Meet Stéphanie Lebrun, Security Engineer at Sopra Steria Benelux, and currently working in our Red Team as an ethical hacker. “It’s a hard job because real hackers are very smart. It is a cool job as well because you have to be creative to find out how a real hacker would try to break the system”. Stéphanie thinks that someone who is dynamic, a hard worker, curious, and likes to have a good work-life balance would totally fit in with Sopra Steria.

What does a regular working day look like for you?

Our Red Team is a small team of 9 people, and our mission is to stimulate an adversary and test our client's applications, networks and systems in order to assess their security posture. Our activities include for instance web application penetration testing, working on active directory assessment, performing compliance tests, and preparing a phishing campaign. A project usually lasts between 3 and 20 days, so it is always a short cycle, and that is what makes my job dynamic – in 1 month, I can work on 5 different projects.

Within a project, there is always more or less the same timeline. It starts with a preparation phase, followed by the activity itself, where we for instance are given a website and we try to find its vulnerabilities. After, there is a reporting phase in which we explain what is problematic in the system, compute a severity score for each issue, and provide recommendations. The goal is then for the client to, based on this report, solve the problems raised so they can increase their security level. This way, it will be harder for hackers to break into their system.

The end goal is to make our client’s system more secure, and therefore also contribute to a more secure digital world. “It is impossible to find everything, and there will probably always be a gap that you are missing in the system, but we try to be as complete as we can. By repeating this kind of tests continuously, you can tend to secure systems as much as possible”.

What are the most important qualities for a Security Engineer?

I would say my job is quite technical, so it is important to have some security skills, but you should also be able to see the bigger picture and understand how a website or network works. In terms of soft skills, I believe communication, both with your client and team, is very important.

What projects are you currently working on?  

I just finished a Static Application Security Testing (SAST) project in which we analysed the source code from our client to identify vulnerabilities. I also just finished a web application test, in which we tried to find out what is problematic from a security point of view in the client’s website. I am currently working on a phishing campaign. In this campaign, we created a phishing email from scratch, sent it out to our client’s employees, and monitored how many people opened the email and clicked on the links. Then, we shared some awareness material with them to inform people about the risks of phishing. Afterwards we will send out a second email to see if these trainings helped.

Fun fact

If Stéphanie could switch jobs for one day, she would like to have a job in the Communications team, because she believes this is a dynamic job in which she would be in touch with a lot of different people. Also, she could help organising cool events, like a sports tournament, a women-only lunch, or employee testimonials.

Were you always part of the Red Team?

I started working in Sopra Steria’s Blue Team in September 2021. This team is also called the SOC Team or the Security Operation Center and is responsible for protecting and monitoring the security of some of Sopra Steria’s clients. When there is an alert, to the SOC members must investigate it, evaluate the severity and inform the right people or take further actions. At the same time, I worked on a development project in the Sopra Steria Toulouse team, where we developed a tool that aims to automate the tasks of Blue/SOC Team.

What do you like about Sopra Steria’s culture?

When I applied to Sopra Steria, I could feel that the company is very human, and this was important to me because I didn't want to join a huge company where you are treated like a number. Everyone in the HR team was nice, and I could feel that they were trying to find out if there was a match between me and the company, more than just selling Sopra Steria as a company.

Now that I work here, I can say that there is a nice and peaceful atmosphere, and I can always ask help to anyone. I have a good work-life balance, there is not a lot of pressure from management, and no one is telling me when to start or end my day. We are free in our projects and in how we are organising our day. If you want to, and you take the initiative, you can also change teams or activities. Red and Blue team members are young, and we have a lot of fun at work or outside of work.

Fun fact

If Sopra Steria was an animal, Stéphanie thinks it would be an entire zoo, because 1 animal is too restrictive. There would for sure be an elephant in the zoo, that represents our big projects in the Public Sector, like i-Police for example. Also, there would be a bonobo because this animal lives in an inclusive group where women also have their place, and this is also the case at Sopra Steria. And then there is also a polar bear that represents the caring aspect of Sopra Steria and the peaceful atmosphere.

Meet Jingyi Qiao, Data Consultant at Sopra Steria Benelux. Jingyi joined Sopra Steria in the beginning of 2022 as part of her apprenticeship at KU Leuven. She studied Industrial Engineer, among other Masters and Post Graduate Programs, and now combines knowledge and expertise from all studies to create value in her job. Jingyi believes that “if you want to find your potential and have an opportunity to develop it, you should join Sopra Steria”.

What does a Data Consultant do?

In my current project, I am working on data visualisation. I use tools such as PowerBI, and Tableau to create dashboards for both internal and external use. Last year, we initiated the Green Up Sustainability project internally at Sopra Steria Benelux. We analysed our data of fleet and energy consumption and translated it into a dashboard that made it easy and simple to understand our carbon footprint and the environmental impact of Benelux entities. This project offers a potential solution to identify transformation levers to reduce environmental impact, and make data-driven decision possible and easy. Besides, I am working with two clients, and I support them in creating their dashboard and skilling up their teams on BI topics.

As a Data Consultant, it is important to listen to people and try to understand what they need, so we can offer them a suitable solution. I communicate frequently with my clients to check if the dashboard is tailored to their needs and requirements. Also, we check if we can provide potential improvements and look for best practices to incorporate. We are not just selling the product, we are trying to bring our experience and skills to clients and build good relationships with them.

I work closely together with Business Analysts, and I believe they are an important part of our team since they know a lot about the client's business and can help me create workshops that are specifically designed to meet their needs. And for the BI part, I also collaborate with Data Administrators and Data Engineers. They help clean and structure the data in a way that makes it easy for me to analyse and present it to the client. This allows me to focus on creating clear and informative reports that show the client how they can use their data to make better decisions. I really enjoy operating and bridging the technical and functional aspects of projects.

Can you explain a bit more what projects you work on?

I am working with 2 clients. The first client had a lot of data they wanted to analyse, but they struggled to find a qualified profile to help them build and skill up on business intelligence solutions. So, they hired us to provide our expertise. This client is also interested in our Green Up Sustainability project, so we created a similar dashboard for them that helps them track their carbon footprint and identify ways adapted to their business and organisation specificities. It was a standard process for us since we already had the knowledge and experience necessary to help them. By combining what we have internally with their requirements, we were able to deliver results that make their lives easier and have a positive impact on their business.

The second client in Luxemburg is an industrial company and we created some dashboards for them for their daily production. They were using a lot of Excel sheets, which were not efficient. We created dashboards for them that made it easier to see their performance, analyse and draw conclusions from their data. It was a good improvement for them, and they found it much more user-friendly than their previous solution.

I feel that all these projects have had a positive impact on our clients. It is rewarding to see that our work is making a difference in their daily operations and sometimes on a larger scale.

Fun fact

If Jingyi could switch jobs for one day with someone else at Sopra Steria, she would like to try a job in HR, because she is curious about what kind of profiles we hire, and she would like to try her best to encourage people to join Sopra Steria.

Why did you start working at Sopra Steria?

I met 2 HR Recruiters at a forum. I didn’t know Sopra Steria at that time, but they introduced what Sopra Steria does and what projects they work on, and it really attracted me. Then I got in touch with a Director at Sopra Steria, and he explained Sopra Steria’s projects more in detail and it was exactly what I was looking for. Once I joined, I immediately liked it here; I love working with people with diverse backgrounds on projects in different sectors.

What can you say about Sopra Steria’s culture?

Sopra Steria is a very international company, especially in Belgium, so I immediately think of the word diversity. I would also mention the words collaborative, respect, and support. I get support from my proximity manager, my team members, and also from people that I don’t know super well. We for example can ask questions in an online Community and people from other Sopra Steria countries will answer. We have a lot of people with great skills and potential so it is easy to find people who will know exactly what you are talking about.

I really enjoy working in my current role because I feel like I have a lot of flexibility and support. My manager gives me the freedom to structure my work in a way that makes sense for me, without micromanaging or requiring me to ask for permissions on everything. This allows me to be more productive and focused, and to achieve better results for the organization.

Another thing I appreciate about my role is that I have a lot of say in my personal development. I'm able to choose the subjects that I want to focus on and the skills that I want to develop, which is really empowering. My manager is always available to offer guidance and support, but they trust me to take ownership of my learning and development.

All in all, I feel very supported and valued in my current role. The level of trust and autonomy my manager provides is refreshing, and it makes me feel motivated and engaged in my work.

We combine skills and we bring them together to create value. At Sopra Steria, we see great value in having people with different skills and backgrounds work together.

Fun fact

If Sopra Steria were an animal, Jingyi thinks it would be a dolphin. Dolphins are known for their intelligence and their close-knit social structure, relying on one another for support and protection, just like we do at Sopra Steria. Additionally, dolphins have a unique way of communicating with one another through sounds and body language, which makes them different from other animals. Jingyi sees a similarity here with the field of IT and consulting, which is always changing and requires a special set of skills and knowledge to communicate with technology and other people effectively.

Can you tell us a bit more about your job?

As a Security Architect I am building solutions for our customers, mostly in the technical area of Cybersecurity. I also started building a Security Operations Center (SOC team) for Sopra Steria Benelux 5 years ago, building a mutualised service for our customers. This team evolved from 2 people to 10 people and from 1 customer to 4 customers. I was working as the lead Engineer in this team, but I am now leaving this team to fully work on the i-Police programme. It makes me proud to see that me leaving the team doesn’t have a lot of impact, since this means that we set up an autonomous team. I believe starting your career in this SOC team is a great opportunity, because you can discover production architectures of several customers, and delivery security services differently for each of them, thus learning a lot in a short period of time.

What projects are your working on?

I am mostly working for i-Police to realise the digital transformation of the Belgian police. Both federal and local police zones are moving from a decentralised approach where each zone is a separate information system, to a centralized approach that supports more collaboration between police activities. It is super interesting, because the platform that we are building will be used in every police car that you see in the street and it supports the police activities in all kinds of ways, from very basic cases like theft to very severe cases like terrorist attacks.

What are the most important qualities for a Security Architect and a team leader?

As a Security Architect, you have to aim at progressing and learning something new every day, and not being afraid to be assigned to something you don’t know anything about yet or to start a new project. As a team leader, you must trust your team, try to make people work together and treat everyone with respect.

Why do you think other people should also join Sopra Steria?

If you are a junior, Sopra Steria is a good company to start your career. You will work on very interesting projects, learn a lot and get the support you need from people with a lot of experience. On top, you will have the opportunity to change positions and activities. As a medior or senior I would like to point out that you will have the chance to work on interesting projects with large institutions and companies that work with interesting technologies.

Fun fact

If Julien could switch jobs for one day with someone else, he wants to be the director above him, to meet interesting people in the companies we work with and to have the opportunity to understand the mindset of other hierarchy levels at our customers.

How would you explain Sopra Steria’s culture?

Sopra Steria is a great place to work, because human skills and social interaction are important for me and both are present within our company. There is a good collaboration within the teams and it is always easy to find someone who wants to help you when needed. We really want to achieve things in team, but there is also time to celebrate those achievements. We for example organise afterworks in a bar, a Family Day, and a Great Place To Work party. I like that, because it is nice to see people in another context than at work.

I believe that a “Sopra Sterian” is someone dynamic who is looking for a challenge and this is good, because if you want to grow and evolve, you will certainly have the opportunity to do so in our company. What is good at Sopra Steria is that everyone is assigned a proximity manager that provides you guidance, so especially for junior and medior profiles, this is really an added value.

We have a flat hierarchy at Sopra Steria. You can for example easily discuss something with our CEO like he is a “normal colleague”. The management in general is very accessible as well and they always welcome your ideas as long as they bring added value to the company. On top, there is a lot of flexibility at Sopra Steria. The message that I try to bring to my team is that they are paid for a mission, not for hours. If at some point someone needs to adapt their work schedule, it is not a problem at all.

Fun fact

If Sopra Steria was an animal, Julien thinks it would be a leopard: we do some very impressing running sprints as well and we are able to accelerate quickly.

Meet Radu Mihis, team leader of 3 Incident Managers and 5 Service Desk Agents at Sopra Steria Luxembourg. Radu started working at Sopra Steria 4 years ago as an Incident Manager for the European Commission, on the Directorate General for Informatics project. “Even after working all these years for the same client, I still discover new things every day. My job is very dynamic, and no 2 days are the same.”

What does your job entail?

My main responsibility as team leader is assuring that my team, the MSP II team, is always up to date with their tasks and skills. When needed, I can also take on the role of Incident Manager or Service Desk Agent myself. I compare my team to the Emergency Room of a hospital. Service Desk agents do the triage, or first level analysis, and manage easy cases, while the Incident Managers handle the critical ones. Once our investigation is done, we coordinate with other specialised teams that need to act and resolve the cases. An example of a crisis is an application that doesn’t work properly anymore. It is our job then to investigate all the layers of this application and see what layer causes the issue.

In our job, we don’t only solve crises, we also try to prevent them from happening, by using change management, problem management, configuration management and monitoring improvement. We, together with other Commission units, are responsible for everything related to IT within the European Commission. At the end of the day, our job is to make the client happy. To do this, we work together every day with different stakeholders, like vendors, developers, and end users.

Most of the European Commission applications under our supervision are visible to EU citizens, so I believe our work is important and impactful.

What are the most important qualities to do your job?

As an Incident Manager, I would say that stress management, patience and having an analytical mind are the most important skills. You don’t need to be an expert on a specific technology, but you need to know a little bit of everything. A team leader should lead by example, have patience, and good crisis management skills. On top, you should be helpful, and be a “people person” who knows how to balance having an enjoyable but diligent atmosphere.

Fun fact

If Radu could switch jobs for one day with someone else at Sopra Steria, he would like to work in HR, since he is a “people person”. He thinks it would be interesting to meet many people and analyze them during interviews. “As HR, you see candidates throughout the entire application process, so you really can detect candidate’s good qualities and/or pain points”.

What can you say about the culture of Sopra Steria?

Sopra Steria has a diverse culture, and therefore you meet people from everywhere. Everyone is also open to this diversity and respects each other. When I started working at Sopra Steria, I received a warm welcome, and my integration went very smoothly. I have a good relationship with my colleagues and with management, and my team is very dynamic. People overall are openminded, easygoing, and willing to help or give advice.

When you have an idea, you are free to discuss it with management and your team, and you can be sure that people will listen to you. This combined with a lot of training opportunities, I would say that it is for sure possible to grow and evolve at Sopra Steria.

Fun fact

If Sopra Steria was an animal, Radu thinks it would be a Komodo dragon, because it’s an animal that has a purpose and that knows how to get there. Slowly, but it gets there, with more knowledge than others.

Meet Sébastien Nys, Service Delivery Manager at Sopra Steria Benelux. Sebastien started working at Callataÿ & Wouters in 2004, before this company was acquired by Sopra Banking Software. In 2018, he transferred to Sopra Steria, specifically to take over the client he is now responsible for. “I have been working for the same client for several years now, and every year we have the same objective, namely increasing our footprint. However, every year, the way we get there and the issues we encounter are different, and this is what makes my job exciting”.

How would you explain your job?

I manage all operational activities of Sopra Steria at our client’s side, meaning that I have to make sure that the commitment taken in the contract during the sales part is properly delivered to the client. This goes together with making sure that our consultants are happy where they are. I am the Service Delivery Manager for 1 client, the biggest banking group in Belgium, and we have around 100 Sopra Steria consultants working for this client. In my job, I can rely on a delivery management team. Each member of this team is responsible for one or more of our client’s departments where Sopra Steria is present. To support our client, we work on activities related to infrastructure (network and window systems), activities linked to data, and we take care of almost all non-core banking applications of the client, amongst which SAP applications.

What does a regular working day look like for you?

My main focus is following up on our teams’ deliveries through different governance instances. To do so, it is important for me to be close to both the client, and our consultants, who encounter different issues every day. It can be consultants who are not happy in their job or who are not performing at the expected level. We also have teams working in India and Spain, so it is important for me to keep proximity with them as well, since they are fully part of our team. Despite my experience, there are always issues that still surprise me and that we have never seen before. Making sure our consultants are happy is a full-time and important job for me, because when they are happy, the client is also happy.

On top, I also support our sales team with extending the business with our client, and I make sure we reach the financial targets we have set up. This is of course the final objective in the end, but this is only possible if our consultants and the client are happy.

What are the most important qualities for a Service Delivery Manager?

I would say that soft skills are the most important ones: you need to be a good leader and a good communicant towards both the client and your consultants, but also towards other departments of Sopra Steria like legal and HR. For technical skills, I guess experience in project management is the most important one. On top, resilience is needed as well; you need to be able to adapt to the speed and pace of the customer.

Fun fact

If Sébastien could switch jobs for one day with someone else at Sopra Steria, he would like to experience being the HR Director (but only for 1 day), because in this job, you have a lot of connections with other employees who have the same issues as the consultants working on his project.

What can you say about Sopra Steria’s culture?

I started working at Sopra Steria as a junior, and I am now leading a team of 100 people, so I would say that for sure there are opportunities to evolve here. This is also one of the many reasons why I stayed at Sopra Steria after all these years.

Sopra Steria is a big family and a safe place where you can speak freely and express your needs and feelings. The atmosphere is informal and the vibe between colleagues is very nice. There is of course some pressure to reach your objectives, but it is pressure within a good spirit. Both are key elements to enjoy my work, and I believe this is a unique feature of Sopra Steria, since this is not always the case in a big company. We organise from time to time small events with our team and twice a year, we have a BBQ or dinner.