My dad, Mark Klimek, went to Illinois Benedictine College and now works for CAN Insurance in downtown Chicago as a Webservices Team Lead.
Q: What is your job title? And what does your job entail?
A: My job title is Webservices Team Lead. In my role as a team lead, I have several primary responsibilities (and a whole bunch of little jobs too). First, I am the main contact point for all projects which require engineers from my team. It is my job to examine the work being requested and then assign the appropriate engineers that not only have the skills required, but also the time to take more work. I manage the workload for 25 engineers across four separate teams with varying skills. Secondly, I have to review and approve the changes that are submitted both by my team, and by people from other teams. Frequently, I also have to assign engineers to support work being done by other teams within the company. Lastly, I work with a resource director to perform yearly performance appraisals, determine career paths, and provide feedback to the engineers when necessary to address both outstanding efforts as well as less than outstanding efforts.
Q: What schooling do you need to perform your job?
A: I have a Bachelor of Science degree, with a major in Computer Science and a minor in Math. These degrees are not specifically required for me to perform my current job, but they have allowed me to understand the more technical aspects of the work being done by my team.
Q: Why did you choose to follow the career path of a Webservices Team Lead?
A: I chose to follow this career path for a couple of reasons. First, my previous job stunk and my current boss needed someone with my experience to manage her team on a daily basis. Second, I thought that working for a large insurance company would give me a great opportunity to learn some new skills and then perhaps look for other openings within the company.
Q: What is your favorite part of your job?
A: The favorite part of my job is the view I have of Lake Michigan and Buckingham Fountain from my desk. I take time every day to look outside and enjoy it.
Q: What do you dislike about your job?
A: I don’t like having to confront people to talk about their poor performance. This is never a fun conversation, but it is important to provide feedback so people can understand their weaknesses and areas in which they can improve.
Q: What kind of advancement does your job offer?
A: I have the ability to move from my current job in Information Technology to almost any other department within the company. I could learn Claims processing, Policy Issuance, Risk Analysis, and so on.
Q: What is the range of salaries for your job?
A: The salary range for my job is $80,000 – $200,000 per year.
Q: Do you think your job is important? If so, why?

A: I feel that my job is very important. I have to manage the workload of engineers to make sure they don’t have too much work to do (or too little) and balance that with the work that the company wants to accomplish. Very frequently, there is more work to be done that there are workers to do it. In those cases, I have to act as a mediator to determine what work has the most priority. This requires me to have a complete knowledge of all the projects my team is working on, in addition to all the work that is NOT being worked on but is waiting for someone to be assigned. Many times, I have to work with many different project teams and many different people to come to these decisions.