IT COFFEE BREAK

A look back at the most exciting AI conversations of the year. In this special Wrapped episode, we revisit key insights, bold ideas and memorable moments shared by our guests in 2025 — from real-world AI use cases to future-looking perspectives.

Anna Aksenova is a Senior Data Engineer, whose work has reformed customer experience and corporate workflows through many of her projects that use Large Language Models to automate processes and substitute human labour. As companies strive to incorporate more AI tools into their workflows, it is even more important for engineers to stay relevant and excel at their work. 

Timestamps:00:31 - Introduction
01:45 - Journey into Data Science
03:55 - Focus on Machine Learning
05:58 - Work at EPAM
07:18 - Challenges in Generative AI
12:07 - Mentoring and Education
13:45 - Key Skills & Academia vs Industry

Timestamps;

• 01:00 – Giovanna shares her international career journey and cultural experiences

• 03:30 – Adapting communication styles for North America, Germany, and Latin America

• 05:45 – Insights from the “Mastering Communication Skills” workshops for tech professionals

• 07:00 – The LEARN framework: Listen, Empathize, Acknowledge, Negotiate, Respond

• 10:30 – Communicating differently with executives vs. technical teams

• 13:45 – How AI supports communication while keeping the human touch

• 17:00 – Leading multicultural teams and empowering people to find their own style

Apostolos Lampropoulos is Head of Data and Analytics of EPAM in the Adriatic region, Greece, Cyprus, Malta and Croatia. He describes his job as a series of multitasking, as there are many important aspects of his job that he needs to do on a daily basis.

Timestamps:01:40 - Career Journey
03:08 - Role and Responsibilities
05:19 - Becoming an AI-First Company
07:31 - Client Challenges and AI Integration
10:31 - Upskilling and Workforce Development
13:39 - Bridging Business and Technology
17:04 - Change Management & AI and Jobs
19:38 - AI Project Lifecycle
22:29 - Regional Focus and AI Transformation

Since February 2025, Razvan Podovei has been leading EPAM Romania’s Cloud Practice, bringing with him not only extensive technical expertise but also a deeply reflective perspective on what it means to lead. For Razvan, leadership isn’t simply a title — it’s a mindset shaped by experience, persistence, and a genuine commitment to people.

• 01:30 – Razvan’s background & career path

• 06:20 – How he started at EPAM

  12:10 – Leadership approach

  18:40 – Cloud trends in Romania

  25:00 – Message to future colleagues

  28:00 – Outro

As our digital environment is becoming increasingly complex, controversial and multifaceted, we need to try and mitigate uncertainty. Chaos engineering, an emerging methodology in Cloud Engineering, proposes that we use chaos productively to make systems more resilient. EPAM Hungary’s Adam Balazs explains the concept in the following way:

1:00 – Career Journey into IT and EPAM

3:42 – His Role at EPAM Today

5:00 – What is Chaos Engineering?

7:05 – Origins and Evolution of Chaos Engineering

10:30 – The Future: AI and Chaos Engineering

14:00 – Global Mindset & DevOps Days Tokyo Talk

This episode of the IT Coffee Break Podcast highlights the path of Emma Fang, Senior Manager, Technology Consulting at EPAM, part of the "Women at EPAM" Community. This is a collaboration, highlighting the inspiring ladies working at our company.00:00 - Emma's intro. She shares more about herself and her role.

04:21 - What drew Emma to cybersecurity? 

05:31 - Challenges in the field

06:40 - Emma's mentorship and community work

13:41 - Experience working in a corporate environment. Challenges for women in tech

15:00 - Good working models and strategies for women to advance their careers

18:24 - Advice for women in tech

22:00 - Outro

Being a leader, especially in a role like Delivery Manager that blends technical knowledge with people management, is more than just a job title for Claudiu Gall from EPAM Romania. It’s part of his identity. Passionate about the philosophy behind effective leadership, Claudiu has spent years distilling his experiences into a set of practical, people-focused principles that can guide anyone responsible for leading a team.

Timestamps:

01:20 - Claudiu's introduction

02:20 - What Claudiu likes about his job

03:35 - What does it mean to be a DM at EPAM

05:33 - Strategy for work 

08:10 - Building trust with clients and teams

10:35 - How to keep your team engaged

16:00 - Advice for people who want to join EPAM

18:10 - Autro

Gergely Kovács, Senior Delivery Manager from EPAM Hungary has always found it important to work closely with clients and internal teams. The main driving force behind his career has been curiosity: understanding people, and problems and providing the best possible solutions. 

How does someone go from studying law to working as a Test Automation Engineer? At EPAM, we've seen it happen—thanks to the EPAM Campus programs.

These free, online training programs have been helping students and career changers take their first steps into the IT world for years. Whether you're exploring a new path or leveling up your skills, EPAM Campus offers flexible, mentor-led courses in Java, Test Automation, .NET, and more.