Starting a new chapter in the UK
Before Third Bridge, Florencia spent several years as a DevOps engineer for an Argentinian company working with Santander Group in Spain. The job meant frequent travel between Argentina and Europe, and building deep experience in the finance industry – but she and her family decided it was time for a bigger life change.
“In 2019 we decided to move to the UK,” she explains. “I updated my LinkedIn and suddenly I had a lot of people calling me. Third Bridge reached out, and the role matched my finance background and the technology stack I wanted to work with.”
Florencia’s first day at Third Bridge was when it truly hit home for her that she was starting a new chapter – in a new country, new company, and new phase of her career.“I remember a big meeting with about 30 people on my first day, in a room full of native English speakers,” she says. “I was there thinking: I don’t understand a word. That was when I realised: okay, now I’m really in the UK – and I have to survive.”
It was stressful at the time, but she laughs about it now. After that initial shock to the system, Florencia found a global culture at Third Bridge that aims to help everyone feel at home.
“Being Argentinian, I arrived feeling my English was really bad,” she says. “But I’ve never had issues with people because of that. Third Bridge is very respectful of differences, open-minded and inclusive. We have people from all around the world, and everyone understands we’re not all native speakers.”
Building tools that make a difference
Florencia joined Third Bridge as a Senior DevOps Engineer, helping product teams deploy software safely and reliably.
“One of our main responsibilities in DevOps is to help teams put their code changes and new features into production,” she explains. “We’re responsible for the deployment side and making sure the infrastructure is working as it should.”
Early on, she led a major project that became one of her proudest achievements: designing and building an internal deployment tool that streamlines how engineers ship changes. Engineers across Third Bridge use it to move from code changes to production quickly and safely.
“It was my first big project at Third Bridge,” she says. “I worked on it for about a year and was the main engineer on it. At the beginning some people were hesitant to change the way they deployed, but now, five or six years later, it’s still our main tool.”
Alongside projects like this, her team plays a central role when issues arise in production.
“If clients can’t log in or the site isn’t working, that’s when they call us,” she explains. “Sometimes it’s one hour to fix, sometimes it’s eight. We all work together and do everything we can to get production back to normal.
Growing into leadership
As her impact grew, so did her responsibilities. When she was in Argentina during the pandemic – stuck there for six months due to travel restrictions and family health issues – an internal opportunity arose.
“There were a few Principal DevOps Engineer positions open,” she says. “You had to apply and go through interviews, it wasn’t just a promotion. “My manager was saying, ‘Flo, you should apply,’ and I was saying no. I was stuck in Argentina, I had other personal things, I didn’t feel in the mindset to apply.”
Then her manager’s manager stepped in. “He sent me a message saying he honestly thought I had to apply for this role,” she says. “We had a meeting, they convinced me, I did four interviews – and I got the role.”
Becoming a Principal DevOps Engineer meant stepping into more of a leadership position.
“I’ve always enjoyed working with people,” she says. “DevOps is naturally about supporting other teams and providing tools for them. The Principal role was still very technical, but I started organising the team, leading more, and doing one-to-ones. It was challenging, because technical skills you can always learn, but working with people is different – but I enjoyed it a lot.”
In 2024, she was promoted to Senior Manager. “Now I have direct reports and I’m responsible both for technical decisions and people management,” she says. “I’m still very technical, deciding on infrastructure and architecture, but I also get to support my team’s growth.”
Learning to lead
Florencia’s transition from individual contributor to leader was shaped by support from her managers and Third Bridge’s People team as well as clever use of her Personal Development Allowance.
She’d done plenty of technical training before, but leadership was new. “I started doing management courses, and then I had the opportunity to work with a coach, Tracy, for about nine months,” she says. “She helped me understand my strengths, where I needed to work more, and who I was as a person and as a leader. It was really helpful.”
Florencia also learned by watching others. “I grew a lot just looking at other managers I admired – what they did that I liked, how they treated people,” she says. “And the feedback from my own team has meant a lot. When I came back from maternity leave, my manager told me the team had been asking for me for months. Knowing they were happy to have me back was a really good sign.”
Leading a global DevOps team
Florencia’s team spans China, India, Slovakia and the UK, which shapes what her days look like.
“I start early in the morning because of the time zones,” she says. “We have a daily stand-up with the team where we talk about what we did yesterday, what we’ll do today, and any blockers.”
From there, her calendar fills with a mix of internal and cross-functional meetings with other heads of department as well as one-to-ones with her team. But even with a busy schedule, she tries to keep her hands in the technical work.
“My manager has asked me not to assign tickets to myself,” she says, smiling. “As a manager I’m supposed to focus more on communication and decisions. But I really like coding and doing technical work, so I try to keep at least two hours a day for technical tasks. Our team is small for the amount of support we give, so I think it helps – and I enjoy it.”
Being a working parent at Third Bridge
In parallel with her growing responsibilities, Florencia’s family has grown too. She’s a mother of two, with a three-year-old and a one-year-old, and returned from her second maternity leave in June 2024. “Life is chaos at the moment,” she says, laughing. “New routines at home, everyone getting used to ‘Mummy is now working’.”
Third Bridge’s flexibility and her team’s understanding has made that transition manageable.
“My experience as a working parent has been very, very good,” she says. “Third Bridge has been flexible about schedules and given me the time and support I needed to come back gradually from maternity leave. My manager and everyone in the engineering team have been incredibly supportive. I have nothing to complain about – on the contrary, I’m very happy with how they’ve treated me.”
Life beyond work
Outside of work, most of Florencia’s time is taken up by her young family – but her interests go beyond tech. She loves travelling, reading fiction and has a long-standing passion for drawing.
“I used to have my sketchbook and draw buildings I liked, mostly in pencil,” she says. “My husband keeps telling me I should get back to it so our daughter can see me doing it. I don’t have the time right now, but hopefully I will again one day.”
Advice for future joiners
For someone just starting their journey at Third Bridge Florencia’s has a few words of wisdom to share.
“Enjoy the time you have and learn from others,” she says. “You can learn so much just by spending time with your colleagues, not only in formal meetings but in small things like having lunch together or a coffee in the kitchen.”
After more than six years at Third Bridge, Florencia has learned that the culture works best when people are open about what they think and what they need.
“If I could advise anyone joining my team or Third Bridge in general, I’d say: speak up and communicate openly,” she says. “If you don’t let people know what’s going on, you’ll never get help. Propose ideas, suggest solutions, give feedback – good or bad. Here, you have the opportunity to discuss your ideas with your manager and others, and I’ve always felt heard.”
Together, those small moments and honest conversations are what turn a job at Third Bridge into a place to grow, belong, and build a career you’re proud of.
