Finding his way back to tech – and beyond

Before becoming a developer and later moving into leadership roles, Mihai Cherecheș spent several years working outside the industry he had studied for. His story is less about a sudden career change and more about finding his way back to the right path.

THE DETOUR

When he started studying Computer Science at Babeș-Bolyai University, he thought he already knew the direction his career would take. He studied mathematics and computer science in high school, continued in the same direction at university, and later enrolled in a master’s program as well.

While still a student, Mihai started working in retail. Part time at first, then full-time. Over time the job became more than temporary and he grew into a department manager role.

“My reference point was my parents, who worked three shifts in a factory,” he says. “At that point, I was earning more than they were. That felt like doing well.”

At some point, he stopped thinking seriously about following the career path he had originally prepared for. Then came an unexpected turning point.

THE RETURN

After a car accident and back surgery, continuing in a physically demanding retail role was no longer realistic. Around the same time, his brother, already working at Yonder, encouraged him to apply for an internship at our company.

“It felt like the right moment to return to the field I had originally prepared for.”

He joined the internship at 24 years old, probably the oldest one in the group. The technology was unfamiliar (Progress, a niche stack) and he had zero professional experience in development. It was his first real experience inside an IT company and he knew he had a lot to catch up on.
So he focused on one thing: putting in the work.

“I spent a lot of time learning outside the internship as well. My focus wasn’t really on what everyone else was doing, it was on making sure I could keep up and earn my place.”

THE GROWTH

Over the next years, Mihai gradually grew from junior developer into more senior technical roles. He spent around six years on his first major project in the automotive leasing area, including a period working on-site in the Netherlands. Later, after moving to a healthcare project, he began taking on more responsibility beyond development itself: helping junior colleagues, coordinating work, interacting more closely with clients, stepping into Scrum Master responsibilities, then Team Lead, and eventually Project Management.

Each step came incrementally, not as a formal promotion handed down from above, but as a gradual expansion of what he was willing to own.

“It wasn’t a big switch from development to management,” he says. “It happened naturally, step by step. It started with small responsibilities, and those grew as the project and the team needed more from me beyond the purely technical help.”

The hardest part came when he moved fully into project management across multiple initiatives. That transition was, for him, a real turning point.

“I was used to being the one who determined what happened and where. As a developer, satisfaction came from building things yourself and seeing immediate results. In management, your output depends on other people. Learning to find satisfaction in that, in the impact rather than the deliverable, took me more than a year. Maybe two.”

He’s honest about the adjustment. The wiring of someone who builds things doesn’t change overnight. At the same time, personal development, leadership training programs, mentorship, and new responsibilities started changing the way he saw both work and himself.

“What kept pushing me forward was the feeling that I was growing together with the role.”

What started with small responsibilities eventually grew into his current role as Delivery Manager.

TODAY

Today, another transition is happening across the industry: the integration of AI into day-to-day work. And once again, Mihai finds himself navigating change, but this time from a leadership perspective as he is currently Delivery Manager.

In teams already working with low-code technologies, the conversation goes beyond simply generating code. The real challenge is understanding where AI can meaningfully support workflows, improve collaboration, and help teams work more effectively.

For Mihai, that mindset feels familiar: adapt first, then figure out how to grow through the change.

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Looking back, his story does not feel like a traditional career change. The foundation had always been there: the studies, the interest in technology, the direction he initially chose for himself. He just took a longer road to get there. And it turns out, that road was exactly the right one.