekaran]

Hi @Andy Gladstone  !

It is well past September. But couldn't resist replying to this thread. My first encounter with Atlassian products (Jira, Trello and Confluence) and Agile too was in 2012, after I moved to Sydney from US. The org I worked with were already on Agile and using Jira everyday.

Initially I was running around asking for help to use the tool...Fast forward 3-4 years, I became the go-to person for Jira across the organisation. I have introduced features like fix Version, Releases, effective use of Epics, components and roadmaps to the teams across the organisation; helped simplify workflows, troubleshoot issues; train new Scrum Masters to create boards, organize projects, use of filters, dashboards, add-on products etc. 

Atlassian products completely changed my career. I have progressively improved my expertise in Jira and continue to be the goto person in the organisations I worked/work with. I enjoy helping people with the tool.

I love the robustness as well as the simplicity of Jira. Jira is robust enough to manage complex projects at the same time simple for users. 

I would say to High School students/Uni students to use the tool to prioritize and  manage their work, assignments, extra curricular activities. Get familiar with the tool as it will add to their skill set whether or not they pursue a career in IT. 

[Andy Gladstone]

There is no statute of limitations on responses, especially quality ones like yours @Kavitha Chandrasekaran! I love the advice of "Get familiar with the tool as it will add to their skill set whether or not they pursue a career in IT". So many people make the mistake of thinking Jira is for IT or Programming Teams when in fact it is not exclusive to ANY specific type of team, and chances are a HS/Uni student will more than likely bump into this tool during their career - and knowledge of it will give them the types of advantages you have experienced.

Thanks for commenting!

[Ciara TN]

I implemented a Jira Service Desk (yes it was a while ago) for a previous job and caught the Atlassian bug. :) 

To see how JSD has transformed and become the Jira Service Management product has been amazing. Such amazing features and options to customise.