Michal
Kapalka

I knew that SICPA was an established and respected company with attachment to traditional values and a strong reputation in the security inks business. I was also aware that SICPA, already at that time, was strengthening its presence in the digital domain and had several successful software projects. 

The team I was about to join in 2011 was composed of talented engineers working on interesting projects. It was a small, agile and fast-moving team supported by an established and reputable company with a long-term vision. 

My team is building software that is aimed at solving important problems using the newest technologies. Every day, I learn something new, often from other team members.  

The work we are doing is interesting and challenging. Indeed, we are responsible for all technical aspects of our projects, including the choice of the technologies we use. The management trusts us and relies on our technical expertise. 

We also have a friendly and informal work environment and, at the same time, we are in a company with solid foundations, strong values and a long history.

It is remarkable how much I have learned at SICPA: how to design reliable software systems, how to develop quality software, how to work in a team and with international teams, how to lead people and projects, how to learn and coach, ….   
I have a chance to learn something new every day. 

Together with my team, we are developing a cloud platform and software components that are used for building software projects at SICPA. Our objective is to deliver high-quality, reliable and secure software systems. 

I spend most of my day designing and developing software, reviewing code created by other engineers, discussing technical challenges with my colleagues, evaluating new technologies and helping others with their engineering challenges.  

I also try to stay up to date with the latest technologies and learn more about those that have potential and can be useful for our work. 

Part of the cloud platform that my team is developing is a data pipeline that is designed to process big amounts of supply chain data in an efficient and reliable manner. I have put a lot of effort into building and optimising components of this pipeline, and I am indeed proud of the result.

The necessary soft skills according to me are: positive attitude, persistence in learning and solving hard engineering problems, respect of others and honesty. 

I have always wanted to be an engineer, designing and building things. When I was in primary school, I got my first computer and immediately got interested in programming. Since then, my idea of a dream job has always revolved around computers and technology.  

I try to keep the right balance between both. For me, in order to have a sustainable performance at work in the long run, we have to be happy in our personal life.