She was looking for a scientific project, where she could fully apply her knowledge and skills in the field of high performance computing. But it wasn't that easy. Until, just over five years ago, she came into contact with Patrick van Noort.
"A beautiful story," Patrick looks back at Jelena's five-year jubilee. "Jelena was living in Germany at the time, but her boyfriend was already working in the Netherlands. And he turned out to be a colleague of someone who worked on that same project through us. And that colleague in turn recommended us to Jelena. That's how I got in touch with her." And so at some point Patrick traveled to Aachen for an initial interview.
Jelena: "I only find software programming interesting if it solves scientific problems, and there aren't many jobs in that field. But ENTER has customers who do have those projects. So that immediately appealed to me." She is now working through ENTER on an application that can analyze soil layers. Geologists and reservoir engineers use it to determine where best to drill for oil. "We're really making something that scientists use for their research," she says.
No language barrier
In the meantime, Jelena has been living in the Netherlands for five years, together with her boyfriend and their child, who was born here. "Originally I'm from Serbia, just like my boyfriend. We met when we were both living and working in Spain. What was really nice there was the weather. Those very dark short days in the winter over here, I just can't get used to them. But apart from that, I didn't find it hard to settle down here. There is no language barrier, everyone speaks English well. Although I'm also trying to learn Dutch."
When it comes to food, she thinks poffertjes and oliebollen are the biggest highlights. "I love that kind of food! And I also like herring," she laughs. But other than that, she doesn't think Dutch cuisine is fantastic. Although that's not really a problem in the Netherlands. "Because I can cook myself and what's really nice here is that good, fresh and organic products are easy to find here and I can really appreciate that."
