{"id":38722,"date":"2025-10-15T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cloudinary.com\/blog\/?p=38722"},"modified":"2025-10-15T11:50:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T18:50:59","slug":"employee-spotlight-zuzana-samaj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloudinary.com\/blog\/employee-spotlight-zuzana-samaj","title":{"rendered":"Employee Spotlight: Zuzana Samaj on Her Career Path and Her Support of Women in Tech"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Zuzana Samaj left Slovakia for London more than a decade ago, she didn\u2019t expect that a chance message from a recruiter would lead her to Cloudinary, or that she\u2019d one day help launch new products as Director of Emerging Business. With a background in computer science and a passion for connecting people through technology, she\u2019s built a career around translating complex ideas into practical solutions. We recently sat down with Zuzana and asked her to share her journey from developer to business leader, her thoughts on AI\u2019s next chapter, and the one skill she believes every technologist needs to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell us a bit about yourself. Where you\u2019re based, your background, and what led you to Cloudinary.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m based in London, UK, but I’m originally from Slovakia. I moved because I met a guy! So I came here and now I live in London for more than 10 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My background is in Computer Science. After university, I worked in technical customer roles, the jobs where you talk to customers about technology. I like helping people use tech better and I like to talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I got to Cloudinary because an external recruiter messaged me a lot. I finally took a call with her because she was so persistent! The biggest reason I joined was the people here. Everyone I met during the interviews was very nice, so I thought, “Why not?” and I gave it a chance!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You recently made the switch from Solution Engineer to Director of Emerging Business. What sort of skills did you carry over from the developer side of your career to the go to market side? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest advantage is my deep understanding of the technology. My new role is all about being the translator: I take complex tech and explain it to all our go to market teams so they can have meaningful conversations with customers about their problems. I also take my go to market experience and I explain that process back to developers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also helps that I was already heavily involved in pre-sales conversations. I\u2019m not coming into this role without ever having talked to a customer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest is a learning process, but I\u2019m excited to use these skills to help launch super successful new products from our emerging business line!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve done a lot of work encouraging women to get into tech. As this relates to the Dev community, do you think perceptions towards women in tech have changed?<\/strong>   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most important (and a bit selfish) reason I encourage women to get into tech is simple: I want more female friends in the office! It makes a huge difference to have someone you can chat with over a coffee in the kitchen about both work and all the other things in life. That kind of camaraderie is incredibly valuable.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A workshop at the conference organized by NGO Aj Ty v IT in Slovakia, where Zuzana taught women how to use Image APIs<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

What dev trends are top of mind these days? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, the top trend is verifying what AI actually delivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I see news or a demo about a new AI feature, I don’t just believe the marketing. I test it. I need to get hands-on to see if it really can do what it promises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is critical. It allows me to figure out if an AI feature is truly ready to help our customers now or if they should be wary of a temporary marketing tactic. We have to be honest about what the tech can do today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What should female developers early in their career be thinking about and focusing on? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The single most important thing to focus on is communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can have brilliant knowledge, but if you can’t communicate it well, it all stays in your head, and you won’t get external benefits from your work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone in tech should be able to clearly communicate at least these areas:<\/p>\n\n\n\n