Danish software group Systematic, whose portfolio includes software solutions for the defense, intelligence and national security sector, including NATO, plans to continue the development of its development center in Bucharest, opened in January 2017.

Systematic’s local center currently has 120 employees and should reach 160 by the end of this year or early-2019, Simona Pavelescu, General Manager of Systematic Development Center Romania, told Romania-Insider.com. The company’s main challenge is finding senior developers who can work on complex projects as the number of open positions in the IT sector is higher than the number of available candidates.

Simona Pavelescu took over as GM of Systematic’s operations in Romania in October 2017, after working for 10 years at Ericcson, including one year at the group’s headquarters in Stockholm, as vice president and head of service sourcing. She has answered Romania-Insider.com’s questions about the company’s activity and plans in Romania and the perspectives of the local IT sector.

Q: Systematic had 40 employees in Romania last year (in May) and plans to reach 100 within a year. What is the status now? How many employees do you have at your Bucharest office and what are your development plans for the next year?

In Systematic Development Center Romania, we are currently approximately 120 employees and planning to grow to around 160 by year-end and throughout the first quarter of 2019.

Q: What is the team in Romania currently working on? Do you deliver full scale projects to clients? Last year, Systematic closed a big contract with the U.S. defense forces, the company’s largest contract to date. Is the Romanian team also involved in this project?

Systematic is one company, regardless of geographical presence. We all work in mixed teams sharing the same purpose and doing software development for all our products in Defense, Healthcare, and Digital Transformation – all Systematic’s business units.

We deliver full-scale projects for all products: the Sitaware suite, Columna Cura, Columna Clinical Information System, Columna Service Logistics, our learning platform MoMo, and our library management software Cicero.

As far as the Defense business unit is concerned, we work for the Command & Control software projects within the Sitaware suite (Headquarters, Frontline and Edge), and Military Messaging (Iris) that are destined for NATO and partner countries (including US).

Q: What are the main challenges you encounter in Romania? Everyone is talking about low workforce availability in the IT sector. Do you feel this too?

Yes. There are a lot of eligible candidates that prefer to work abroad or freelance, or are not interested to change jobs. Basically, employers in the IT sector have more open positions than there are candidates. For us, for instance, there is a challenge in the sense that we are interested in hiring senior software developers, due to the complexity of our projects. We are also interested in hiring people who share our values as a company and like making a difference for the society we live in, so this narrows the candidate pool even more.

Q: IT employees are among the best-paid in the local economy and companies in this sector are also trying to offer them extra benefits to draw and keep talent. What type of extra-wage salaries does Systematic offer its employees to keep them happy?

We have the Employee Club, which is a special concept, part of the Systematic corporate culture. Every month, they organize very entertaining evenings for all of us, according to our preferences: darts, bowling, carting, board games, yoga classes, dance sessions, improvisation shows, summer and Christmas parties etc. – both in- and outside the office.

Our employees have also access to a very wide variety of services and products (medical services, private insurance), customizing them according to their own preferences, including catered lunch every day in the office.

What’s more: we have a culture where we learn a lot from each other and offer plenty of growth opportunities inside the company. Our products are special due to their nature and purpose, they all serve the greater good, bringing soldiers home alive, monitoring patients’ health, or enabling a better learning environment.

Q: What about the overall IT sector in Romania? Do you think that there is still room for it to grow or the potential is limited due to workforce challenges?

People working in the IT industry are lucky to represent such a fast-moving sector, ever-developing, ever-evolving. This cannot possibly stop in the following years – Romania is welcoming for all sorts of businesses, but especially those in the IT industry, due to the massive pool of highly-competent specialists we have here. There is room for growth, definitely, but we have to fight to retain our professionals, give them opportunities to work for interesting projects, with the latest technologies, by creating appealing work environments, with enthusiastic people sharing the same passion and values.

One of this country’s asset is the IT industry. I am confident it will stay the same for many years to come.

editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: the company)