“I joined the European Commission’s translation service in 2009 after working for a decade as a journalist, following studies in biology and environmental policy.

I planned to translate for a couple of years and then explore opportunities elsewhere, but the work here has been much more varied and intellectually stimulating than I expected – so I have yet to think about leaving! Over the years I have had lots of roles, including organising events and doing internal and external outreach.

Many of my colleagues studied languages and a large number specialised in translation, but a good few of us accumulated the necessary skills on different career paths. I never studied translation and had relatively limited experience of it before the competition, but we have excellent in-house training to plug knowledge gaps. This includes training on the latest tools and technologies, such as machine translation and now AI. These have not yet removed the essential satisfaction I get from being the human mind that decides how the final translation looks.

Another major factor behind me staying in translation has been the opportunity to learn – and to regularly use – new languages.”