Roundtable | UC3M Alumni at Leading Companies

Curious about what it’s like to work at places like CERN or Microsoft, or how day-to-day looks inside a tech startup versus a large enterprise? In this roundtable, we’ll meet four UC3M alumni who are building (or have built) their careers in top-tier environments. They’ll share their stories, key decisions, lessons learned, and practical advice—and then we’ll open the floor for a long Q&A so you can ask anything. Panelists:

• Coral Izquierdo — former Software & Data Engineer at CERN
• Lucía Cordero — Cloud Solutions Architect – Generative AI & Agents at Microsoft
• Samuel Halstead — Data Scientist at Dive.tech
• María Isabel Ruiz — Junior Engineer at Indra

Event format:

• Short introductions from each panelist (background and current/past role)
• Moderator-led questions to kick off key topics (first job, skills, challenges, decisions)
• Open Q&A with the audience

What you’ll take away:

• A realistic view of different career paths (corporate, research, startup)
• Which skills matter most (technical and non-technical)
• Actionable tips for internships/first job and interview processes
• How to grow professionally and make the most of opportunities

Bring your questions: this session is designed to be practical, interactive, and close to real experience.