GDF: The perfect place to start your professional career

Hardik on his time at the GDF

The Global Digital Factory drives the digitization & improvement of customer touch points across the group by co-creating new digital customer-centric experiences and reusable frontend solutions. The GDF develops and provides assets, tools and libraries to the group. This provides the perfect environment for interns and working students to start their professional careers and to gain knowledge in developing and rolling-out digital solutions. 

Hardik was lucky to work as an intern at the GDF and will stay with us as a working student, writing his thesis within the Digital Asset Rollout Team, where he is delivering great support for several tasks.

 

About Hardik:

 

Profession: Master of Business Administration and Engineering

LinkedIn: Hardik's Profile

Position: Working Student Digital Asset Rollout and simultaneously writing a thesis on one of our insurance products, previously Intern Digital Asset Rollout.

Tasks: Project Management support for one of our big project, supporting Building Block Cards Task Management.

 

Hardik tells us about his time at the Global Digital Factory

To be honest with you, when I applied for an internship at the GDF I had never worked in an IT company nor I had any idea of the insurance world. Furthermore, this was my first application for an international job outside my home country. Undoubtedly, I was more than happy when I got the opportunity to start as intern in GDF's Digital Asset Rollout Team and becoming a part of the world's largest insurance company. Of course I had many questions such as "What is exactly going to be expected from my side?" or "How to get familiar with the IT tasks?". Retrospectively, I am glad that I left my comfort zone because this gave me the chance to grow and and learn so many new things. 

After getting familiar with the Frontend Applications which are offered by GDF, my first task was to support the big eMerge Developers Conference. This allowed me to practice some networking and getting in touch with new techniques and upgradations used by our developers to compete in the Digitalization of Insurance.

 

Hardik's view of the Global Digital Factory

GDF is responsible to deliver Frontend Applications for all Allianz OEs by giving them end-to-end digital solutions. GDF’s important role is to understand the business requirements, design tools, develop them and finally deliver them. GDF is playing a vital role in Allianz’s big on-going project and I am happy to be part of this journey. It took me some time to understand GDF’s customer journeys, methodologies and technical assets but I felt perfectly placed in my team because we rollout the projects and fulfill the requirement of the customers, which can also be called the Business End.

 

Thank you, my dear GDF colleagues!

Finally, I want to seize this opportunity to thank several GDF colleagues: First of all, my manager and mentor, Anette Voigt, who is the Head of the Digital Asset Rollout Team. She never treated me like an intern, instead like a full-time employee and gave me freedom from Day 1. Because of Anette being so confident with me, I had the opportunity to support one of our big on-going projects where we are creating a global platform for all our insurance products. Therefore, I was able to work with the majority of GDF colleagues who are all super friendly and supportive throughout. Additionally, I had the chance work with our Head of GDF, Matthias Böhle, which itself means a lot to me. Jochen Supper, who is our Head of Development, guided me through Allianz's Angular NDBX Library and Building Block Architecture. Furthermore, I want to thank Olga Martynova for always solving my doubts and for making working together with her on the same projects so enjoyable, Heidi Knapp for taking the lead in having the most important team building activities along with Ulrich Jost which really helped me to get to know each other better, Katharina Cambalova with whom I worked closely on the same tasks and from who I could learn so many things. Also, thank you Clariza Lu for supporting me all the time in my tasks and Julia Schurr for constantly updating me on Allianz's student benefits and helping me throughout.

In general, I want to thank the Digital Asset Rollout Team for giving me such a warm welcome and for your outstanding support. It's not just a group of people working together, it's an international team of experts from all over the world, which has a great spirit within it.

As you might be able to derive from my working experience, I am very glad that my contract got extended and I can continue working at the GDF as a working student. Anette understood my concern and figured out a possible thesis topic for me which I will be implementing simultaneously. With Allianz's flexible working mode I am able to do both efficiently.
 

We are happy that you stay with us!

Interns and working students like Hardik play important roles at the GDF and we highly appreciate their support. We are always striving for the most practicable solutions and involve everyone equally.

Thank you Hardik, for your work and the insights on your working experience. We are delighted that you will stay with us and looking forward to spending some time with you again - not only virtually.  

So what are you still waiting for? Check out our jobs and join our team!