2 years in Switzerland

Hi there,

It seems it was yesterday when I wrote this other post about my first year in Switzerland. But the reality is that this was one year ago and that I’ve already been living and working in the Lausanne area for two years now. So, it’s time again to look back and evaluate the experience lived during this time.

I came to Kudelski Security to manage and deliver cybersecurity engagements to clients but quite soon appeared the opportunity for helping the team that was developing cybersecurity solutions for the CFC (Cyber Fusion Center) on their transition to Agile and DevOPS. Even if I hadn’t any practical experience in those fields before, I found very appealing the possibility of learning and collaborating on this transformation, so I assumed the position of being the first Agile Product Owner in the company.

But now, a new great opportunity has come up so I’m changing my role in the organization to become MSS (Managed Security Services) architect. That’s a challenging position that however will allow me to be closer than before to the cybersecurity topics and to participate deeper in the definition and built of the new MSS that the company will develop. As a member of the MSS leadership team I’ll be responsible for architecting the tools, systems and technology to support Kudelski’s MSS business globally. I’ll be collaborating with development, engineering and leadership teams to define and drive the operational execution of Kudelski’s MSS strategy.

In another vein, during the last year I got my GIHC certification, that is a good complement for the PMP and CISSP that I got in 2015 and the CISA, CISM and ISO27001 Lead Auditor that I already brought from Spain.

At personal level I’m really comfortable living and working in Switzerland. Now the stressful time of the first months when I needed to manage the movement, finding the apartment, doing all the required paper work are far away. My family is happy and adapted to live here, and we start to be able to understand quite a lot of French and even if we’re not able to use it at professional level, we can use it to survive in our day to day here.

On the other hand, even if it’s true that the winter is long and quite hard here, the summer is just gorgeous, with soft temperatures and amazing mountains, lakes and places to enjoy.

So I’m still enjoying and learning working and living here so I’m sure that was the right decision coming to Switzerland and joining Kudelski Security. Let’s see how it works during my third year here!

I’ll keep you posted. :-)