Lucie Kresl
Lucie Kresl graduated from Berkeley in Spring of 2019 with a degree in IEOR as well as a SCET certificate in Entrepreneurship and Technology. She currently works at Barclays, a UK-based bank, as a Technology Analyst based in New Jersey.
Originally from Texas, Lucie came to Berkeley without really knowing anyone else also attending, which forced her to go outside of her comfort zone. Due to her extroverted personality, she was able to meet new people and make long-lasting memories through joining a variety of organizations. During her time at Cal, Lucie was a competitive member of the Cal Figure Skating Team, enjoying the supportive environment that the team endorsed. She also was an officer for 5 semesters in the Society of Women Engineers, which she found to be a great opportunity to meet other women in different fields and backgrounds.
Along with her friends from SWE, Lucie met some of her best friends from college in IEOR classes, and even worked with Keith McAleer on the IEOR Undergraduate Communications Council to help promote the department and IEOR-related events.
Upon reviewing her IEOR coursework, Lucie notes that her favorite class was IEOR 171, stating that “171 is a class I draw from every single day”, as understanding how people communicate
best has been critical throughout her post-graduate career. While exploring potential career options, some of Lucie’s initial experiences and internships included project management for a
small engineering company, which later translated into an internship for manufacturing and continuous improvement at GE. This work primarily involved thinking about various processes and understanding how to best optimize them. From this experience, Lucie identified that her favorite part of the job was talking to the operators working on the floor and understanding what the pressing problems they faced were.
In fact, she notes that this role as someone who helps to communicate the problems that engineers and operators are facing is by and large what she currently does in her role as a
Technology Analyst at Barclays. As Lucie describes, she’s a “liaison between the engineering team as well as the clients and traders”, helping to bring technical solutions based on
understanding main client issues and what the engineering team needs to fix. She came about entering this role primarily because some of her initial work upon entering the company involved
helping to automate various processes. By communicating with a VP in charge of the project as well as the development team, she helped to automate and clear a massively-backlogged
request form.
A note of particular interest is that Lucie was a part of Barclays’ technology resilience team for the pandemic in March and April of 2020. Working alongside various contractors, she helped to
build and ship monitors as well as desktop to traders. In addition, her team helped to set-up a triage trading floor to help transition traders as they set themselves to properly work from home.
Her efforts and skills in dealing with the sudden changes enacted by the COVID-19 pandemic did not go unrecognized, as her role in setting up the transition to work from home helped her
earn the Barclays Group Technology 2020 Entry Level Award.
When asked about advice Lucie had for current students, she emphasized that it is very common to not know what your passion is. She points out that “the expectation you’re going to
love what you’re doing” is not a fair expectation at all and that the search for what you are interested in and what to contribute to continues long after you graduate. Part of this uncertainty
in her career interests prompted her to join a graduate development program at Barclays, which focuses on leadership and professional development for recent graduates. To Lucie, this program was particularly helpful as her cohort of graduates worked on different teams and projects and helped give her more exposure to their experiences and help her understand more about the company at large as well as uncover what opportunities are out there. Through this program and her experiences in general, she’s found that a great way to help uncover what you are truly passionate about is to constantly ask questions to interviewers and people you interact with to understand what the best part of your job is.
Through her own exploration, Lucie discovered that one of the ways she could leave positive impact is through helping to improve representation and gender diversity. To that end, she’s
joined various Diversity and Inclusion groups within Barclays and has consistently helped out with various Women in Technology events. In fact, one of the groups that Lucie is particularly
involved within is Global Lean In Circles, which was recently nominated this past month Barclays 2020 D&I Awards in the Colleague Development category.
Her biggest piece of advice for aspiring undergraduates is to keep an open mind and apply
broadly to a wide range of programs, companies, locations, and role types, as oftentimes the “company culture has a bigger impact on how you feel” about your position.
