“I’ve now been with TIS for nearly seven of its eleven-year history. I’ve seen the business expand considerably, especially in recent years, but what’s really nice is it still retains the sense of being a start-up.”
On leaving university in Ukraine, with a Master’s degree in computer science, Oksana Drehval gained several years’ experience as a developer before joining TIS in 2014.
She explains the experience in her own words…
An international environment
Starting out at TIS headquarters in Walldorf was a good move for me. After a couple of years there, I was delighted to be offered a really exciting opportunity: a move to the TIS office in Berlin to work on a business intelligence application. It was the best of both worlds: a vibrant cosmopolitan city to explore and new colleagues to meet, with some familiar faces, too!
Like the city itself, the TIS office in Berlin has a diverse atmosphere. It’s very inclusive and everyone is made to feel welcome wherever they come from. English is the common language at work.
The drive to innovation
What originally attracted me to the company – and remains true today – was the practical nature of the TIS product. In the development team, we never lose sight of the fact we’re working on a solution used by treasury professionals on a daily basis. We help them to be more productive and free their time to concentrate on their priorities, and their input feeds into our drive to innovation.
As a company, we’re committed to continuous improvement and never allow ourselves to become complacent. At a personal level, this helps the individual employee to grow professionally. In my own case, I’ve worked on four major projects while at TIS, using different technologies to innovate.
I’m very proud of our latest project. It provides extra protection against fraud. From having started out with a good idea, we can now enable customers to rapidly screen thousands of transactions. Seeing the impact of innovation on that scale is very inspiring!
A spirit of teamwork
Teamwork and collaboration are critical factors in successful product development, as we brainstorm decisions around our priorities and the best way to achieve our objectives.
We discuss everything openly and everyone is ready to help. This great team spirit has helped us to get through the pandemic and we have continued with our daily meetings in virtual format to maintain a high quality of output.
The company has always been very open to requests to work from home, so we were ahead of the game in spring 2020 in already being technically set up to switch quickly to full-time remote working.
Sharing the big picture
I’ve now been with TIS for nearly seven of its eleven-year history. I’ve seen the business expand considerably, especially in recent years, but what’s really nice is it still retains the sense of being a start-up.
Our senior leaders are not remote figures, hiding away in their offices. They’re open, transparent and visible. They take time to regularly communicate the overall vision and direction of the company, how this translates into the planned changes, and how it impacts on our development of the system.
This gives us clarity on how what we do in our teams on a daily basis fits into the wider context.
Variety is the spice of life!
Today my job as a software engineer is very varied. I’m a Java developer, a scrum master, a team lead… it makes life interesting and is helping to build my career in terms of honing my technical skills and gaining management experience.
Over the past few months, I’ve been involved in recruiting new people to the team. It’s made me realize the care taken at TIS to hire the right person for the right job. I think it’s one of the reasons people tend to stay with the company.
