Virginia Alvarez remembers her job interview clearly, mostly because of where it happened: a shopping mall in Cali, Colombia. The interviewer was visiting from the US, and instead of booking a conference room, they sat down in the middle of the mall and talked. It was only her second job interview, and she had prepared for pointed questions or a test. Instead, much of the conversation went the other way: he spent it telling her why she should join inQbation, Agileana’s former name, before he had even offered her the job.
What Virginia did not know was that the company already remembered her. Years earlier, she had tried to intern at inQbation after meeting the team at a university job fair. The internship could not move forward because the company was not yet legally established in Colombia, but HR remembered how confidently she communicated in English. When another opportunity opened, they brought her name back to the hiring manager. By the time Virginia arrived at the mall, much of the case for hiring her had already been made.
That experience introduced a pattern that would shape her career: people trusted Virginia with an opportunity, and she learned how to return that trust through consistency, honesty, and care.
At the time, she was working at a digital marketing agency and was stressed enough to have nightmares about the job. Yet the role revealed the strength Agileana needed. Virginia had started as a developer and quickly realized code was not where she did her best work. What came naturally was talking with clients under pressure, understanding what they needed, and staying steady. So when a friend at inQbation mentioned an opening for a project manager, she agreed to interview almost immediately.
Before her first day, her manager gave her two books: The Agile Samurai and The Elements of Scrum. She had no background in agile, but its emphasis on flexibility, responsiveness, and delivering what matters to the client clicked immediately. Those principles have guided her work ever since.
The first major test came only a few months later, when Virginia was trusted with a larger role on an established account. She spent six months in the US shadowing the person leading it and learning the history, context, and relationship details that no handoff document can fully capture. She still remembers that Blake, Agileana’s co-founder, made coffee each morning while she stayed at his home—a small gesture that reflected the low-ego culture she was entering.
Virginia went on to support and grow that account for years by being consistently transparent. When a request fell outside the project scope or was not feasible within a sprint, she did not stop at “no.” She explained why and paired the answer with a recommendation or alternative. Trust, in her view, is not built by pretending every answer is easy. It is built by being clear, reliable, and focused on helping the client move forward.
That same approach shaped the team around the work. Feedback was treated as useful information, not a challenge to authority. Developers could raise concerns directly, retrospectives led to concrete improvements, and everyone was expected to believe that the person offering feedback was on the same side. For Virginia, transparency strengthened both the client relationship and the way the team worked together.
She brings the same instinct to newer accounts. On one recent engagement, discovery showed that the client needed more than a straightforward platform migration. Agileana adapted by training and empowering the client team to use Drupal’s capabilities and build landing pages themselves. The principle remained the same: be honest about what the scope covers, then give people the knowledge and tools to move forward confidently.
It is also how Virginia leads now that others report to her. Micromanagement, she believes, creates pressure instead of making room for good work. Agileana hires capable people, so trusting them is the logical next step. She checks in on outcomes, not activity, and gives people room to take ownership.
Outside work, Virginia has taken up ceramics, a practice that offers its own lesson in letting go. A piece that looks perfectly round while she shapes it can warp as it dries, shift in the kiln, and change again under the glaze. She likes that unpredictability. Not controlling every variable does not mean things will fall apart; sometimes they simply turn out differently than planned.
Her advice to anyone starting a career in their twenties is simple: work somewhere you can be yourself, alongside people you genuinely like. Promotions and higher pay matter, but they are not the whole point. Virginia describes Agileana less as a family and more as a community, one built over time through trust, mutual respect, and real relationships. Being trusted early helped her become the kind of leader, teammate, and client partner others can trust in return.