How did you end up working at Bain?
My love of software started in university. I had a pet project that was a computer antivirus solution. It became popular and we wanted to capitalize on it, so some friends and I created a startup to develop computer-based testing solutions to sell to high schools to help students prepare for university examinations. It was a good experience, but it didn’t work out. After I graduated, I switched to working in the industry.
Through all the roles that followed, I got to do a lot of fun things. I worked on marketing websites and landing pages for clients, built a software for tracking invoices, then helped create a supply chain solution. Eventually, I transferred my knowledge to healthcare where I helped track the distribution of vaccines with analytics with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
Then, I decided I wanted to work at Bain.
Why did you choose Bain?
I already had a bit of exposure working with consultants in the past and always felt, “These guys are really smart and know what they’re doing.” Then a friend who was preparing for a consulting interview asked for help talking through her case study questions. I got to thinking. I liked the idea of having many experiences while being in the same job. When Bain came up in my own search, I looked them up on Glassdoor and saw the reviews were amazing. They’re ranked one of the best companies to work for. I was also surprised there were roles for software engineers. And the people had so many different backgrounds, from aeronautics engineers to doctors. I was really impressed and decided to give it a shot.
Everything I read about, I am now experiencing, and I can confirm, you’ll have lots of really smart colleagues and industry exposure to clients. I feel well-prepared after working here and if I should leave Bain, I would be much better for having been here—in terms of communication, handling clients, seeing the whole picture, scoping, project management, so many things.
What project are you most proud of?
I’m proud of one where the client, an insurance company, was trying to transfer their whole solution from offline to online. I was able to evaluate the process from the structure of their business, analyze how it looked in the beginning, and explain how it’d look in the end. I was really proud of the work we completed as a team, and I love it when we do something well enough that we can hand it off for the client to do it themselves. It’s created a much better experience for their customers.
