We do everything you can do online from your mobile phone, such as planning the route from home to the flower shop to Aunt Erna. Or what's really popular in America: while the driver is still in the supermarket, he starts the car remotely, so that the air conditioning is running when he gets in. Online services are also very important for electric cars, because you can then control and monitor charging at home or at the charging station, for example.

I also lead the team that works on the core services: this is the underwear of the technology that the customer doesn't see, but is necessary to make the software that the customer sees work. We are also involved in safety-related functions such as the E-Call.

This sends an emergency call as soon as the system registers an accident, for example when certain G-forces act in the car. The car then sends the location and the number of occupants, which the car recognises from the seat belts used. This tells the emergency services exactly how many ambulances to send.

As Function Managers, we are responsible from 'end to end': as soon as Volkswagen Infotainment recognises a need and virtually invents a function for it, we take the responsibility:

• We decide what is needed to realise the function
• We take care of the development process and communication with the development teams
• We work closely with the test teams to jointly define the process and goals for the testings
• We make a release recommendation before the software is rolled out to the customer
• We analyse the tickets that come in
• We think how the function will be developed further.

Our functional responsibility only ends when it is decided that the function is outdated and we need something new.

Function Managers need to be very communicative: they attend many coordination meetings and must be able to both insist on their point of view and make the right compromises.

A great technical understanding is just as important, especially when it comes to digital communication channels. A car then requires another special understanding. If you don't have that yet, we can teach you. We have a very cool induction process through our Function Managers. Everyone in the team is a specialist for one thing and can teach it. We have developed a programme with small training sessions to get to know the basics of our 'underwear'.

When I think about it, we have few outspoken car fans in the team. Of course, we sometimes discuss the gap dimension of a car, but when I slid into the industry eight years ago, I had no idea about cars beyond the bare essentials for a driving licence. But at least I learned how to change a tyre from my uncle and my father.

If we want to clear this up in principle, I can say that I have already done a lot and have already changed branches several times. Because I once thought I wanted to be a judge, I even studied law. And I once thought I would like to work for a newspaper, which is why I started at Germany's biggest city magazine in Berlin. Then I trained as a Media Designer. But because that wasn't enough for me, I started a degree course that didn't exist before. It was an engineering course in Printing and Media Technology.

Unfortunately, my publishing house was bought up and my job was cut. That's why I started doing a lot of advertising stuff: posters, flyers and all the things event organisers need. That was a great time, because if you work for event organisers, you can go to many parties and concerts. But because it doesn't pay that well and I also wanted to do something with my engineering degree, I found a job as a student assistant at the Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development and Environment in IT by chance.

I slid further and further into it because I was an 'allrounder': because how many IT people do you know, who can also design and how many designers are deeply involved in IT?

The Senate Department needed someone, who could design applications in a customer-friendly way and at the same time set up servers for building applications. That's how I slid further and further into IT. After graduating, I first worked there as a freelancer in Berlin, but thought to myself 'Now you have to do something sensible'.
The next coincidence brought me to P3 Systems, which is now called Umlaut. The company was looking for media experts. I thought to myself: what a stupid ad with a few file formats as info and nothing else. But an online application costs nothing, so I pressed 'send'. Six weeks passed between the moment I pressed the button and the moment I sat on my moving boxes in Braunschweig. And I thought to myself: Good God, what have you done now?

Exactly, and the bosses were quite happy to have finally found a woman. They always wanted to employ some, but thought they couldn't send everyone to such a 'men’s pile'. They were always afraid that one had to be totally tough.

No, it was great, I was well received and I really liked it. Also because testing is a great way to get started in the industry: you get to know the car and how it works from the very beginning. I worked with the systems down to the smallest detail, including all the background information.

That's how I grew into it, and then I was responsible for test objects. But I really wanted to become a Function Manager, a position that was not offered there. That's why I switched to IAV. There, I was the Function Manager for AppConnect for about 1.5 years. Only then did I switch to Volkswagen Infotainment.

Because we always have a lot of contacts with other companies in the Volkswagen environment, I noticed how great and varied it is at Volkswagen Infotainment. I had applied for a Function Manager position, but since I was already in a Team Leader programme, my two current Team Leader colleagues recommended putting me in the Team Leader position. After the second interview, the Head of Department and HR also agreed. So that was a coincidence again.

We create really cool worlds with 1 and 0. This desire for innovation is absolutely independent of gender. We are doing things that the normal car user can't even imagine yet, but will only see in 3 or 4 years. That's super exciting.

The fact that we are 100 female colleagues is a really good thing. Unfortunately, it's getting harder to find women the further up we look. I'm still the only female Team Leader in the technical area. But that's not because Volkswagen Infotainment is a big male clique, but because the pool of female applicants is still too small for us to draw from.

We are really very diverse in terms of origin, religion and gender. Not only two genders work here, but also all groups in between.

But that doesn't matter at all.

We are all very tech-savvy and have been trained accordingly. Thanks to this background, we already tick comparatively similarly. Besides, we work together towards the same goal. Where you come from, what gender you are or what your preferences are, doesn't matter at all. We already pay attention to this in the job interviews, whether someone is open and communicative and fits well into the team.

We are a good team based on a really great togetherness. There is no one here who says 'no' or 'no time' when I'm looking for help. The colleagues are happy to take the newcomers by the hand, look at where there are deficits and educate them.

It's always said that it takes a whole village to raise a child, and for a good Function Manager, you need a village of good colleagues, who take the time to help the new colleagues grow into their tasks within six months.

Our Managing Director Bernhard Krauße, who runs Volkswagen Infotainment together with Tobias Nadjib, always says that we are the speedboat in the Group. This simply makes a lot of things faster and less complicated, even if it's through the official channels.

It starts with the fact that we are all on first name terms, even the applicants. Then our average age is once again significantly lower than that of the Volkswagen Group. Even if the size no longer fits, we are still a start-up.

Of course, there are some shortcomings here and there, for example when it comes to staff appraisals. But I have created appointment slots for that, for example: during the FO coffee break, which lasts about half an hour, I talk to all team members about everything. That's
especially important now in Corona times, because we don't meet even in the kitchenette. It's really great because I learn things I didn't know before. For example, how school works in Nepal or how the tribal system in Cameroon is structured. Even though Corona is bad overall, there are little things that I would like to keep in hindsight.