Sii Gdansk is the first branch to reach 1 000 workers! Discover the projects and meet the people behind them
This year, Sii Gdansk team celebrated the achievement of an important milestone – exceeding the number of 1000 specialists in the branch. Sii Gdansk is made up of people with a wide variety of professional profiles and experience – from programmers and testers, through specialists in industrial engineering and security, to recruitment and sales. Find out what it is like to work in the largest branch of the company.
Sii Gdansk, the second branch of Sii Polska, founded in 2008, today is the largest branch of the company and the third largest employer in the IT industry in Pomerania. Supporting over 40 international clients, including companies such as Ingenico, Thales, Puma or the world’s largest manufacturer of integrated circuits, it carries out various projects in the field of IT, R&D and industrial engineering in the latest technologies: Java, C, C ++, C #, .NET, Angular JS, React, Embedded C, Python, Xamarin or Magento. Currently, it employs over 1000 people, including experts with unique competences, often representing less typical technologies or profiles.
– I started working at Sii in February 2006 as an embedded JavaCard programmer and at the same time as a tester for one of Sii’s first clients, Gemalto – says Tomasz Klamrowski, Account Director, employed as the first engineer at Sii Gdansk, even before the opening of the branch itself. – The founder, Gregoire Nitot, enthusiastically presented the plans for the development of his new company in Poland, and I was looking for a job as a programmer. I decided to trust him, which turned out to be a bull’s eye – he adds.
Tomasz currently acts as an Account Director and manages cooperation with one of the company’s largest clients in the high-tech industry and over 400-person team implementing projects for this customer.
Diverse competences
From an embedded developer and tester, through a project manager and Service Delivery Director, Tomasz’s rich career path shows that people are the most important at Sii Gdańsk. The company provides various development opportunities and values the emplyees’ willingness to expand their competences, which is why people stay at Sii for long time. Among the technical teams, we can find people with various competences.
– Working as a solution architect in the Embedded Systems Competence Center requires me to combine many seemingly opposing spheres. First, technical – it’s mainly about developing a working solution. Secondly – interpersonal, because without communication with the client and the technical team and mutual understanding, the project will not be successful. And thirdly, planning – what counts is the ability to transform the technical design and customer requirements into a financial-space-time understandable for business. Each of these spheres is both interesting and deadly boring in the long run. Only by combining them in different proportions, in my opinion, we get a dream job. And that is why I would not exchange the work of a solutions architect for any other, and I have been in Sii for a good 10 years – says Mateusz Januszkiewicz, Security Architect.
– I have been working at Sii for 5 years. I started as a tester and currently as a Python developer I am implementing a project for a client from the automotive industry. In addition to the main project, Sii gives me the opportunity to conduct training and technical talks, thanks to which I develop my soft skills – says Katarzyna Łabędź, Senior Software Engineer.
Soft and technical skills are not everything. Some projects require very specialized knowledge and experience.
– We create software for computers with low-power processors and the number of cores on which many processes are running in parallel. It is very important to create efficient software – you need experience in squeezing every millisecond from the time for code execution and understanding what operations are behind each line of it – says Bronisław Truszkowski, Software Engineer, who uses Java in the world of embedded systems in a rather non-standard way. – In addition, I work on an independent position, where I am responsible for designing the technical solutions that we implement. I have the comfort that I do not have to program in imposed schemes with which I ‘do not agree’. I also help others in creating the code – he adds.
Projects changing the world
What employees appreciate in Sii is not only the possibility of expanding their competences or acquiring new skills, but also the impact of their daily work on changing and improving the world around us on many levels.
– Working in the Engineering Competence Center allows me to deal with projects in various industries. I am currently working on a SCADA project for the largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world. In our project, we are responsible for standardizing turbine stop systems in the case of, among others, icing or protection of bats and birds. Thanks to various projects, I had the opportunity not only to prove myself by working for industry leaders, but also to see many interesting places in the world. One of those that I remember particularly well is Vietnam – says Tomasz Adamczyk, Senior Control System Engineer.
– If you drive a Skoda Fabia, Rapid, Scala, Seat Ibiza, Arona, VW Polo or Audi A1, you have a part in your car, the so-called cross car beam, to which I contributed with my work. At Sii, I mainly implement foreign projects related to the commissioning of machines and robots involved in the welding process in the automotive industry – says Przemysław Dembkowski, Control System Engineer.
– Our small team is working on a project related to electric car chargers and using them to store energy for the electricity grid – it’s great to be part of both the ‘car revolution’ and to make a small contribution to building fewer power plants for cities – says Bronisław Truszkowski, Software Engineer.
Not only IT and engineering
Sii Gdansk means not only programmers, testers or analysts – part of the branch consists of people working in the so-called back office, i.e. positions related to sales, marketing, administration and recruitment. Their tasks include developing the company’s business, maintaining relationships with clients, employees or candidates, as well as administrative support.
– For over 9 years I have been working at Sii in a sales position. My biggest challenge? At Sii, a sales representative is a 360-degree role, you have to take care of many aspects related to the achievement of business goals. Here, each day is different and brings new challenges. It is a constant balancing between customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction, while ensuring the achievement of financial goals – says Karolina Schuetz, Account Executive.
Business support is not only about selling, but also actively increasing the pool of potential employees interested in the company. This is what the Gdańsk recruitment team does.
– We pursue one common goal – acquiring candidates for Sii projects. The IT market presents us with many challenges, so we especially focus on Candidate Unique Experience, i.e. good atmosphere during recruitment interviews and taking care of the candidate throughout the entire process. How the candidate remembers Sii will have a big impact on his or her decision to join our projects – says Alicja Sawicka, Recruitment Manager.
An important link in Sii Gdańsk is the department directly responsible for caring for employees. Magdalena Treder, HR Operations & Billing Manager explains:
– Our department is divided into several areas; related to HR processes (hard and soft) as well as the billing part. In addition to employee documentation, the HR area also includes training, organization of integration events, charity actions, interest groups and many others. Here, we especially care for all employees, carrying out the Power People mission every day and ensuring their work satisfaction.
Great atmosphere – the key to success
The great atmosphere that Sii is famous for plays a significant role at work for many people. One of them is Konrad Podhajski, Test & analysis engineer, who joined Sii Gdańsk as the 1000th employee.
– I’ve been looking for an opportunity to change something for some time. A friend recommended me to work at Sii, I got an invitation to an interview and that’s how I found myself here. The people from the team are great, we get on well with each other and this is probably something I am most happy with – says Konrad Podhajski.
Sii employees with longer experience have a similar opinion.
– I have been working at Sii since 2016. So far, I have had the opportunity to work in two departments and in my opinion, the Embedded Systems Competence Center is the most interesting and dynamic department. In addition to interesting projects in which I can develop myself as a programmer, we have a very nice mix of characters ? The work atmosphere is professional, respectful, but also full of humor. You can’t get bored with that at work! – says Katarzyna Łabędź.
Ambitious plans for the future
Every month, more than 30 specialists join the Pomeranian teams, more than a dozen people also changes the project internally, deciding to take on a new challenge and expand their competences or completely change their career path. The Gdansk branch has already exceeded 1000 employees and has ambitious plans for further dynamic development.
– This milestone is symbolically important, however, we are all the time looking forward for more. Considering the amount of open positions at Sii Gdansk at the moment, I think we will clearly exceed 1100 workers this year, perhaps even 1200. I see this growth as the reward of the realization of our mission ‘Power People’ and of one of our core objectives: Workers satisfaction – says Michael Desmurs, Regional Director.
Many specialists with various profiles work at Sii Gdansk, and the branch is developing very dynamically. If you want to develop with us, check who we are currently looking for in Gdańsk and join us!
