Michal Sänger — a leading, but controversial, engineer (who used to hate computer science)
“My first job in the 90s was spamming companies with e-mails from a computer at my school, trying to sell them lactic acid. I wish Pipedrive had existed back then, I would have done a much better job!” laughs Michal Sänger, the most recent Principal Engineer hire in Pipedrive. At 39, this well-known foodie and a keen traveller (without a driver’s license) is one of the most valued software engineers in the React & GraphQL communities in Prague.
First job as a salesperson
Becoming a software engineer wasn’t Michal’s childhood dream. “In high school, computer science was not attractive for me at all. Honestly, I hated IT classes as we were only taught Excel and Pascal algorithms. I found it useless, I needed something more practical” says Michal, who was one of the brightest heads in math and represented his school at various math olympiads.
The entrepreneurial instinct kicked in when Michal found a newspaper ad looking for a salesperson to sell lactic acid. Originally from Zábřeh, a town of 15,000 inhabitants in Northern Moravia, Czechia, Michal did not have a computer at home, so he used the school’s computer lab for spamming.“It was 1997 and I was paid 20 euros for each lead, which was a lot of money for a school kid. It’s like it came full circle, my work was directly connected to what Pipedrive offers today.”
Flirting with IT to prevent enlistment
As Michal was passionate about mathematics, he chose to continue studying it at university. “I was the last year of guys who had to do compulsory military service. However, if you were a student, you did not have to go.” To avoid being enlisted, Michal chose to prolong his studies in computer science, building a computer for himself, and getting a job as a freelance website builder. “I enjoyed it a lot, as I could see the immediate usefulness of my skills. It was easy and fun, but paid good money.”
After finishing university, Michal worked for 5 years as a dotnet engineer, and then was hired by the startup ‘Whichairline.com’ in Brno to build search engines for airlines. Later, this became the foundation of Kiwi.com, an almost-unicorn. “We were doing extra hours just because we loved our work so much.” After Whichairline.com was sold for $450,000, Michal left and worked for another start-up for three years until Kiwi.com contacted and invited him to start building up the company’s office in Prague. Michal took the challenge, but when Kiwi.com was sold to the global growth equity firm General Atlantic, everything changed. “The company was not the same anymore. The culture — a very important part for me — was gone.”
Pipedrive’s culture of choice attracted interest
When Michal applied for a job in Pipedrive he was immediately impressed by the culture of the company. “The hiring process itself was phenomenal. I had eight interviews, everyone was friendly, and I felt extremely welcome.” Michal had a chance to attend Pitching Tuesday, an internal event where any employee can pitch an idea for developing a feature or solution, and engineers can then join whichever projects interest them. “This kind of freedom to choose the projects you are working on is exactly what developers are looking for. Freedom to choose and have responsibility.”
He mentions Leadbooster — a key Pipedrive feature developed by one of the teams in Prague — as a good example. “When developing Leadbooster, our guys were not just a working unit but they could make their own decisions on which approach to take. The decisions were not made by high level bosses in the headquarters but by the same people who were actually building the product. They had a say and took full ownership of the project.”
As a principal engineer, Pipedrive expects Michal to make the product team’s ideas reality and ensure they’re scalable. “The company really has given me room to implement technologies that I know well and allow me to do things my own way, which is not what you experience in many other tech companies.”
A Foodie with an urge to explore the world
Michal is a keen food enthusiast, previously being a food blogger and writing restaurant reviews for three major newspapers in Czechia where he introduced the gastronomic scene to his followers for several years. “If you turn your hobby into work, you can lose the excitement. People started recognizing me at restaurants and gave me special treatment. I did not like it anymore.” Michal decided to give up professional food writing and now feeds his fans only on Instagram.
He also loves traveling and specifically traveling for food. There isn’t necessarily a favourite cuisine or restaurant, as for him it is always connected with mood and occasion. Previously he would hunt for Michelin star restaurants, and was even willing to wait for a year for a reservation at El Celler de Can Roca in Spain. These days he is more into comfort food. ”No matter if it is fine dining or street food, it is good when it is prepared with love and fairness.”
One of his favorite regions is South Mexico where he recently did a 5000 km road trip. Everywhere he travels, from Hawaii to Hong Kong, he tries to attend a cooking class. “Through food preparation you will get some idea about the culture, as well as valuable local insights and recommendations.”
People have feelings (I was told)
For the past three years, Michal has given a number of public talks at meet-ups and conferences and has become well-known in the Prague tech community. As a result, he says he has become quite well known, but it’s not always in a good way, and he is sometimes seen as a controversial person. ”When I see someone doing something stupid, I do not hesitate to say it, but people have feelings, I was told. I always have questions and some people do not like this.” However, he doesn’t let negative emotions take over and instead keeps himself balanced by going running — even completing a full marathon. His next goal is to run in a 360km relay with his friends.
