Introducing Team Motius — Timmy, Sara, Pablo and André

Right now, there are more than 70 people working at Motius, dedicated to work at and co-develop the best place for techies. All of these Motees have their own expertise, their own background, their own personalities. Although we’ve often talked about the great things they do and the impact that they have with their projects, we haven’t given enough attention to the actual people behind Team Motius. It’s time to make those people stand out who make Motius stand out. Today, I start with Timmy, Sara, Pablo and André.

Joining Motius on different ways and for different reasons

There are many ways to join Motius. You could be referred to by a friend, you could randomly meet one of our founders or you could simply apply just like you could apply for any other job. With the difference that working at Motius isn’t like any other job.

Take Timmy as an example. He joined us more than two years ago with the goal of “maybe doing one or two projects”, as he says. And then he just stayed here. Why? “Because Motius is a playground for techies like me. It’s a creative and innovative place where I get to combine my personal passions with my worklife.” Sounds interesting? More on that later. Let’s first talk about how the others first encountered Motius.

Pablo? “At first I applied for the Talent Pool because I knew that I wanted to work on different R&D projects. After I was accepted, Sören contacted me for a project and I didn’t really know what to expect or what to bring. So I just took some of the crazy stuff that I built, like my automatic LEGO toilet paper dispenser. Fast forward a few years — I’m still here.”

André? He found out about Motius completely by chance when he met our financial director at an event. “It was the only good conversation that I had on that day, so I decided to apply.” “No regrets”, says André. “Most people here are kinda cool.”

And Sara? She was referred to Motius by a friend who was working here back in the days. So she joined the Christmas party in 2016, met the team and joined a few weeks afterwards as a working student — a typical entry point to our Talent Journey.

What working at Motius is like

“Working at Motius is like coloring outside of the lines’’, explains André. Pablo agrees: “It’s out-of-the-box. Really, like, in a completely different place.” In a good way? “For sure in a good way. A typical Motee is enthusiastic, constantly pushing and trying out new tech for new solutions.” Timmy has a whole list of typical Motee characteristics ready: “Curious, ambitious, tech-affin, weird, funny, strange.” Adding to that, Sara also brings in words like passion, belonging and community.

All of these aspects become clear when they think back at both the projects that they work on and the many Motius events that they have been part of over the years. Sara’s favorite moment was the summer party in 2017 when we rented a bouncy castle. “Obviously, we loved it. Not gonna go into details here but it might have collapsed as too many Motees were bouncing around on it at the same time.”

Timmy’s favorite events are the yearly Motius surprise trips. “Every year (except for 2020 due to corona), we organize a company surprise trip for the core team. Except for the organizing team, nobody knows where we’re going to go. We’re only told what to bring and where to meet. For instance, these trips have taken us to Stockholm, Riga and Venice.”

And apart from those special events, what’s the every-day office life at Motius like? Well, when we’re not busy working on cutting-edge tech projects (see next paragraph), it seems like a lot of the office life is about food. That does not just include the many cakes that Motees (have to) bring, but especially the “lunch trains’’ that leave the office every day. As Sara highlights, “lunch trains are always opportunities to get to know fellow Motees that you don’t usually work with. So the conversations over lunch are always small highlights of the day.”

Working on cutting-edge tech projects

Of course, I also wanted to know more about their actual work at Motius. What are their roles and favorite projects?

André: “I’m a Project Owner (PrO) which means that I’m the linking element between the customer and the development team. So I not only represent the needs of the customer to the team but also represent my team in terms of the way we wanna implement certain technologies. Overall, I have a direct influence in the technical outcome of the project but also a management influence as I can shape the vision of the project as well. This comes with a big responsibility, as it’s easy to be carried away with that. Personally, my favorite projects are the ones in which the customer knows what kind of problem he wants to solve, has many resources to solve it but just doesn’t know how to do it. That’s when we can excel with our technology expertise.”

Sara: “Since I’ve changed my Talent Journey track a while ago, I’m a PrO too. Adding to what André already said, we as PrOs remove roadblocks, so that the team can focus on the technical part. We make sure that we don’t drift away from the project vision. My favorite project so far was the one in which I first got more into that project management role while also adding hands-on value with my technical Computer Vision expertise.”

Timmy: “Actually one of my favorite projects was the one that Sara just mentioned as well. In that project, we’re optimizing our customer’s quality assurance throughout the production process. It’s great to see the project evolving milestone after milestone. Another project lets me bring my passion for music into my worklife. Unfortunately I’m not allowed to tell you much about it yet, but we’re building a synthesizer which reads car parameters and controls the sound generator in real-time.”

And Pablo: “I’m a Tech Specialist for Embedded Systems, so I take care of pretty much anything related to controls and electronics. My favorite project is the one in which we build a high performance electric bike. It’s one of those projects with the perfect balance between being challenging while being fun. It’s also connected to one of my biggest hobbies, which is cycling.”

What brings us together

It’s not that we at Motius succeed despite different expertise, different backgrounds and different personalities. In fact, those are the exact reasons why we succeed. As mentioned before, we have been creating a community made up of the most amazing people, like Sara, Timmy, André and Pablo. Together, we explore the newest technologies and enable our customers by creating the products of the future.