Visiting Spyrosoft in Warsaw – an interview with Site Manager Rafal Gruszczynski

How can you keep a homely office atmosphere in a fast-paced capital city? Why are employee relationships key to team building? And in what areas is Spyrosoft Warsaw developing? A conversation between Anna Zurek, Employer Branding Specialist and Rafal Gruszczynski, Site Manager.

How would you describe the IT services landscape in Warsaw? Is it any different from other major Polish cities? 

The IT market in Warsaw is, above all, large. There are a lot of IT companies located here, and many of our clients have their headquarters or development centres here as well. The Warsaw IT landscape is, therefore, vast, both in terms of supply and demand.

I believe there is no clearly dominant technology in the Warsaw market. In Warsaw, as in Lodz or Cracow, the business mainly revolves around the financial sector – not only banks but also other financial institutions. Another branch would be enterprise technologies.

Then what does the Spyrosoft branch in Warsaw specialise in? What kind of projects and technologies do you work on there?

Our portfolio is actually very diverse. Gaming is something that dominates in Warsaw right now because a lot of our employees work on projects for our gaming client, Steelseries. It’s even noticeable in the office! When we walk in, we are struck by desks illuminated with neon lights, adorned with gaming posters, and equipment laid out. We’re really into this!

However, this is only one segment. The others are quite diverse because we deliver solutions for the financial sector and the automotive industry, and we also do classic Java, .NET, manual and automatic testing, and artificial intelligence. So, as you can see, it’s quite a range.

In the Warsaw site, we have also launched our database operations, which extend data processing from data engineering to visualisation. In addition, in this department, we have now also extended our AI experts team, which completes the whole process of advanced, end-to-end data processing.

Another vital part of what we do is cybersecurity. Our services range from data security, which is the most significant value our customers entrust to us, to keeping certain standards when it comes to building software with all kinds of security dimensions. We have designed a best-practice framework that we follow and implement for our clients, but we also share our expertise with others. Just recently, we had a chance to present our approach and know-how during the most recent SoDA Breakfast.

What makes Spyrosoft different from other Warsaw-based IT companies?

Let me start by saying that we are very people-centered. We maintain close professional relationships and foster them regularly. The function of Line Managers works very well at Spyrosoft. We select people carefully for that role, focusing on their ability to work with people. Our LMs genuinely put their employees first.

This contact is important for many reasons. Getting to know people better allows us to find projects that are as close to their preference as possible, related to their experience or the direction they want to go out of passion. And it’s hard to get that type of connection from a job application or a report — conversation is a must.

What’s so nice about Warsaw, and what the employees appreciate, is that the atmosphere is very friendly and relaxed. It’s the atmosphere between us, between employees. Everyone is always welcome here.

Do you also create opportunities like this for out of work hours?

We have a few of our rituals, various sports tournaments or afternoons of board games and console games. We also have a monthly meeting called InSpyro, where we share our interests and passions to inspire others. The topics that come up are very diverse. They that range from artificial intelligence, computer vision, ecology, travel, science to social trivia. These meetings always attract people and then bring up all sorts of interesting discussions.

We are keen to inspire, hence the name of the event – InSpyro. It quickly became our ritual and trademark.

Rafal, what is your philosophy for managing people? What is the most important thing, from your perspective?

Individually, the most important thing is getting to know and appreciate the employees. At Spyrosoft, we hire people for the company, not people for projects. We are planning for the long-term. Each of our line managers devotes a great deal of attention and time to building and maintaining relationships to ensure that we know what is going on with our people. We support them where they need it, whether providing encouragement and opportunities for professional development or simply challenges in their lives that we can help tackle.

As far as teams are concerned, this is more complex. One of the most important things is providing fairness within the team. We achieve this through mechanisms that have been implemented in the company, like a skills matrix describing the competence required for a particular position. We have also implemented transparent salary ranges. This way, everyone knows what they are working towards. Transparency is vital to earn trust.

How many people work from the office, and how many from home?

The vast majority work hybrid. And everyone has their own definition of this, too. Some are in the office four days a week, others once or twice a week. These are individual choices, and most of our employees work with clients remotely, often abroad. Hence the flexibility in choosing your own system.

What does the cooperation with clients look like?

It depends on the client. I work as an Account Manager in one of the projects. I have contact with many people in the client’s organisation, and our relationship is direct and very friendly, yet very effective.
The direct contact with our clients calls for excellent communication skills, which we put a lot of emphasis on in our recruitment process. It is also great that many clients allow our employees to act not only as executors of the assigned tasks but allow them to step more into a consulting role and use their experience.

What does the future hold for Spyrosoft Warsaw? What are the plans for this year?

Warsaw market is large, and a lot is happening. At Spyrosoft Warsaw, we now focus on the particular technologies and services we provide to seal our position as an expert.

Qt is one of those areas where we want to show our expertise. The opportunity to do that will be in April. We are organising another Spyrosoft Learn & Chill event, called “In synergy with Qt”. A was held in Szczecin last year, and we decided to bring it to Warsaw, too. We are eager to share and present a few of the projects we work on and associate our name with that field.

Cyber security is another area we’re focusing on. This is quite a specific topic, as clients often have their own security departments and only reach outside in exceptional situations. However, we believe that these are the times when cyber security is crucial.

And last but not least, data. We have created a lot of different functionalities for efficient data processing and will continue to do so. We are keen to show our customers how much value can still be squeezed out of these huge data sets.

So, in terms of development and plans for this year, these are the three pillars we will focus on. However, we stay open to the dynamic changes that the future may bring.

Thanks for sharing and see you in April!