Julia Ruffolo

Ruffalo Ruffalo

Julia Ruffolo

Role: Project Coordinator

Department: Micro Automation

Location: Montreal

John Molson School of Business, Concordia University – Bachelor of Commerce.  Specialized in Business Technology Management and Data Intelligence.

Graduation year: Fall 2017

What is your current role at Sun Life?

Project Coordinator/Tester in the Micro Automation department

Getting started

Sun Life is a huge company that is known for its quality products in the insurance world. It has a welcoming and progressive environment. Specifically, it has great opportunities in the information technology world, and being an information technology student; I was very much interested in starting my career here at Sun Life.

Your role

The Micro Automation department builds tools/applications for other Sun Life departments. Once the developers on the team complete building the tools/applications, I then test it to ensure that all the bugs get caught and brought to the attention of the developers to be fixed before it gets implemented, alongside a business analyst on the project. In addition to testing application for bugs and defects, I also help my supervisor in coordinating projects. By this I mean flagging the projects that have a status of RED, and getting information from the project team in terms of a plan to go green. I also do some reporting in terms of how much time is spent on the project (internally) and evaluate these numbers against estimates, to make sure that both cost and schedule are not exceeded.

What is satisfying about my job is that it is directly related to what I am studying at school. I think it is a huge opportunity and advantage to be able to learn both classroom theory and be given the chance to witness and apply this knowledge in a professional work environment. It also helps confirm my choice of specialization in terms of my business degree.

Working at Sun Life

I find the culture to be very progressive and inviting. Everyone around you is always so nice and willing to provide you with support. I enjoyed it so much that I was excited to come back for a second work-term for my Co-op. Lastly, people I worked with never did not highlight the fact that I was an intern, rather, I was treated like a real full-time employee.

As mentioned earlier, Sun Life has great information technology related opportunities, which I was lucky enough to be part of for two of my three Co-op work terms. These work terms have helped me confirm my choice of study, and specialization. It has also provided me with experience, especially in terms of business etiquette, which is not necessarily taught in a classroom environment.

Next steps:

Find out how to apply online