During my final year at university, I moved to Japan to complete an eight-month internship at Hitachi’s Central Research Laboratory. Following the internship, I was offered a position with the company and invited to continue my career in Japan.
I stayed with the same team for two years, conducting industrial research. Although the company set the overall direction, my work remained highly technical, focusing on signal processing. This coincided with the boom in AI and neural networks, especially in applications involving images and videos.
Right after COVID, I had to go back to my home country, Italy, because of the global situation. During that time, I decided to deepen my knowledge in AI, and I went back to university, working in academic research. I wanted to apply this knowledge to creating something that people can use. Research is great, I learned a lot of theory there, because that's the foundation, but I felt I wanted to build something. I found a job, and I started working in a company in Italy for a couple of years, developing artificial features for their products.
It was a fantastic experience, but I wanted to take on new challenges. Once the pandemic was over, I decided to move to Germany. And it's where I am now, working for two years in a company called Henkel as a Senior Data Scientist, leading AI projects.
I really loved math at that time. I still do, and because I love math, I wanted to do research. Then I discovered that I was more interested in developing digital products. It was nice to solve problems, and that’s what I was doing for most of the time – solving problems using technology. I've moved my passion from research to creating and solving problems, but in business and customer-related areas.
Sometimes, it’s a very focused field, so if someone prefers constant human interaction, it can feel challenging. On the other hand, collaboration is still really important, so you learn to balance working independently with working with others.
At the beginning of my career, my first achievement was my first research paper. It was published in the same company where I worked during my internship. My supervisor couldn’t join me at the conference, so I had to present alone. I was facing a whole room of professionals in my field. I was proud of myself for being able to defend my research, answering all the questions, and presenting in front of an international community full of senior scientists.
The second milestone was the first time one of my clients used the product with the feature I developed. I felt that we were doing something that was important for them and was helping them in their job.
My biggest achievement would be building the international community at my first company, Hitachi. I was one of the few foreigners there. It was a very Japanese company, and not very diverse in our office. I tried to start a community for international employees to support each other in everyday life issues, work issues, translations, and everything that was complicated to deal with as a foreigner.
There are plenty of technical skills. In this field, things change so quickly that you need to learn continuously. The most important skill is being able to communicate effectively and collaborate with different types of people, backgrounds, cultural experiences, and in different roles.
The Internet is for sure a resource. Now, there are plenty of things that you can read and learn online, but for me, it's crucial to talk to people and learn from people.
We can have all the knowledge out there for us, and what’s missing is a person who can transmit it to you or teach you. I always try to learn from communities, networking, asking people what they do and how they do it.
In Japan, I didn’t participate in many events. It wasn’t easy because of the language barrier. Networking really depends on where you are, and it can sometimes be difficult. That’s why communities are so important – they’re more tailored to people’s needs. For example, foreign communities or tech communities have been very helpful to me.
The biggest one was moving from research to industry because the skills needed for research are quite different from those for industry. You have some experience already, and then you find yourself in a situation where you don't know anything, and you feel something is missing – a piece between what is academic and what is industry.
It was challenging to find a job or an opportunity coming directly from university because the requirements are different. Networking helped me. Talking to people and asking them how to succeed and get into the industry gave me a lot.
My professor at the university told me to never step back and always express my thoughts and opinions because that helps all people in the room to learn and grow. As a woman, it's always very difficult. I've always found myself in an environment in which women usually do not speak much and do not express themselves.
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