Celebrate with us 500 Power People at Sii in Silesia! Read an interview with Michał, Team Leader, the first hero of our campaign
His career path can be an inspiration to many. Michal has proven that with hard work and commitment you can achieve the goals you set!
Sii’s Silesian branches already have more than 500 Power People in their ranks. On this occasion, we interviewed employees who have strongly contributed to the company’s development in recent years, and their attitude and commitment are a blend that you can’t go by indifferently. Read an interview with the first hero of the “500 Power People at Sii in Silesia” campaign – Michał, Team Leader at Sii Poland!
Your adventure in Sii Katowice began over 6 years ago. How did it happen that you joined our company?
It’s fair to say that in 2016 my life changed dramatically – almost simultaneously, I faced a job and a marital status change.
I was recommended to Sii by my friend Darek, well aware that I wanted to start a new career path. I had a recruitment interview with Wojtek Dreja, who is currently the Recruitment Director at Sii Poland. So the bar was set high, but I made it! Our meeting took place in the first Katowice office, located in a beautiful building at Słowackiego Street, in the actual center of the city. After the conversation with Wojtek, I felt that I wanted to try my hand at Sii, in an industry that was almost completely unfamiliar to me at the time. Today I know a lot more about it, and that’s thanks to the fact that I ended up working on the right project.
What impressed me about Sii from the very beginning was that the company is incredibly open to its employees. Many team-building meetings, a great, I would even say – family, atmosphere, as well as help with development from colleagues.
What were the first weeks of your work like? What challenges did you have to deal with?
My first project was related to the rail sector. The main challenge for me turned out to be gaining as much knowledge on this topic as possible, and Sii helped me a lot with that by, among others, supporting me in doing the ISTQB certification. I was incredibly happy to get into such a demanding project! My job was to perform manual testing of software installed in stations responsible for controlling rail traffic in Poland. My other duties were to prepare documentation of internal tests, needed later to close the project.
During the first few weeks at work, I was very keen to quickly blend into the group, as well as to make a convincing impression on my teammates, who had much more experience in the project in which we worked together. During this period, my thoughts were still preoccupied with preparations for a wedding that was to take place soon – this certainly didn’t make things easier! On the other hand, however, I pretty quickly began to note the first achievements. The major success of that period for me was successfully transferring the configuration of test environments to the testing department. It was a demanding and quite difficult task. My work was appreciated and soon, I was offered a change of position.
After two years as an engineer, you became a Test Coordinator and later a Team Leader. How did you manage to do that?
Let me put it straight – it was possible primarily because of the hard work I did during those two years. From a person who had no experience in the rail industry and no knowledge of the testing world, I became one who was offered to lead their own team. It was a huge honor for me. At that point, I decided to do some additional soft skills training, which helped me keep doing my job as a Team Leader. Although the onboarding process for the position may not have been the easiest, it went smoothly. From the beginning, my team consisted of four people – it’s been almost unchanged since November 2019. However, we’ve grown recently and now work with five people.
We know that one of Sii’s most important values for you is “Team spirit and respect”. Tell us more about your team and the people who make it up.
It’s true, one of the most important Sii values for me is “Team spirit and respect” – something that is held in high esteem by my entire team and implemented both at work and outside of it. We have breakfast and lunch together every day (the only exceptions are days when we have to finish a project). In addition, once a month we go to a nearby restaurant for breakfast so that we can also be together outside the office. There, we briefly summarize the month and often discuss topics not directly related to work. The male part of the team also loves going to the mountains together once a quarter – it’s a great opportunity for integration and many valuable conversations. All this contributes to the team spirit that is so important in our project. Each of us believes in all of the Sii values, of course, but another one that is particularly close to us is “Loyalty” – both to the company and the project. I also think that such a solid and mutually liking team shows that we are supportive of each other and eager to help in every aspect, both professional and personal.
As I mentioned before, our team consists of 5 fantastic people. Different, but always pursuing the same goal, which is to bring a given project to completion within the deadline. With Tomek Leszczyński, we have known each other for a very long time and, as his knowledge suited the tasks we perform, he seemed to me a perfect match for my team. I met Jakub Oleksiak during the recruitment phase, which I’d gladly conducted. . In hindsight I can call adding him to the team a great choice – Kuba’s sense of humor, cheerful attitude, and detail-oriented approach are extremely valuable. Tomek Czapla has been with us for a year and has already made a name for himself as a specialist in all kinds of fact sheets, which we also have to prepare in the internal testing process. The last person who joined our team is Karolina. This February, she decided that she needed a change in her professional life and applied to our company for an internship. At the interview, I immediately took notice of her because she was a very open and education-oriented person, which is important in our project. As it turned out, hiring her was a hit! Karolina quickly became an integral part of the team, and you have to remember that working with four men daily may not be the easiest. 😉
Work consumes much of your time and energy. How do you recharge for the next challenges?
My greatest passion, which I share with my lovely wife, has always been music (I have several hundred CDs and vinyl records in my collection), immediately followed by photography. I’ve managed to combine both passions and I’m now involved in concert photography all over Poland. Everything I manage to record can be seen on my blog Maj Music (www.majmusic.com.pl), which you are more than welcome to visit. I also happen to write reviews of albums that I receive from artists. This is one of my ways to recharge. In addition, I love cinema (my wife and I have a cinema subscription and a considerable movie collection), computer games (I own two consoles), books, and sports. The last one – more as a spectator than as an active participant, but I do amateur running, it also gives me lots of energy. I’ve been a member of the Sii Running Team for some time now and participate in competitions, wearing our team’s T-shirt with pride. This year I even participated in my first running camp, which took place in Szklarska Poreba. I have no time for boredom!
Join the Sii in Silesia – check the current vacancies in Katowice, Częstochowa and Gliwice.
