Are “Dinosaurs” extinct in the Tech world?
For our parent’s generation, it was natural to spend many years in the same company in a stable position. For today’s generation — particularly in IT — it’s not a popular approach. It’s common to change jobs regularly and there’re very solid arguments for this: the desire to develop, the pursuit of new challenges and the need to go beyond the comfort zone.
However, there’re still a lot of people in the Tech world who decide to work in one company for a long time. Today, I want to analyze why people decide to stay at the same company for a longer time based on Docplanner Tech’s example. I’ll present stories from our “Dinosaurus” — people who have been in our organization almost from the beginning and took an active part in changes and watched our ups and downs. Why do we have so many people at Docplanner Tech who have been working with us for so long? What prevents them from changing, despite many temptations on the labour market? Have they experienced crises during their work? I’ll try to answer these questions through the stories of four our “Dinosaurs”. Let’s start! :)
Who is a “Dinosaur”?
First, I want to define the term “Dinosaur” which can have a different connotation. In IT, a “Dinosaur” is associated with someone who has been in the industry for many years and doesn’t track all technological changes. However, we understand this word a bit differently :) At Docplanner Tech we often call “Dinosaurs” people who were with us almost from the beginning. They joined when there were just a few people in the company, and now they're almost 1,500 in the whole Docplanner Group. The company is already a completely different organization than it was a few years ago when they started.
Do you know that 46% of people work with us for more than 2 years? Currently, we have 25 people who have been in the Tech part for over 5 years, of which 11 have been with us for over 7 years. Rotation in the technological part is still below 10% and in all Tech we have around 150 people. We’re very proud to achieve such results because It’s not easy in Tech. Keeping IT experts in the company is quite a challenge and we’re coping with it quite well. :)
Let me introduce four amazing “Dinosaurs” from Docplanner Tech who agreed to show their perspective for the topic:
Begoña Ortiz
— Frontend Developer & Team Leader from one of our team in Barcelona. She has been working in our company for more than 5 years, starting as a Junior Developer. Now Begoña is a Team Leader and Mentor for others. Begoña is always kind to others and versatile — she is really engaged in a wide range of topics — not only frontend development.
Dawid Pietrołaj — Head of CRM and Payments. Dawid joined the company more than 8 years ago as a Junior Backend Developer. In the first years of his work, he was focused on combining coding with product management. Eventually, his passion for business and product development won over programming and he continued to grow as a Product Manager. His hallmarks are: focus on quick results and constant business development.
Joan Verdaguer — Senior Backend Developer & Team Leader — 7 years ago Joan joined the Doctoralia family as an experienced Developer. Now he is also a Team Leader and his responsibility is centred around taking care of people and technological improvements. Joan loves technology — he has an enormous passion for gaining new knowledge. He is always super helpful and open to people.
Bartłomiej Kuleszewicz — Engineering Director — his career at Docplanner started more than 9 years ago from the Junior Developer position. Now as the Engineering Director he takes care of a lot of crucial aspects at Docplanner Tech — he puts his heart and soul into people development and keeping the highest technological standards. He is still involved in building the product.
People first
It may sound a bit cliche, but It’s true — people make the company. Here, I must proudly admit that we attach great importance to selecting the right people for our company. In the recruitment process, we look for features and values that are essential to us. These include passion, entrepreneurship and focus on results.
My interlocutors also emphasized the huge role of the team with which they have the opportunity to work with. People who make up the Docplanner Tech team love what they do and they’re good at it. Dawid underlies that It’s people who have made the company succeed:
“ It’s Interesting why our company has managed to go so far. The company was built by a certain group of people who often joined here for completely different positions. I really appreciate the opportunity to work with people with such great potential. We feel that we’re in the same boat” — said Dawid
“I’m happy that I can work with all people here. The atmosphere is great and everyone is very friendly, usually with very good levels of professional skills” — added Joan.
We have the first ingredient to success, which is keeping the turnover low: these are the people who make up the company. We work from two countries: Poland and Spain, but we form one team with a common mission and goals. We focus strongly on results, and the commitment, competences and passion of team members are an additional motivating element. Of course, apart from focusing on typical professional aspects, we think that we simply work with great people we can build relationships with also after working hours. Ok, but what’s another element that contributes to the fact that our “Dinosaurs” haven’t left us yet? Check out another point :)
Second — grow with the company
When the first people joined the Tech team, they felt a startup’s atmosphere. This time we didn’t have the international structure — Doctoralia in Spain and ZnanyLekarz in Poland were new products at the beginning of their journey on the market. Both companies had a typical startup atmosphere — everyone knew each other, there were no procedures, and the most important thing was the effectiveness that was to lead to success. Although we still believe that we have a startup spirit, we are a much larger organization (almost 1500 people onboard and offices in 9 cities around the world), It’s not completely the same family atmosphere as at the beginning. Many people in the tech industry appreciate working in small startups. However, my interlocutors didn’t miss the mini startup stage because they knew that all changes were the result of the company’s development. Dawid notes:
“The company grew and presented me new challenges. I could grow with Docplanner if I ran fast enough”.
People grew together with the company — they broadened their horizons, dealing with more and more advanced problems, and as a result, their role and positions changed. It was a natural process that at the same time, people and the company became more mature. I think this is crucial in the context of answering the question of why so many people have decided to work with us for a long time: It’s an opportunity to grow. The search for new professional challenges and the lack of these opportunities in the current company is one of the most common reasons for changing jobs that I hear during recruitment interviews with candidates. As Dawid said:
“There was no question of stagnation and boredom — there were always some challenges we had to overcome”.
Change is a word that accompanies us constantly in Docplanner. Bartek notes:
“I’ve got used to constant changes a long time ago and I consider them as something positive. Even though we’re a large company, we can react quickly to the changing situation. The year 2020 surprised us with the COVID-19 pandemic. We couldn’t let the crisis hit our company, so we changed the direction of our activities and in less than 2 weeks the first version of the product for video consultation was created“ (if you want to read more about it, see the article written by Kasia Adamczyk).
All of my interlocutors are currently Team Leaders in the company, which entails additional responsibility and a challenge. The role of Team Leader is completely different than that of a specialist — we can summarize it as: inspire people to achieve goals and to be happy.
For Begoña, being promoted to the position of Leader meant a complete change of duties and
a change in her thinking about work efficiency:
“I started to be responsible for a group of people and my role was to support and help them to thrive in their work and become their best professional image of themselves. Therefore, many things have changed because the set of skills that used to make me a good developer was still valid, but a lot of new skills that are required for managing people were needed suddenly. I had to realise that the performance of my work is based on my contribution to people’s development which is not as tangible and objective as my work as a developer was.”
Nowadays, we have a little more organized aspects of professional development, but a few years ago, there was no division into job levels.
“When I started we didn’t have a division between Junior / Mid / Senior positions. I thought I was already a Regular Developer because I had a few years of experience, but when I came here, it turned out that I didn’t learn much during those few years. Here I was able to work with other, more experienced developers. I think I was a Junior, and working in Docplanner greatly helped me develop my skills” — said Bartek.
Bartek’s example perfectly illustrates the development opportunities offered by Docplanner — he went the path from Junior to Director and now he has a big impact on the technological vision in the company.
Third — the product
Unique people and development opportunities are extremely important elements that make people work with us. However, we can’t forget another element here — a great product that affects people’s lives. Our company’s mission is not just a slogan hanging in the golden frame in the office (fun fact: we don’t have any golden frame with our mission ). “Making the health experience more human” is the essential goal of all our activities and we’re proud that we can participate in making this great mission true.
“I feel the commitment to the company and our mission” — this is a really motivating element for Begoña
Another key aspect for IT specialists is keeping the highest tech standards: quality of software and supporting team members in constant development, which is crucial in most tech positions.
“What keeps me in this company is a very good product. For me, as a Developer, It’s also important to have the highest technological standards. Technically we’re pretty good. I don’t need to change a company because someone is using new technology. We’re using the newest technologies” — said Joan.
At this point I would like to stress that we are not chasing new technologies — we use them when they’re the best choice (from different perspectives — it can be connected with business and our needs). We have a lot of new technological solutions but in the company that size we have to have a monolith and we are honest about it.
Joan also emphasizes that although the company has changed over the years and looks completely different than at the beginning of his work, he still feels the startup atmosphere:
“We still have a spirit of the company where every contribution is valuable. We still have the startup mindset. We aren’t transforming into the corporation with narrow specialisation and a small box of responsibilities” — narrates Joan.
The mission and values of the company are super important factors, but let’s not forget about the business value — and we must admit that we’re doing great in this area and Docpanner is the leader of the international market in the field of medical services. At Docplanner, we avoid the word “employee” and think of ourselves as entrepreneurs who work for the company revenue. The result of this assumption is a unique benefit, which is share options. Each of us receives an individual stock option plan, which in the future (in the case of selling the company or entering the exchange stock market) will mean a financial bonus. We want to reward people who are dedicated to co-creating our product, therefore the total number of options received is also influenced by the time that we spend in the company. Undoubtedly, it also influences the fact that so many people stay with us for longer. After all, we’re still looking for enterprising people, right? :)
If you want to read more about share options, please check this article.
Is the grass greener somewhere else? A few words about crises
I don’t want to show you just an idealized picture. Our “Dinosaurs” also had crises and moments when they wanted to quit everything and look for professional happiness somewhere else. Not everything is pink and in the history of the company people also experienced some hard times.
The difficult moment for the team working in Spain was the merger of Doctoralia with Docplanner. Begoña shares her memories:
“I had a crisis just after the merge of two companies. When Doctoralia joined the Docplanner Group the strategy of further development wasn’t clear. It was a tough period, we didn’t know what to expect. We had a lot of barriers — language, different technologies, different ways of working, cultural, communication etc. We realized that we wouldn’t overcome these problems if we didn’t start to get to know each other better and work together. We released it and we decided to make a lot of effort to make it succeed. And that’s why I’m still here. :) It wasn’t easy but it was one the biggest learning experiences that have ever had” — told me Begoña.
Bartek doesn’t hide that he thought about the change several times and he was at several recruitment interviews. He even arranged a one-month trial period with one company. However, he didn’t want to definitively end the cooperation with Docplanner, so he decided to try and start working with the second company after hours.
“I wanted to see how it would feel to work elsewhere. It turned out that what they showed me in the recruitment process looked completely different in practice. After a month, when I didn’t like this company, I went to Grzesiek (my previous Leader) and I honestly said what I felt: that I need a change, that I don’t develop myself. Together, we discussed what to do with it” — recounts Bartek.
In his current role, he tries to overcome difficulties by himself and to find other people to encourage them to change. Begoña is adopting a similar strategy.
“Everything is in your hands. The key point is, that you can always find someone who will want to make changes with you” — said Begoña.
Our company’s culture is based on feedback, so we strongly encourage everyone to speak openly about difficulties and problems.
“The company is made by people. In the end, people decide that the company looks like this” — added Joan.
Bartek sums up that he knows that at this point it would be difficult for him to find a company with such development opportunities as here. He also emphasizes the greater opportunities that result from the development of the organization — we have more teams — each of them is unique and even a team change can guarantee completely new opportunities.
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to find another company where I would have such opportunities. If someone feels stagnation or lack of development, they can change the team. In our company, each team is a separate startup, with its methodology and way of working” — said Bartek.
Summary
So, what is the recipe for a company where people want to work for a long time? We can distinguish some of the most important ingredients that have worked well in Docplanner Tech:
- People with passion and great potential, who value cooperation with each other, and at the same time are focused on achieving amazing results.
- Hiring the right people and giving them space for development and going beyond their comfort zone — all this to prevent stagnation.
- Very good product, which has a big business value with a social mission.
- Last but not least: the ability to deal with crises and to talk openly about difficulties and focus on problem-solving.
Dear Readers — thank you for your attention. I wish you to work in a company where you can even become a “Dinosaur” :) In Docplanner Tech “Dinosaurs” aren’t extinct. They keep evolving like all the other species… :)
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