That was no coincidence. My training manager Petra planned it that way. She wanted me to get to know as many Circles and Liipers as possible, and to check off as many training objectives as I could along the way. In the end, what mattered was where there was work and support for me, not a fixed plan on paper. Still, looking back, a clear order emerged, and that order made the difference. Each Circle gave me something I needed in the next one.
From August 1 to November 1, I was in the Finance Circle. This is where it all started
I supported the move of the Finance area away from our Atlassian wiki. The new solution was not yet decided. So I put everything from it onto Google Drive for the time being. That sounds like a simple cleanup job. In fact, it was a good starting point to see how much knowledge actually comes together at Liip, and where it lives.
My tasks in the Circle:
- Responsibility for our Finance email, where all invoices arrive. I cleared them and entered them into RMA, our finance system.
- The monthly credit card reconciliation, where I always looked for automation potential too.
- Refreshing the NDA archive. I took over the entire history and built a few automations for it in Google Sheets, so nobody has to check by hand anymore where a contract sits.
I had the most fun whenever I could freely look for automation potential and research it. The big data transfers were less exciting. A good tip for that: put on a podcast, then it works out fine. The most typical Finance task for me was the monthly credit card reconciliation. Exactly the kind of work that keeps a company running in the background.
In the Finance Circle, I did not learn numbers first, I learned how Liip works as a company.
From November 1 to February 1, I was in the Drupal ZĆ¼rich Circle. This is where things got more concrete
Here, for the first time, I got to take on a piece of the PO role. Together with Petra, I supported one project. On other projects, I first watched and took on smaller tasks to understand the business behind them. That was a different pace than the Finance Circle. Instead of taking over existing processes, I had to understand how a client project comes together in the first place, from the first requirement to implementation.
Later, bigger tasks were added:
- PO testing after the developers' first implementation
- A handbook for the Drupal backend, which I wrote from scratch
For that handbook, the explanations had to be simple enough that even someone without a coding background could work with it. That was the biggest exercise for me.
Even though this is a production Circle at Liip, I never coded myself there. In vocational school, I did work with Python. It was not really for me, though. What I do appreciate: Petra keeps pushing me toward code in our syncs, explaining or showing me things. In the Circle itself, I dealt a lot with the backend and frontend, but never in the code directly. The coolest moment for me was finishing the handbook. Afterward, a lot of positive, grateful reactions came in.
In the Drupal ZĆ¼rich Circle, I learned what Liip as a company actually stands for.
From February 1 to August 1, I was in the Design and Content Circle. This is where I got to show what I had learned
In this Circle, a lot revolved around AI with a focus on content, whether creation, editing, or guidelines. For client projects, I got to:
- Write prompt sheets for Textmates
- Try out process optimizations
- Write my own blog post
- Build my own AI tools
- Help with trainings and workshops, and shape them myself in the end
That ranges from preparing the materials to actively supporting the workshop itself, when participants have questions or get stuck on an exercise.
The workshop I mentioned at the start was with Caritas St. Gallen und Appenzell. At the same time, it was our very first Responsible AI Workshop. In the very year I grew at Liip myself, our expertise on this topic grew a lot too.
I was in no other Circle this long. That made a difference. I was much more integrated into the Circle's work. Especially in the second half, I noticed how much trust and responsibility I was given to get things done on my own. Content-wise, the work here was especially exciting: it revolved a lot around Liip's internal content, combined with workshops for clients where we could pass on our knowledge. That was something different again from the two Circles before.
In the Design and Content Circle, I no longer just got to learn, I got to pass something on myself.
What built up over the year
When I put the three Circles side by side, I mostly see a curve in responsibility. In the Finance Circle, I took over processes that already existed, and got to know people, tools, and workflows at Liip along the way. In the Drupal ZĆ¼rich Circle, it was more about Liip's actual business, web development, and I already got to make my own decisions in PO testing and even got to know clients. In the Design and Content Circle, I could use that knowledge to work on strategic tasks, build my own tools, and help shape workshops.
Each Circle prepared me for the next. Not because I planned it myself, but because that is exactly the system behind the Digital Business Developer apprenticeship at Liip. I see that most clearly with automation. In the Finance Circle, I learned through the credit card reconciliation how to break down a process and look for automation potential. I needed exactly that mindset again in the Design and Content Circle, when I built my own AI tools. Without the first step, I could not have approached the third the way I did.
One thing ran through all three Circles, and it has nothing to do with expertise. I learned that I can go to others and ask for help. Not because I am an apprentice and that is allowed, but because at Liip that is simply normal for everyone.
Trust did not come all at once for me, it came Circle by Circle, and that is what has changed me the most from last August until today.
What does your own learning curve look like? Does it build up step by step for you too, or more in leaps?