"Meeting your colleagues from other countries in person and getting to know them more personally really makes a difference, and it makes it a lot easier to work together online later"
Mari Håland Simonsen [Network Engineer]
1. Who are you?
Mari Håland Simonsen, 29 years old from Nærbø. I currently live in Sandnes with my husband, our dog and our 9-month-old daughter.
2. Description of your background
I have a Bachelor’s and Master´s degree in Computer science from the University of Stavanger. I completed my Master´s degree in 2019 and started working full time as an Operations Engineer in Tampnet that same summer. I worked as a part time Operations Technician in Tampnet since 2016 while studying. In January 2023 I changed position internally and started working as a Network Engineer in the Satellite team.
3. What is your occupation in the company?
Network Engineer with the Satellite team in the infrastructure department
4. What does a typical day in your role look like?
Every day is different, but most days will include working on ongoing and planned satellite installations and working with the operations team on any ongoing issues.
"The more I learned about the different subjects, the more I found that I really did like computer science and looked forward to starting to work in this field and learn even more."
- Mari Håland Simonsen
5. What inspired you to pursue the career you did?
Math and science were always some of my favourite subjects in school. Those subjects often had less reading and more doing, which I liked and was better at. After high school I did not know exactly what I wanted to do but felt like engineering could be something I would like. My mom also has a degree in computer science, so that might have led me in that direction, and I started on my bachelor’s degree in 2014 at the University of Stavanger. The more I learned about the different subjects, the more I found that I really did like computer science and looked forward to starting to work in this field and learn even more.
6. What’s the best part of working in your team? What is your team like?
We have a very small team, which means that I get to take more responsibility than I might have done as a new member of a larger team. I get a lot of freedom and I feel like my manager really trusts me to do my work well.
7. What’s the most exciting task/project you’ve worked on?
The first Starlink installation where we included SD-WAN and MPLS. This project had to be completed fairly quick due to sudden offshore needs, which meant that we did not have a lot of time to test the solution before installing it offshore. We knew that everything should work, but there is always some extra suspense when installing something new offshore. Everything went really well, and the customer was super happy with the result.
8. What is one of your favorite memories of your time at Tampnet?
I have a lot of good memories at Tampnet, it’s hard to point at a specific one. The social gatherings are really something I value. Especially when we travel to meet each other at our different offices. Meeting your colleagues from other countries in person and getting to know them more personally really makes a difference, and it makes it a lot easier to work together online later.
